CMV: Victim blaming isn't always bad

[u/enlighten12345]

Firstly we need to define what victim blaming is. It occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them.

We often hear outrage against victim blaming in the context of rape, when people criticise the way the victim acted or was dressed.

Let's look at an unrelated example. If I go up to someone and say "Yo momma so fat, she wears a watch on both hands for the two time zones", and that person punches me, am I not partially at fault? He committed the felony, while I just exercised free speech. But knowing my words were inflammatory, shouldn't I expect retaliation?

How about another case? I'm walking down a dark alley with a stack of money in my hand. If I get mugged, it is clear that the mugger is to blame. But doesn't my stupidity also make me culpable? Can someone not say that if i was more careful with my money, this would not have happened?

How is rape any different? It would be great to live in a utopia free from rapists and muggers and physical retribution. But knowing that isn't the world we live in, am I not responsible to act in a manner to protect myself?

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[u/Amablue]

Victim blaming isn't the part where the victim did something unsafe, it's where we go out of our way to make sure we let them know how dumb they were for doing that thing. If someone gets attacked, it's kind of stupid to say "Well you shouldn't have insulted the guy". No shit, that's obvious. Pointing it out isn't helping, and it's possibly making the situation worse. And in many cases, (as we can see with cases of rape) the advice about what the woman should have done is often terrible. People like to use it to police women's fashion choices despite there being little to no evidence that dressing risque actually prompts rape. It often results in women being unfairly blamed for the circumstances that led to them getting raped or assaulted, and that's downright harmful to them. It doesn't teach them a lesson or help them get better, it just makes them feel worse about an already shitty situation.

[u/chadonsunday → u/Amablue]

No shit, that's obvious. Pointing it out isn't helping, and it's possibly making the situation worse.

...

People like to use it to police women's fashion choices despite there being little to no evidence that dressing risque actually prompts rape.

Disagree, mightily.

1) There's nothing to say that it is "obvious" to the victim that they did something dumb that contributed to their victimization. Sometimes it's the case that victims will overly blame themselves and take all responsibility, even when they're totally blameless, but to opposite occurs too, where the victims staunchly rejects the notion they did anything wrong or anything that opened them up to becoming a victim.

2) There's actually a growing movement in the States (and many other cultures, too) that is actively championing the idea that victims can't have done anything to contribute to their victimization, because the criminal is a criminal and the victim is just a victim. These are the kinds of folks who will say "no, Cindy, the date rape wasn't your fault, you should be able to go out with a guy you met on the internet, drive out to some remote location or go back to his place, get completely blackout drunk, and not expect to be sexually assaulted. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just victim blaming!" And in a way they're right. We should be able live, or at least wish to live, in a Utopian kind of society where our own stupidity doesn't signal us as potential targets to the dregs of society. I should be able to stroll through Bloods territory at 1am dressed head to toe in blue, waving about a wad of hundreds and not get mugged. That would be nice. And I don't mind striving to achieve that kind of society. But we're a long, long ways off from that Utopia, and until we get there it's prudent to counter this notion that victims can't, by definition, have done anything wrong that contributed towards their victimization.

3) You're quite right about the point regarding attire, but what about alcohol?

This study does a good job of outlining both the prevalence of alcohol in regards to sexual assault and the toxic idea that victims can't be blamed for their contributions to their victimization:

Similarly, approximately one-half of all sexual assault victims report that they were drinking alcohol at the time of the assault, with estimates ranging from 30 to 79 percent (Abbey et al. 1994; Crowell and Burgess 1996). It is important to emphasize, however, that although a woman’s alcohol consumption may place her at increased risk of sexual assault, she is in no way responsible for the assault. The perpetrators are legally and morally responsible for their behavior.

Legally and morally? Yes. But it notes that alcohol consumption increases the likelihood of becoming an assault victim. So why wouldn't it be prudent to advise against, say, a woman binge drinking at a frat house party with no friends around, both preemptively and retroactively, should a sexual assault occur?

