victimization | If By Yes

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blaming the victim, consequences, drunk girls, extending logic, feminism, how to be safe, irony, logical but nonsensical conclusion, rape, rapists, safe living, safety, sarcasm, steubenville, taking responsibility, victimization

There’s a lot of talk right now about the Steubenville rape case right now, not because of the case itself – that sort of thing happens far too often. In fact the same thing happened to a girl in Maple Ridge, B.C., not too long ago.

The reason everyone is up and arms about is because a news anchor whose mother named her “Candy” (a good start right there) spend a lot of time bemoaning the consequences of the rapists’ sentencing, rather than talking about how what they did was wrong.

The clip pissed me off, of course, although I do think that it may be a good idea to emphasize the consequences of raping a girl – in case the teenage boys out there need a stronger motivation than simply “because it is wrong”.

But then I read the comments, and of course you have idiots saying things like this:

“there is no doubt that what these teen boys did was wrong in that making mockery of someone they had sexual contact with over social media. Was it cold, was it callous, was it stupid…YES YES YES…but was it RAPE? NO. However, as a mother of young daughters and sons I am appaulled that no repermanding of the girl or her family is warranted. As a society, we have a moral obilgation to say something to a young girl or woman young or old who drinks to the point of not knowing what they are doing or sayng. To say that a 17 year old male is suppose to make the moral call and say ‘naw you are to drunk to know wht you are saying or doing” is a bit much.”

“men will be men. the more that is known the better. carry mace, dont get smashed at parties, dont walk down a dark alley by yourself. im a man and i realize that although i may not be looking for trouble walking home after a night at the bar, i better not get smashed in case trouble is looking for me.”

“What those teen boys did was bad, and they deserve to be punished, but where is her responsibility for herself? Apparently drunk women have no need to take responsibility for their poor choices, whereas drunk males will have to pay for their mistakes for the rest of their lives. So much for equality.”

“i am in no way condoning the actions of these juveniles and they should be punished. but acting like the girl had no part in her being in this situation undermines the importance of being responsible when consuming alcohol.”

It’s the Amanda Todd thing all over again.

“Oh, sure, what those boys did was wrong, but it’s the girl’s fault too, because she put herself in that situation.”

For all the people who want to talk about the consequences of being raped for a girl (something that gets almost NO coverage, and which I think really should be, because a lot of men clearly don’t get why it is considered to be such a big deal), there are people out there who want to talk about how stupid the girl was to be there in the first place.

And at first, I got mad.

Then I thought about it, and I realized, DUDE, they are totally right.

I mean, the girl went out and got DRUNK with GUYS around. Who does that? What normal teenage girl drinks around BOYS? Wasn’t she leading them on by simply being there, and then by becoming unconscious?

And why should we stop there?

Since the victim in the above case clearly is partially to blame for the consequences of her action, shouldn’t we be blaming MORE victims?

Take John F. Kennedy.