Short answer: Because it puts the onus on women not to get themselves raped, rather than on men not to do the raping; in short, it blames the victim.
Why taking precautions doesn’t work
Melissa McEwan points out that whether or not a woman gets raped has nothing to do with her own actions and everything to do with the rapist:
Left to my own devices, I never would have been raped. The rapist was really the key component to the whole thing. I was sober; hardly scantily clad (another phrase appearing once in the article), I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I struggled; I said no. There have been times since when I have been walking home, alone, after a few drinks, wearing something that might have shown a bit of leg or cleavage, and I wasn’t raped. The difference was not in what I was doing. The difference was the presence of a rapist.
[Melissa McEwan (Shakespeare's Sister): Dear Ladies: Please Stop Getting Yourselves Raped.]
JoAnne Schmitz points out another problem with the “precautions”:
The question is, why do the warnings not help? Is the warning not strong enough? I don’t think so. I don’t know any women who don’t consider rape a realistic threat to them, and I don’t know any women who never alter their behavior because of a fear of rape.
Well, the obvious answer: Rape keeps happening because rapists keep doing what they’re doing. Because it works. So how can what they’re doing work if we have all these strong warnings about?
The warnings women get are misleading. They leave out the acts of the rapist himself. They focus on the situation. They also may focus on the “kind of man” the potential rapist is. If he’s a friend of a friend, or your uncle, he’s “safe.” It’s the stranger who’s the threat.
And we know that’s not true.
[JoAnne Schmitz (Jupiter9): It's not the empty street that causes rape.]
Introductory:
- On consent: Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon): Real Consent Manifesto
- Men against rapists: ross (The Talent Show): I am not my cock
Clarifying Concepts:
- Rapists are rarely strangers [a 2005 post citing studies several years older then, however patterns have not changed much]:
Stranger rape and sexual assault is only one of several possible types of sexual violence. Here’s the reported percentages according to National Health and Social Life Survey:
- Someone with whom the respondent was in love: 46%
- Someone that the respondent knew well: 22%
- Acquaintance: 19%
- Spouse: 9%
- Stranger: 4%(Rathus, Nevid and Fichner-Rathus, 565)
[ifritah (GROWL): Facts and Figures.] - On the contribution of the virgin/whore dichotomy:
One aspect of our language that I want to highlight is our use of the virgin/whore binary. Our understanding of rape and sexual assault involves a dichotomy between women who are innocent, virginal victims of rape, and women who are promiscuous – and therefore can’t be raped. This division is obvious in the ways that female rape victims are treated, as we scrutinize a victim’s history to see: Did she ever have sex? Did she have sex with many men? Did she have sex with the alleged rapist? Did she have sex with him many times? Each ‘yes’ is one more blow against the victim’s case, one more reason that she’s a whore and not a virgin, and therefore not a ‘real’ victim.
One way we can fight against this discursive bias against women is to end slut-shaming. Stop making that division between women whom we like/who are like us and have ‘enough’ sex, and women whom we don’t like/who aren’t like us and have ‘too much’ sex (or too ‘dirty’ sex, or sex with ‘too many’ partners). Stop creating that artificial line which women must not cross, lest their ability to refuse sex no longer be respected. Stop buying into the idea that there even is an amount of sex that a woman can have that invalidates her ability to refuse sex.
And stop, stop, stop using ’slut’ or ‘whore’ as an insult for women, even in non-sexual contexts, because it just reinforces the idea that this is a label we can use to punish women for doing what they’re not ’supposed’ to.
Filed under: FAQ, Sexuality & Health, clarifying-concepts, introductory, violence | Tagged: consent, rape, sexual-assault, victim-blaming
No, Anne, I am not suggesting that women never rape other women. But it is a tiny, tiny minority of rapes. And “rape avoidance advice” is always directed at women, re: how to avoid being raped by a man.
If anyone would like to point out something said by feminists that suggests “women are angels” or something to that affect, I’d be delighted to see it.
For the life of me, I don’t know how people interpret “rape is bad” as “women are angels.”
I think there’s room for encouraging women to act on their judgement while creating a culture of accepting that judgement without taking offense.
Wow! We agree on something!
There is absolutely NO USE telling women it’s OK to act on their instincts while, as a society, punishing or belittling women who do just that. Women are stuck in a real Catch-22.
Wow! We agree on something!
We probably agree with a lot of things, given that I ascribe to the ideals of freedom and equality.
There is absolutely NO USE telling women it’s OK to act on their instincts while, as a society, punishing or belittling women who do just that.
I think its rather condescending to suggest that women are completely at the mercy of the social pressures around them. I also think it’s naive to suggest that no women would have more confidence in avoiding risk if shown how to manage the negative social impacts.
While in high school there were several times when ‘peer pressure’ was dealt with and it helped some kids resist the influence of their mates. Couldn’t a similar approach be taken with women and being socially pressured into situations where they are uncomfortable?
Desipis, all Sarah did was rephrase your own statement. You spoke about encouraging a culture of accepting women’s judgement without offence, she spoke against the current status quo of belittling and punishing women’s judgement.
So was it condescending when you said it, or only when Sarah said it?
Desipis, all Sarah did was rephrase your own statement.
