Alternately Titled: “Kristina Wants you to be Unsafe Too”
In re: This Post which is in re: my last post — cherry-picked quotes from Kristina’s blog are in bold and italic.
Then my friend Pete posted something basically telling Grant he’s “a fucking moron.”
If you go back and read the post you’ll see that that’s not at all what I said. To quote the relevant part: “A guy who tells his female friends not to leave their drinks unattended or take drinks from strangers is not a rape advocate… he’s simply not a fucking moron.” Then again, if he truly believes everything in the thing he posted, I wouldn’t mind calling him a fucking moron.
So, Pete, first of all, Grant didn’t write it, just chill on that.
He posted it without attribution or comment so I assumed he wrote it because I had never seen it before. Oops. Either way, he posted it and so I’m going to just assume (absent any evidence to the contrary) that he believes it in full.
Second, it’s not saying DON’T protect yourself, it’s saying don’t rape.
Actually, it says “Instead of that bullshit, If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.” So, you’re right, it’s not saying “don’t protect yourself” it’s saying “Don’t tell women to protect themselves.” Subtle difference, but that’s the point it drives home.
There’s a lot of focus in the rape-awareness program on protection, and while that’s a good thing, I think somtimes we (i.e. women) wonder why the burden is all on us?
It’s not, really… but you only control your own actions, so the only way you can reduce your risk of being the victim of any sort of crime is to take precautions. Rape isn’t special in that regard. It’s on par with murder as far as how awful it is, but that doesn’t change the fact that you only control yourself so if you want a lesser chance of being raped (and we all want that, I think) then you have to take control of yourself and take your own precautions.
Why do we allow our culture to tell young guys that sex is enough a badge of honor that forcing it is worth it?
We don’t. If we did, we’d have a whole culture of rapists, and I don’t think anyone would go so far as to say that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever even met a man who I knew forced women to do things with him. Some of them may, indeed, be rapists… but if they’re closet rapists, how can you say it’s socially acceptable? If it were, why would they be in the closet? The problem isn’t with “society” it’s with a few individuals.
Also, it tells the victim of rape that she just wasn’t good enough.
People who have been victimized pretty normally feel like they weren’t good/smart/whatever/aware enough to avoid it… this is not because people encourage them to take precautions. Further, it doesn’t make the crime ok or the victim’s fault, but in a very literal sense, it’s true… if you are victimized it’s because you couldn’t or didn’t avoid it. Right? It’s not any less the criminal’s fault for that, mind you, because, as you said, we shouldn’t have to take all of these precautions, and it’s nothing that the victim’s should feel guilty over, but there’s very little arguing with the fact that, in a lot of cases, it’s true.
You see my point, yes, after dark we could all just stay locked up in our triple-deadbolted apartment with the windows closed and a gun next to our pillow, but WHY should we HAVE to??
You shouldn’t, and don’t, have to stay locked up in your house after dark. LIVING is a risk, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take extremely simple precautions to avoid the most serious of risks. For example… dying is a pretty serious risk that we run every day of our lives… let’s say I’m somewhere in LA and I want to get somewhere else and the quickest route is through Compton, but there’s another pretty easy route that doesn’t go anywhere near there… I shouldn’t have to take the second one, but I should, if I want to avoid having a significantly increased risk of death (which I do). What we would or wouldn’t have to do in a perfect world is irrelevant because… the world is not now, nor will it ever be, perfect.
It’s telling women that being raped is not their fault, and you never know what other good it might do.
And this can just as easily be done with out excoriating the people who are trying to help (and, frankly, doing way more good than a fucking chanting march through campus with some candles and posters)
So you blast Grant for missing the point, but you completely missed it as well.
What point is it that you think I missed, exactly? Because I’m pretty sure I understand what’s going on.
Telling people to take precautions is a GOOD THING and we need to quit jumping on people who do it. I just don’t understand why certain types of people feel the need to tear down others who are trying to help their friends stay safe when the little post that Grant tossed up there could’ve easily done without that.
If down-playing the importance of precaution-taking has the effect, as you suggest, of making women not feel as bad about getting raped, it’s being done at the cost of creating more opportunities for rapists and, therefore, more rapes. Is that a trade-off that you’re comfortable with? Especially given that it might not actually help much (if at all) and that there are probably better ways to accomplish the same thing?
So, no, we shouldn’t have to take precautions against crime. In fact, we don’t have to… but we probably should.