Not the rape meme
Dec. 4th, 2005 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenI've seen a few people posting the "don't rape her" meme and I've left it alone because, while I agree with most of the sentiments, there are just a couple of wrong notes. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laochbran had a good post about the problems with it, which I won't repeat here. I'm just going to pick on these lines:
don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions.
I can understand why these lines appeal. The "she was asking for it" defence is as ancient as it is despicable, and the idea that a rapist's crime is in any way diminished by his victim's having taken risks needs to be stamped on, hard.
But "if you do this, you're less likely to become a victim of crime" is NOT the same statement as "if you don't do this, and you become a victim of crime, it's your fault". I agree that rape-avoidance tactics are not the primary answer to the problem, and should never be allowed to give the impression that women who don't follow them are legitimate targets; I don't agree with the implication that for those reasons, we shouldn't teach them.
Everybody has the right not to be raped, regardless of whether they're sitting in a high-security house with a shotgun under the pillow or blind drunk among strangers at a party. But in our less-than-ideal world, some things are riskier than others, and along with the right not to be raped, women have a right to know and understand the risks, so they can decide for themselves what chances they're willing to take.
laochbran had a good post about the problems with it, which I won't repeat here. I'm just going to pick on these lines:don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions.
I can understand why these lines appeal. The "she was asking for it" defence is as ancient as it is despicable, and the idea that a rapist's crime is in any way diminished by his victim's having taken risks needs to be stamped on, hard.
But "if you do this, you're less likely to become a victim of crime" is NOT the same statement as "if you don't do this, and you become a victim of crime, it's your fault". I agree that rape-avoidance tactics are not the primary answer to the problem, and should never be allowed to give the impression that women who don't follow them are legitimate targets; I don't agree with the implication that for those reasons, we shouldn't teach them.
Everybody has the right not to be raped, regardless of whether they're sitting in a high-security house with a shotgun under the pillow or blind drunk among strangers at a party. But in our less-than-ideal world, some things are riskier than others, and along with the right not to be raped, women have a right to know and understand the risks, so they can decide for themselves what chances they're willing to take.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 11:37 am (UTC)Nothing too original or insightful. Basically, %lbrgeneralisation mode = on%rbr that we mystify both sex and gender more than is healthy. Two consequences of these are that men (a) don't empathise with women as easily as with one another (leading to a lack of respect) and (b) think 'sex' is the answer to a lot of complicated problems (insecurity, anger, boredom, etc etc). I think the combination of those two has a lot to do with why so many men who wouldn't dream of nicking another man's wallet are willing to coerce a woman into sex.
But that over-mystification is harmful in lots of other ways too. It creates an environment where parents believe it's somehow harmful for kids even to know the basics about how their own reproductive organs work (see this story, for instance, in which Seventeen magazine was pulled from thousands of stores for an article titled 'Vagina 101'), which hurts kids through STDs, unplanned pregnancy, and - probably most common of all - needless worrying about things that are perfectly normal. With adults, well, how pathetic is it that a good portion of the male population still turns green at the gills at the mention of menstruation?
It also sets up the expectation that people will pick their friends almost exclusively from their own gender; I doubt many of my LJ friends live that way, but there are a great many people out there who do. (I suspect, with no solid evidence whatsoever, that most rapists would fall into that category.) Quite aside from any other consequences, eliminating half one's potential friends from consideration purely on the basis of gender undoubtedly leads to a vast number of missed opportunities.
I don't think eliminating that mystique would entirely eliminate rape - there would still be the occasional sociopath - but I think it would greatly reduce the incidence. Most people, no matter how loathsome to the rest of the world, don't view themselves as bad guys; according to a study I came across earlier this evening while looking for some other stats, something like 84% of male rapists didn't believe their actions were rape, which probably has a lot to do with how they excused it to themselves. Better empathy for the opposite sex would presumably make that particular illusion harder to sustain.
It might also go some way to reducing the harm that rape does. While it's a complicated issue, I think the mystique is probably part of why rape seems to be so much more traumatic than a similarly violent non-sexual assault would be.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 11:45 am (UTC)I've always felt that most people see gender as "picking sides." And when you're on two different teams, you've got to play against each other, see..
Corrvin
(more of a water boy than a team player)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 03:41 pm (UTC)The culture that supports rape is the same culture that supports racism - both are cultures of one group using force to maintain its standing above the other group.
The vast majority of forced sexual situations (which may or may not meet the legal definition of rape) are committed by someone the woman knows: 46% by someone she was in love with; 22% by someone she knew well; 19% by an aquaintance; and 9% by her spouse (only 4% by strangers). (Based on a 1994 report of Sex in America - one of the most representative sexuality surveys run in the US.) So rape-avoidance tactics are often of little use because I woman doesn't think she's in a situation to need them in most instances of rape.
The number of men who state that they would force a woman into sex if they knew they could get away with it is startling. (I can't find the statistical reference - problem of revising my Human Sexuality notes over the years - but I'm fairly confident that it is over 50% in one study.)
I could go on - but I'm sure you really don't want to read my lecture notes for the next chapter I cover in Human Sexuality.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 09:03 pm (UTC)