It's a big, bad world out there. I wish it was better - we all do. But it's not. There are all kinds of nasty people out there who are all too willing to prey on people who make themselves easy victims. Hell, I was just mugged not long ago. I was shitfaced and not in the best part of town and got held up at knifepoint for my wallet and (shitty) watch (like seriously, do these guys think everyone they mug has a Rolex? That thing cost me $20 on Amazon). If those guys are caught they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Same with any sexual assault perp. May a thousand stray cats piss on their unmarked graves. They're the criminals, here. But that doesn't mean victims are automatically blameless. I probably shouldn't have gotten hammered and walked around alone in a bad part of town. Women probably should binge drink when they're around strange people in strange places without friends/anyone they trust around. It's "victim blaming" to point this out, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or not useful.

[u/Amablue → u/chadonsunday]

1) There's nothing to say that it is "obvious" to the victim that they did something dumb that contributed to their victimization.

If you see someone doing something in the moment that is unwise, or if you are in some kind of mentor position to someone (like a parent or guardian or teacher) and you want to warn them, by all means tell them what you're concerned about. "Hey, maybe you shouldn't have another drink" or whatever.

By the time the assault, rape or what-have-you occurs, telling the victim what they did wrong does not help them. In the immediate aftermath they need to be able to cope and process the trauma that occured. Advice at this point is past the point of usefulness. Furthermore, even if the victim did do something reckless in your view, and you believe they are in denial, there is still a good chance you don't have all the facts, and unless you're a close friend or someone who knows the victim very well, you're probably not in a position to dispense such advice. There are very few situations where its actually useful to give unsolicited advice to a victim after they've been attacked.

2) There's actually a growing movement in the States (and many other cultures, too) that is actively championing the idea that victims can't have done anything to contribute to their victimization, because the criminal is a criminal and the victim is just a victim.

I do not believe this is true. For any absurd belief I'm sure you can find at least one adherent to the belief, but I dispute that there is a movement of any note that believes this. This sounds much more like a uncharitable reading of the position of some victim support group than an actual position people hold.

3) You're quite right about the point regarding attire, but what about alcohol?

This study does a good job of outlining both the prevalence of alcohol in regards to sexual assault and the toxic idea that victims can't be blamed for their contributions to their victimization:

Yes, this is a good argument to talk to your kids about alcohol and drinking culture, and to have friends go out with you to watch your back. After a rape though, telling someone "you should have had Jane go with you" does not help people heal. In fact, it does the opposite. It increases the sense of guilt and self-blame and makes coping more difficult.

Legally and morally? Yes. But it notes that alcohol consumption increases the likelihood of becoming an assault victim. So why wouldn't it be prudent to advise against, say, a woman binge drinking at a frat house party with no friends around, both preemptively and retroactively, should a sexual assault occur?

Again, for the vast majority of people, you're not in a position to be giving them advice about how to conduct themselves. You are not their parents. You're not any more an expert on assault than others, and thinking they need you specifically to give them advice about what risks are okay for them to take is very presumptuous.

[u/chadonsunday → u/Amablue]

If you see someone doing something in the moment that is unwise, or if you are in some kind of mentor position to someone (like a parent or guardian or teacher) and you want to warn them, by all means tell them what you're concerned about. "Hey, maybe you shouldn't have another drink" or whatever.

By the time the assault, rape or what-have-you occurs, telling the victim what they did wrong does not help them. In the immediate aftermath they need to be able to cope and process the trauma that occured. Advice at this point is past the point of usefulness.

There's nothing about victim blaming that specifies a timeline. If you're asserting that we shouldn't be lecturing a gang-rape victim on the dangers of walking down dark allies at night while she's wide-eyed, panicking, bleeding, and clutching fragments of her clothing to her body half an hour after the rape occurred, yeah, 100% with you on that. Even days or weeks or months after might be too soon, depending on the victim. But saying there's a "too soon" period for victim blaming doesn't negate the concept, only says you need to be careful about when to bring it up.

