British TV Show Thought It Was a Good Idea to Ask the Audience If Rape Is a Woman's Fault
LatestLoose Women, a British talk show similar to The View, recently asked their audience a question: “Is it ever a woman’s fault if she is raped?” Now, the show and its parent channel ITV are being investigated by the U.K. broadcasting regulator agency.
The show usually seems to cover innocuous hot topics: older men dating younger women, interviews with One Direction, hard-hitting questions like “What’s your favorite Rod Stewart song?” The sexual assault question was prompted by the new memoir from Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde, who partially blames herself for her own rape at the hands of a biker gang when she was 21. In an interview, she said that one “can’t paint yourself into a corner and then say whose brush is this? You have to take responsibility. I mean, I was naive… They’re motorcycle guys! If you play with fire you get burnt. It’s not any secret, is it?”
It’s sad to hear victim-blaming rhetoric from a victim of sexual assault; it’s even sadder to hear it as a poll given to viewers on a national television show.