My statement was one about two simultaneous changes (the individual & the society) which while related both would be independently positive. Her statement implied that educating individual women to take greater input from their own judgment would have no effect on its own, which I did not state and disagree with.
Me too. Who suggested that, anyway?
Also, what tigtog said.
[...] a slut? If you are, live it and love it, and if you’re not, well, just ignore the haters. But see, the tricky thing is that we still carry around this belief that sluts can’t be raped. So, calling a woman a slut and getting the label to stick is not just about damaging her [...]
The Real Consent Manifesto link is broken. This is the only working one I’ve found:
http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2006/12/28/real-consent-manifesto/
Thanks, Ella. I’ll fix that.
[...] glad I decided to read a feminism 101 blog today. It had a link to one of the most awesome posts on rape I’ve ever read written by a man entitled “I am not my cock.” Even some of the [...]
There’s a really good post here by Heather Corrina about how men can help prevent rape – it serves a useful contrast to the kind of stuff you’re talking about here.
(I wasn’t sure where to post that link – it’s something I think could also be added to the FAQs on rape jokes and how men can be good feminist allies.)
So what’s the problem with a woman carrying a pistol in case she gets robbed or raped?
When I read precautions against being raped, the first thing that crossed my mind was handgun, or if you can’t get concealed carry, a tazer or pepper spray.
How does that help the majority of raped women who don’t get attacked by a stranger?
I can’t imagine that I would be wearing my concealed-carry weapon at home with someone I trusted, and sadly that’s far too often the person who ends up raping a woman.
It’s also of minimal use (or can be positively harmful) when the first unequivocal sign of threat involves a hands-on attack.
Father Time – theoretically, any weapon you carry could be used against you.
Here (in the state of Victoria, Australia) it’s illegal to carry a gun, pepper spray or knife in public. Handguns are – as far as I know – illegal. The police don’t even use tasers!
Also, I don’t know if that would help improve people’s lives, or reduce the incidence of rape. It’s better to try and change attitudes, rather than bring out the weaponry.
It also also gives defense counsel a handy make-your-own-reasonable-doubt kit.
If you see carrying a pistol as something that is possible and desirable at all times, you really are a complete nutter.
I live in Australia, so carrying a pistol is not legal for me. But assuming it was, I would still have to deal with the safety issues, what if a kid gets hold of it, the extra weighty object to carry around, security against theft, comfort issues with where it’s carried, etc etc etc… What the hell do I do if I”m on the beach in my swimming gear, for instance?
Quite apart from Tigtog’s point – non-stranger rape makes up the majority of rape incidents.
Do we want a society where it’s necessary to do this kind of thing? Stupid.
It is unsafe for me to carry a gun unless I am willing to kill based on suspicion and projection, without waiting for proof of intentions. The opportunity for defence could be lost by the time I am justified in killing, especially if the assailant is an intimate acquaintance.
Perhaps as a precaution women should at all times wear a badge, or a T-shirt with a slogan on it, or even just get a tattoo on our foreheads saying: “I do not want to be raped.” All those altruistic sexual assaulters out there (”Your honour, I only did it because she wanted me to”) would find it so much less confusing to channel their inner desire to be helpful.
And *if* it doesn’t stop rape it would at least save time in court. Instead of all that searching through a victim’s sexual history, she could just point to her forehead.
But I suppose it could be argued that the victim’s clothing distracted the assaulter from the tattoo, so maybe to clarify things the tattoo needs to be more specific: “No matter what I’m wearing, I do not ever want to be raped.”
Or what if the victim got drunk and passed out – amend that tattoo to read: “No matter what I’m wearing/doing, I do not ever want to be raped.”
Or what if the victim had had sex with her assaulter in the past or she’s had sex with a lot of people – amend that to: “No matter what I’m wearing/doing/what my sexual history is/whether I’ve had sex with you before, I do not ever want to be raped.”
And it is true that occasionally men are raped too, so everyone should have the tattoo. Perhaps on our backs as well as our foreheads, just to cover all bases. It should be done at birth, sadly it’s never too early.
However by now everyone’s forehead and back is full of writing, you could even call it small print. And no-one ever reads the small print, right?
Hang on, I’ve got a better idea: as a precaution, why don’t we teach everyone to just ASSUME that no-one EVER wants to be raped? And even build that assumption into our legal system?
Genius.
“How does that help the majority of raped women who don’t get attacked by a stranger?”
It doesn’t but I thought this whole thing was about being raped by srangers.
I’ve read accounts from lots of people who claim carrying a pistol saved their life or stopped a would be mugger. I don’t blame rape victims if they chose not to carry a gun but I don’t see how it would hurt if people knew how to use them.
“Also, I don’t know if that would help improve people’s lives, or reduce the incidence of rape. It’s better to try and change attitudes, rather than bring out the weaponry.”
Why not both? There’s no way you’re going to change enough attitudes so that rape becomes non-existant so why not add on a practical approach or at least do something for the random would-be victims before everyone’s attitudes is changed .
Then you seem to have fallen for exactly the rape myths that this post is challenging.
Hmmm
I am most likely to get raped at home by a husband or someone I love and everyone is telling me to take precautions because I have reponsibility for looking after myself……
Maybe I will no longer fall in love with men and avoid them like the plague.
Clearly that’s the only way.