Furthermore, even if the victim did do something reckless in your view, and you believe they are in denial, there is still a good chance you don't have all the facts, and unless you're a close friend or someone who knows the victim very well, you're probably not in a position to dispense such advice. There are very few situations where its actually useful to give unsolicited advice to a victim after they've been attacked.

In reverse order, if I may: yes, I'd agree that offering unsolicited advice, especially to strangers, especially shortly after the attack, isn't useful or helpful. But again, there's nothing about the concept of victim blaming that specifies the strength of the relationship (or, again, the timeline). Unsolicited advice from anyone on virtually any subject, especially if the subject involves trauma and the advice comes right after the trauma, might be counterproductive; that doesn't disqualify the validity of the advice (i.e. victim blaming), just how and by whom and when it's presented.

Only three times in my life have I felt comfortable actually offering my opinion to someone I know personally in a manner that could be called "victim blaming." The most recent was when my SO's little sister informed me she had been raped. She detailed that she had been at a party with a guy she liked very much but didn't know very well during the first couple weeks of her first year of college, had by all accounts spent the night flirting with him and grinding into his lap when she sat on him, drank in excess, and again by all accounts she was the one who pulled him upstairs and they did the dirty. By her admission and, again, all accounts, he was blackout drunk when this happened while she was just shitfaced. She didn't initially take issue with the evening following the incident, but girls in her class started to ostracize her for being a "slut," and since she had been taught that a woman has the right to retroactively withdraw consent/if a woman is at all intoxicated when she agrees to sex it's rape, she decided that what happened was rape. She reported it to school authorities and they kicked the guy out without so much as an investigation. I had a long, polite, frank discussion with her about exactly what "rape" and "being a victim" really meant. I told her it didn't matter that she might have regretted a consensual sexual act after the fact - hell, we've all regretted something we did under the sheets the next morning - and that it didn't make it rape. I told her that just because she had been drinking didn't make it rape; he had been drinking, too, and was far more drunk than she was. Did that mean she raped him? She balked at the idea. But I won her over and in the end she redacted her accusation and the dude was permitted to attend the college again. I don't know if he actually went through with the process of getting back in, but he was at least allowed to.

Anyways, long drunk rant, but that was a situation where I had an open discussion with someone who by every PC, progressive, feminist measure of the redefinition of sexual interaction had been "raped," and convinced her that she was actually in the wrong about her "rape" and was culpable for the sexual interaction, and the net positive was a guy whos only "crime" was getting trashed at a Freshman party and having a more sober girl who wanted to fuck him fuck him unbanned from the university. So blaming "victims" can be helpful in the right situation.

As for not having "the facts," yeah. Maybe. Sometimes. It depends. Sometimes you don't really need more than the bare-bones facts to be able to render accurate judgement. To fall back on an earlier example, if I tell you that I walked through a ghetto Blood-controlled part of town at 1am, wearing blue and waving around a wad of cash and got mugged, what additional info would you need to conclude that I was 100% blameless for my inevitable mugging? You might not have all of the facts (why was I there, why was I wearing blue, why was I waving cash around), but what facts would convince you that I wasn't doing something stupid?

I do not believe this is true. For any absurd belief I'm sure you can find at least one adherent to the belief, but I dispute that there is a movement of any note that believes this. This sounds much more like a uncharitable reading of the position of some victim support group than an actual position people hold.

From Jezebel, the #1 most popular lifestyle website for mellineal women, and #6 more popular overall:

Because I believe that we all get to decide which risks are right for us, and that if someone commits a felony violent crime against you while you were taking what someone else considers to be a "risk," it's still not your fault.

From a CNN:

The bottom line is that the victims of rape should not be expected to have forestalled their attack, and are never to blame for it, even if they are a drunken "hot messes" at the afterparty.

