To Love, Honor and Blame Women for Being Assaulted

[trigger warning- rape. if this discussion will upset you, please click here for a happy otter, instead.]

Sheila Wray Gregoire keeps writing articles about sexual assault, articles that place the blame squarely on the victim, no matter how much she protests that she is not blaming the victim.

Sheila, if I may call you Sheila, and trust me it's way politer than anything else I am inclined to call you, here's a little lesson in communication. If you tell me, "My new wide-screen, LCD HDTV was stolen last night!" and I reply, "Well, why did you buy one of those? Don't you know people like to steal those?" would you say, "Clearly you are not blaming me, kind woman"? No, of course you wouldn't. Because I would be blaming you.

Just like you blame women for being raped.

So far, you have asserted that women are raped because they drink:

In this California case, four teenage boys, aged between 15 and 17, invited two teenage girls, aged 14 and 15, that they had met on the street home for a drink. The girls acquiesced, got drunk, and were then sexually assaulted.

Again, they did not deserve that, and I do hope that the perpetrators face justice. But why in the world were two teenage girls going into a stranger’s home to drink?

That's right, according to Sheila, if you accept a drink, you are agreeing to be raped. You don't really "deserve" it, but what were you thinking?

How about this, Sheila, what were those boys thinking? Why in the world did they invite two teenage girls over, get them drunk and then rape them? Did you think about that? Maybe, just maybe, because everyone like you sends the message if that if a girl accepts a drink (or a ride, or a meal, or a smile) from you, she wants it. She deserves it. Stupid slut, actions have consequences (the title of Sheila's lovely post.)

Heroically, several rape survivors tried to point this out to Sheila, but Sheila just doesn't get it. I can't decide if Sheila is that stupid, that arrogant or both. She moves on to the next big cause of rape: women's behavior, because lecturing men doesn't help. She pulls a statistic out of her ass to make her point.

Look at it this way. If your goal is to reduce rape, and by lecturing boys and men you could reduce it by 5%, and by changing women's behaviour you could reduce it by another 10%, is it not still worth trying to change women's behaviour, even if it doesn't reduce the risk entirely? If we can't reduce the risk completely, should we not still be be talking about changing girls' behaviour? After all, if changing behaviour is effective (and I think staying away from drunken parties does make you safer), then isn't that worth teaching our daughters?

Sure, Sheila, except that you have no fucking idea whether or not targeting men with rape prevention messages would work or not. You have no idea whether or not staying away from drunken parties would make one safer. I specialized in drunken parties from about 17-21 and I was never raped. I have friends that never got drunk once who were. You know what would make you safe? Not encountering a rapist. Got a solution for that? (Hint: not all rapists confine themselves to drunken parties.)

So, anyway, back to valiant commenters calling Sheila on her bullshit, so Sheila takes a different tack. It does not involve blaming the rapist, oh no, this time Sheila has the solution: cleavage. Yes, kids, cleavage causes rape. And possibly Facebook.

To tackle her idea, I want you to picture yourself as the youth leader for a youth group at an amusement park. It's a big outing, and twenty youth have decided to go, and you were asked along as a parent supervisor. You have under your care three girls, all aged 14. Two are dressed in appropriate shorts and T-shirts; one has on short shorts and a bikini top, with a halter tied around it. She is showing more cleavage that you ever have.

Who are you going to be scared for? Who are you going to try to protect?

Yeah, Sheila, and while you're so worried about Miss Halter Top, an 80 year old great grandmother was dragged into the restroom and raped. Rape is far more common in countries where women are required to dress modestly (i.e., burquas, hijab, abaya, etc.) than it is in countries where women are free to dress as they please. Do you know why that is? Because the entire purpose behind such garments is to blame women for the actions of men, which leaves men with the belief that they are not responsible for their actions and hey! let's rape!

But wait, there's more!

My commenter said that modest women get raped and immodest women get raped. Again, I agree. But here's the thing: rape rarely occurs out of the blue. It usually starts with something--maybe you meet a guy, and he seems harmless enough, and you start talking or dancing. And then things go downhill.

That's right, ladies, you talked to him, didn't you? You danced with him? Well, clearly you asked for it, slut. Stop whining about it, you wanted it! Wearing that little red dress and shaking your ass, you should be ashamed!

Sheila, you make me sick.