Victim Blaming what happens when the victim of rape or sexual assault is blamed for the act. Frequently this manifests as blaming the victim for wearing revealing clothing, too much makeup, being drunk/intoxicated, or alone. The idea is that if the victim had made differnt choices they would not have been raped.
Listen to the faceless man. He knows The Way.
Here is a link to an article that describes what happened to one family after their daughter and one of her friends were raped.
http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/10/family-driven-maryville-missouri-home-after-teen-sex-scandal/70489/
For those of you who don't want to spend your day in a rage about the stupidity of humanity, here's the down low.
Two girls were raped at a party by older boys who filmed the rape, one of the girls got left on her front lawn overnight unconcious. And instead of prosecuting the boys, the charges were dropped with an "oh boys will be boys" kind of attitude. As an added bonus, the mother of one of the girls lost her job in relation to the event, the girl herself was cut from the cheerleading team, and her brothers were threatened with getting beaten by classmates.
Anyone else pictureing the boys and the prosecutor? I know I am.
There are two major problems with victim blaming:
The first being that victim blaming promotes the idea that the rape was the fault of the victim. That if the victim had made differnt choices they would not have been raped. This all feed into the thought that it is the victim who is responsible for the rape. Becuase society reacts and thinks that way, when someone gets raped they are punished soically for the event. They are told to move past it, slutshamed for being raped, blamed for the event, and at time disbelieved about the rape itself. Rape itself leads to major trauma, it causes more PTSD than combat. When the victim is blamed for the rape by those around them it can lead them to believe that they are in fact responsible. That somehow they were at fault for their own rape. And that thought is incredibly damaging.
Blaming a victim of rape for their rape leads to further damage of the victim and ignore the rapists actions.
Which leads me to point two.
The second problem with victim blaming is that it lays the blame for a rape at the wrong feet. When you blame the victim you don't blame the rapist. When you don't blame the rapist you teach the rape and sexual assault are acceptable acts both to the rapist and to everyone else. Becuase the rapist doesn't get punished for raping they believe that there are not consequences for their actions, which is in fact what society is saying when they blame the victim and not the perpetrator. Not blaming the rapist means that socially they feel vindicated in their actions.
It also further perpetuates the idea that men are not able to control themselves and so women must cover themselves up and take precautions when they are with anyone, becuase you never know when the urges might overcome a man, even one who you conisder a friend. The idea that men cannot control themselves is something that needs to change. We need to teach our boys and men to be responsible with themselves and with others in all situations, otherwise rapists will continue to see themselves as blameless.
There, there, sad girl. We can change things.
To combat victim blaming requires that we as a society recognize what the word victim means. That the person we should blame for a rape is the rapist. And only the rapist. The victim had no say in their rape, and nothing they did or wore is at all relvant to the situation. Victim blaming is an idea that needs to go away. We need to diagnose the issue in our socity and then cut it out like cancer.
Victims need our support not our condemnation.
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