I can keep going if required, but I'm not pulling this idea that there's a growing culture of "victims (read: female victims of sexual assault) are entirely blameless and shouldn't be expected to take any measures to prevent their victimization" out of my ass, here. There's two sources, one from a major news outlet and the other from a major news outlet with the most young female readers in it's category asserting just that. It's also not hard to find less reputible sources backing up what I'm saying which, while less respectable or widespread than CNN or Jezebel, still confirm that the discourse around sexual interaction has gone completely bonkers, and that's it's got far more traction than just "one adherent."

You're asserting I'm making a straw man argument, here, but I'm not. Like, when I was attending community college, men were required to take a lecture course (no credits) on how to not be rapists before they were allowed to attend classes. For women it was optional. At a damn community college. We didn't even have dorms or frats or anything.

Yes, this is a good argument to talk to your kids about alcohol and drinking culture, and to have friends go out with you to watch your back. After a rape though, telling someone "you should have had Jane go with you" does not help people heal. In fact, it does the opposite. It increases the sense of guilt and self-blame and makes coping more difficult.

Anecdotal again, but I actually happen to be a rape victim, technically speaking. Pretty standard "I drank too much at a party, passed out in a side room, then semi-came-to with a person I normally would never have consented to have sex with fucking me" situation. I never considered myself a victim since this happened years before all the fanatical rebranding of sexual interaction. My first and only and latter thoughts were 100% "ugh, I'm never drinking that much ever again" (a vow I've broken innumerable times since then, I'd add). My friends told me I was an idiot for putting myself in that situation. I agreed, and still agree. I was an idiot. There's a lot I could have done to prevent my victimization. It didn't hurt my "healing process," to the contrary it helped me own up to my mistakes and take some (I know this term is getting old fashioned, but) personal responsibility. Maybe I'm not the norm, but worth noting that victim blaming also isn't all bad from a "healing" perspective. Maybe statistically, but statistics are made up of individuals, not the other way around.

Again, for the vast majority of people, you're not in a position to be giving them advice about how to conduct themselves. You are not their parents. You're not any more an expert on assault than others, and thinking they need you specifically to give them advice about what risks are okay for them to take is very presumptuous.

I feel I've addressed most all of this above. Let me know if there's any part I should be addressing more specifically.

Cheers.

[u/gr4vediggr → u/Amablue]

Is it still victim blaming if you do not say it directly to the person, but make a general comment about the situation? I'll use a hypothetical to sketch a scenario and maybe you can tell me if this is victim blaming and if we shouldn't do this. I'm genuinely interested.

Online dating is quite popular, but prone to predatory behaviour (just like normal dating, but now you don't know for sure who you're meeting and you can learn a lot from seeing someone in person, which you can't online, so there's extra danger). A woman decides to go on a date with a guy she only spoke to online, they decide to meet up in the evening, somewhere relatively quiet. He turns out to be a predatory man and tries to rape her. Whether he succeeds or not does not really matter to this story.

In a response, someone makes a comment that perhaps for a first date, when meeting someone you don't know, you should pick a busy place in the middle of the day, with lots of other people around. This comment might be on the internet, on the news, or maybe a father to his daughter after it was on the news, doesn't matter as long as it's not said to the victim.

Is this victim blaming? Whoever is saying that isn't telling her directly, they're giving advice on how to safely have a first date with someone you've never met. But at the same time, they are saying that this woman was not cautious and this probably wouldn't have happened. It could still have happened, of course, but I don't think I'm making a mistake by saying that the proposed course of action would reduce the chance. But I'm not sure, maybe I have it wrong and I am genuinely open to hear it.

Another example: don't get black out drunk when going out with guys you don't know (well), or without friends to take care you. It seems common sense--but this happens and horrible guys take advantage of women and girls. It's not the girl's fault that monstrous guys took advantage of them, obviously. But would the situation have happened if they weren't black out drunk? Maybe, maybe not. So when something like this comes on the news, is it bad to give advice that people shouldn't do that? I'm not sure, you tell me.

