Jezebel 
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New York, 1:47 PM
Tue Dec 22
61 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/30/09
It's only natural for young women to go out and get drunk at parties; you'll never be able to stop all of them. So it's very bad judgment for any man to go to a party if he thinks he might be capable of raping someone while there. We need to focus on teaching men what they can do to avoid assaulting anyone.
I know it's hard to tell young men that all women are potential victims and that therefore they should stay away from all of them, but that's the price you have to pay to stay safe. Most women out there are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, but it's the few who might be led to trust you that you have to watch out for. Since there is no way to distinguish between the women who won't and the women who will trust you, you just need to avoid them all.
I understand that believing there was nothing he could have done can help a rapist to feel better about himself; the fact is, that if he'd taken better precautions, he could have walked away a non-rapist.
11/30/09
Also, you can avoid frat houses and drinking as much as you want, but this will not (statistically) lessen your chances of being raped.
12/07/09
11/30/09
I went to plenty of frat parties in college, and I drank beer there, and I went to guys' rooms to talk--really! that's all!--and nobody *ever* tried to push anything on me. Was I lucky? Sure. I wish everyone was.
11/30/09
1) Stop bathing. Rapists don't like natural odours.
2) Deliberately contract STDs with obvious physical symptoms. Don't treat them. No one likes the herp! That'll keep them away.
3) Wear sweatpants, at all times - preferably several pairs at once. You're asking for it only wearing one layer - don't make it so easy for them. (use this in conjunction with no. 1, so that the sweatpants are fragrant)
4) Tape down your breasts. Or at least wear a couple of sports bras. Wearing breasts naturally (notice I don't say your breasts - they're not really yours if we're honest) is an invitation to violence.
5) Don't ever have sex with anyone. Once you've had sex once, it's unlikely you could seriously say no to sex in the future. If you've had sex before, you want it again, anywhere, anytime, with anyone!
6) Don't leave the house, and lock the doors. Once you go out in public, your body is fair game. Be safe!
7) Get rid of your vagina. Ask your doctor.
This is what logically flows from Dickinson's heartfelt, empathetic advice! Let's not stop with not drinking and not going into rooms with people, we have to commit!
11/30/09
Seriously, though, the sad part is that this is pretty much the attitude our culture projects in regards to violence against women. Here's the morality tale of a woman getting beaten/raped--and here's what you should "learn" from it.
Um, how about teaching men not to be abusive, callous, pricks? How about laboring to change the standard practices and prerogatives of our justive system and the attitudes of our culture as a whole?
Oh, nevermind--it is and always has been easier to force women into life choices based upon fear and self-blame.
11/30/09
11/29/09
11/30/09
11/30/09
11/29/09
Reflecting on the incident from a distance of 30 years (which still haunts me for a variety of reasons), I still believe that "taking necessary safety precautions" includes avoiding risky behavior, an example of which is getting drunk at a frat house and going up to a room alone with someone. Or just getting drunk enough to wonder, the next morning, what really happened the night before.
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
Recently there was a story on local public (liberal) radio about the highway aka The Highway of Tears. The feedback from listeners really upset me. The majority who called in were women and their responses collectively -- how stupid these women are, thinking they can walk on a highway alone and survive. I cried for these women who are gone and their families who miss them and for the daughters of the women and men calling in who think that it's normal to assume a woman alone is a justified target.
It normalizes and justifies predation, why people can't see that is beyond me.
11/29/09
[www.peaceworkmagazine.org]
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
Look, the world is an unfair place, okay? That means bad things happen to good people and that sometimes there's just not one damned thing you can do to avoid it. Deal with it in some other way by blaming good people for doing something wrong.
And...there was something else I was going to say, but here's this, addressed to guys: You know what it means when girls get drunk around you? It's a compliment and it takes courage besides. A woman who goes to parties with guys, etc.,----she doesn't believe guys are animals. I don't know why so many guys use that as an excuse. "I'm an animal." Well, if you are get to the barn. Can't have it both ways.
Getting drunk, going to parties, flirting, etc., etc., ----these are harmless activities. Or they should be and they could be if we took rape seriously.
11/29/09
11/29/09
12/01/09
11/29/09
And then I read this on Jezebel and there are STILL PLENTY of people apologizing for criminal behavior, STILL saying that men just haven't had enough time to learn that no means no -- and that someday maybe things will be better -- but for now, it's up to us girls to remember that all men are sexual predators.
In 23 years nothing has changed. What a bill of goods to keep selling us women -- and for women to keep buying.
11/29/09
11/29/09
It is so frustrating to me to see not only a lack of progress on women's issues but an actual regression.
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
"Here's the thing about rapists: They rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who are rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance. The only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is the bad fucking luck of being in the presence of a rapist.
"...Victim-blaming is based on the damnably fucked-up notion that people (and women in particular) allow themselves to be victimized by virtue of carelessness or stupidity, and they need to be warned and educated and lectured and hectored and cajoled and shamed into never being victims (again).
"No.
"Our culture creates rapists—and they create victims. No one has ever been a victim of rape, until they had the bad fucking luck of being in the presence of a rapist."
[shakespearessister.blogspot.com]
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
This is not a recent development---if you're a woman. We've been told for eons that rape is our job to prevent, as if rape is just a fact of a woman's life, like rain or snow, and if you don't---what's the phrase?---take common, ordinary precautions then you have only yourself to blame for when you get a cold. I mean, it's not too much to ask to think that people should wear coats and boots, right? So why are all you gals bitching?
Well, here's the thing: men are not some force of nature, much as some of them would like to think so. They are not immune to laws and rules. They do not get to do as they wish, and expect that women navigate around them, like ships in rocky seas.
When someone advises a woman to take precautions to protect herself against certain areas where men are likely to rape her, it's an endorsement of passivity in the face of rapists. It's letting them off the hook while placing women squarely on it---not for what women did, but for what men did, and what men did to women. That's like blame, cubed or something.
And this is why I get so angry at the hint of victim-blaming: women get blamed for everything, and before we can even learn about life, we have to fight back against that tendency to try and shed some light.
11/29/09
11/29/09
This is about as ridiculous as advising college kids that abstinence is the way to go. Why should women be held back from having a fun college experience?