Soundtrack in my head: Lush, “Desire Lines”
I’m reblogging this from littlemissconceptions, a blog written by a fellow Baha’i in Johannesburg, South Africa. I think it hits the nail on the head as to the missing element in much of the “rape prevention advice” that is out there and the inherent double standards that don’t get talked about when discussing rape prevention.
Ten rape prevention tips–In case you’ve never seen this before :
1. Don’t put drugs in women’s drinks.
2. When you see a woman walking by herself, leave her alone.
3. If you pull over to help a woman whose car has broken down, remember not to rape her.
4. If you are in an elevator and a woman gets in, don’t rape her.
5. When you encounter a woman who is asleep, the safest course of action is to not rape her.
6. Never creep into a woman’s home through an unlocked door or window, or spring out at her from between parked cars, or rape her.
7. Remember, people go to the laundry room to do their laundry. Do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.
8. Use the Buddy System! If it is inconvenient for you to stop yourself from raping women, ask a trusted friend to accompany you at all times.
9. Carry a rape whistle. If you find that you are about to rape someone, blow the whistle until someone comes to stop you.
10. Don’t forget: Honesty is the best policy. When asking a woman out on a date, don’t pretend that you are interested in her as a person; tell her straight up that you expect to be raping her later. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the woman may take it as a sign that you do not plan to rape her.
***end of reblogging***
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with advising people of steps to avoid being raped, sometimes people flip the advice around and use it to blame rape victims. Sometimes people find other ways to blame the rape victim for what happened to them.
But the advice often given out to women also often doesn’t consider statistics that show that in 38% of rapes, the perpetrator was a friend or acquaintance of the victim, in 28% of such cases the perpetrator was an intimate, and in 6% such cases, the perpetrator was a relative. Nevertheless, strangers are responsible for 26% of such cases, so the measures women take are not unnecessary. Also, per some reports one in six men are raped before the age of 18.
In my view, it is a grave injustice that women have to take so many measures compared to men to avoid being attacked. Men Can Stop Rape has done some effective campaigns to educate men about rape and their critical role in stopping it. Rape will be ended not by pepper spray or women avoiding walking alone, but when men provide more positive role models of healthy masculinity and more healthy concepts of sex become predominant in our society.
Related articles
- Preventing rape, should we look to the men or the women? (thecatalystsouthafrica.wordpress.com)
- Rape Victim Has Nerve to Suggest That Maybe Men Should Be Taught Not to Rape (jezebel.com)
- Rape Culture – An Inconvenient Change (secularanimist.wordpress.com)
It is very difficult in our current culture to remember WHO is responsible for rape. My two sons (one grown, one nearly so) were shocked and in complete denial when I told them I was a rape survivor and that we live in a rape culture. Thank you for posting this – will be reblogging it myself.
Apparently, the notion of what I wrote above is more controversial than I realized. http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/can_men_be_taught_not_to_rape/