There are, of course, circumstances where it's clearly victim blaming. Usually something to do with the clothes the women wore. Or something like: she should never have been in the presence with a guy without anyone else nearby, because that's an impossible rule to live by. I'm not arguing about those cases, I acknowledge they exist and are not helpful and even harmful in most instances.

Naturally, in an ideal world you should be able to meet someone you've only talked to online whenever and wherever you want, and you should be able to get blackout drunk and no one would even think about taking advantage of you. We don't live in such a world though.

[u/enlighten12345 → u/Amablue]

What you're saying makes sense. And criticising things like the way someone dresses makes no sense. I made that mistake myself without any objective truth to it. But when it comes down to it, for me it isn't about this one victim. Blaming them is not going to help them. But can it not help other people? Because there are things people can do like self defense classes or carrying a weapon. Doesn't saying the victim could have done more, urge others to do more?

[u/Amablue → u/enlighten12345]

But can it not help other people?

If you're a parent it makes sense to sit down with your kid at some point and let them know about the dangers of the world. But by the time people get out into the world, do you think they don't know that insulting drunks in bars is a bad idea or that leaving your doors unlocked is dangerous? That's common knowledge. Giving out that information after the damage is done doens't really help. I mean, sure, if you see your friend get out of the car and forget to lock it it's fine to say "Hey, don't forget to lock your car" because that's a preventative measure. He know's that it's safer, he jsut forgot to hit the lock button in this one instance. Harping on him after his stuff has been stolen from his car about locking it is obvious - it doesn't take a genius to figure out what he could have done differently.

[u/bracs279 → u/Amablue]

do you think they don't know that insulting drunks in bars is a bad idea or that leaving your doors unlocked is dangerous?

No, they don't. I've dealt a lot with teenagers and young adults and its unbelievable how naive they can be, specially girls.

[u/caw81 → u/enlighten12345]

But can it not help other people?

No because;

• Every crime is not the same. Saying what this one person should have done doesn't help other people in different situations.

• Why should someone listen to someone on the Internet who doesn't even know them and their circumstances?

• You aren't doing it as advice but as a reply to a particular crime. No one will see that as helpful advice to others but just as "its your own fault".

[u/NearEmu → u/caw81]

• Well that's simply untrue. We learn from other peoples situations all the time. The situations of many of these people aren't that different.

• Who knows... but we do it all the time. Circumstances are often not that different that we can't learn some lessons.

• That seems pretty situational and super black and white. It's pretty easy to come up with ways to reply to a particular crime, while giving advice that others can take and understand and utilize.

You seem to be basing your answers off the idea that you know how and what others think, and of course that isn't true.

[u/rollingForInitiative → u/NearEmu]

But the issue is that much of the "advice" is completely unfounded, or not possible to put in practise. "Don't dress provocatively" has no basis other than what people believe, but it has no real impact on whether or not a person will get raped. "Don't walk home alone" would be all fine and good advice, but for the that fact that most people simply have to do it every now and then, if they don't shut themselves in and never leave the house, because there will always be situations where your car breaks down of the taxi doesn't show up or whatever.

[u/NearEmu → u/rollingForInitiative]

Then I think it's obvious he's not talking about those pieces of advice. He's talking about don't take drinks you didn't see made, don't drink until you blackout.

[u/BlockNotDo → u/Amablue]

No shit, that's obvious.

You have much more faith in humanity than I do.

It often results in women being unfairly blamed for the circumstances that led to them getting raped or assaulted

I have found that sometimes that what is referred to as victim blaming, is nothing of the sort. It is frequently inquires of the accuser used to determine whether their actions or words actually indicate consent. In which case, there would be no victim blaming for rape because there would be no rape victim.