(Airship Dreams)

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06/11/2011 01:45:29

freesamuel:

fuzzyhorns:

blackenedbutterfly:

amazingatheist:

You ever notice that rape is one of those issues where we’re discouraged from looking at complicated multi-faceted answers?

Don’t get me wrong, blaming a girls flirtatious nature or revealing outfit is repugnant and probably inaccurate. However, just declaring, “rape happens cuz rapists is evul!” is nearly as stupid.

We know that rates of rape are different from society to society, we know that what constitutes rape is different from society to society, we know that attitudes towards victims of rape are different from society to society. Why can’t we have a frank discussion of the anthropology of rape, the sociology or rape, the sociobiology of rape, the psychology of rapists and rape victims?

Why do we have to settle for easy answers and applaud this sort of pablum?

To be fair to this girl and her sign, accountability does, at the end of the day, rest on the shoulders of the individual. However, this is really the case more out of pragmatism than an honest inquiry into where the blame lies. I’d say victims are nearly entirely ruled out as being anywhere near responsible or “to blame” for what happened to them.

But we’re in denial if we think that environmental factors, genetic abnormalities, mental illnesses, societal attitudes, belief systems and particular subcultures don’t have an impact. If they didn’t, you’d see far greater parity in the rates of rape from one place to another.

I know that this is a very touchy issue. Saying someone didn’t take the proper precautions to prevent getting robbed isn’t going to upset them—someone who was robbed, even though they’re not directly responsible for what happened, are usually able to accept that maybe they didn’t take proper precautions.

It’s a lot harder for a rape victim to accept that level of responsibility, due to the psychological trauma associated with rape. Now, not all girls who were raped react that way to the sexual assaults the suffered. I’ve known rape victims who are capable of accepting that something bad happened to them and being more cautious in the future. However, I also know girls who were very effected by what happened to them. It’s very difficult to look at someone who has suffered like that and tell them, “You should have taken these precautions.” It seems incredibly cold and by putting even a little bit of the responsibility on the victim, you may do further damage to her psyche.

But at the same time, to act as if victims are totally powerless and there is simply nothing they could have done is usually somewhat factually and intellectually dishonest. And it doesn’t really serve the best interest of women as a whole to adopt the attitude that they’re in no way accountable for their own well-being when it comes to rape. It’s a catch-22.

tl;dr: it’s the woman’s fault still for being raped

you’re a real class asshole

it doesn’t “serve women to adopt the attitude that they’re in no way accountable for their own well-being when it comes to rape”?

let’s try this different ways.

it doesn’t serve children to adopt the attitude that they’re in no way accountable for their own well-being when it comes to rape.

it doesn’t serve adults to adopt the attitude that they’re in no way accountable for their own well-being when it comes to getting murdered.

it doesn’t serve kittens to adopt the attitude that they’re in no way accountable for their own well-being when it comes to getting baked in an oven.

see where i’m going with this? we generally don’t blame murder victims, or child victims, or fuck, even fucking kittens—for violence that happens to them. so why is it okay to blame it on women?

nobody is saying rapists are just “teh evul” you fucking juvenile dickwad. they’re saying: it is evil to rape. if you rape, you are committing evil. nothing makes that more okay. and you need to ask yourself: why do you want to make it okay? when have you wanted to rape, or known a rapist, or needed to forgive one? probably not half as well as survivors do.

it doesn’t serve men to adopt the attitude that they’re less accountable for raping women just because they can appeal to historical constructions of an act of violence. i could hit you with a baseball bat, a seventeenth century walking stick, or an igneous rock, and it’s still wrong.

^^^^^^

THAT

Saying that rapists are the ones at fault for rape is not saying that rape-survivors are entirely helpless, nor is it devaluing the fact that certain groups are more at risk.

Saying that rapists are the ones at fault for rape is saying simply that — the flirting didn’t commit rape, the outfit didn’t commit rape, the drinking didn’t commit rape — the rapist committed the rape. Any of these things may have been seen as some sort of excuse or permission by the rapist, but the rapist could have stopped at ANY TIME.

……..ugh

The original poster was in fact very careful to remind us that they indeed know that ultimate responsibility for the rape lies with the rapist (insofar as individual agency exists in this universe), and to make a very moderate appeal for a serious discussion about rape’s phenomenology. To respond to it in the manner that all those above have is really a stunning condemnation of the cultural discussion of rape in particular, and more generally feminism as a whole. The above posters have clearly skimmed the original post and, upon finding something which runs contrary to their high-school level sloganeering, jumped upon the opportunity to show just how kneejerk and unresponsive their ideology was.

The concept which governs the discussion of rape is the perpetrator/victim dichotomy, and it is revealing the exact way in which this dichotomy has been illuminated as regards gender in a male/female rape scenario. The primary goal of mainstream feminism seems to be the clearer and clearer definition of the victim (the woman) and the perpetrator (the man). This discussion ostensibly has its origins in the (quite real) concern over the displacement of blame from the male perpetrator. It has the added benefit of enforcing the traditional gender hierarchy’s perception and handling of rape.

One of the most puzzling tendencies of traditional discussions about rape is the implication that the patriarchy, or more generally traditional gender, somehow endorses rape: that it is only through the efforts of women in general, and feminist women in particular, that rape is not legalized. However, rape is recognized by every civilization as the most abhorrent of crimes, as bad as, if not worse than, murder. The same taboos apply to the rape of a person as to the murder of that same person (for example, it’s use as a weapon of war). This is because rape strikes at the very heart of the patriarchal sexual politics: the commodity model of sexuality (see the essay by Millar). Indeed, the perception of rape as a worse crime than murder can only be justified in the light of such a sexual politics: I know many rape victims who have gone on to lead full and happy lives, I know of no such murder victims.

This tendency, I believe, is calculated to give the impression that mainstream feminism: the feminism which responds to respectfully worded commentary with slogans, circular logic, and ear-plugging, is somehow the opponent of the patriarchy to which it has been an eager handmaiden since it’s rise to popularity. It is designed to make us think that by rising in staunch “defense” of women (who, as we have been reminded so courteously by the above posters, are nothing but kittens and children in the hands of their big strong masculine oppressors) they are somehow working to dismantle the status quo, rather than shore it up in the places it needs it most.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves, not only for your inability to understand the simplest of concepts, no matter how easily it is explained, but your implied complicity in a hierarchy of injustice which your every action serves to further.

(Source: amazingatheist, via dharmabumm)