This little infographic is making it's rounds on Tumblr.
“Men should be offended when someone claims that women should prevent rape by not wearing certain things or not going certain places or not acting in a certain way. That line of thinking presumes that you are incapable of control.That you are so base and uncivilized that it takes extraordinary effort for you to walk down the street without raping someone. That you require a certain dress code be maintained, that certain behaviors be employed so that maybe today, just maybe, you won’t rape someone.
It presumes that your natural state is rapist.”
An interesting take on the subject, but kind of at odds with how many of the same people reblogging this also reblog posts about how women view every strange man as a potential rapist.
What really gets me is some of the tags being added, like this set:
"you don't blame the robbery victim for having money do you?, well maybe if they'd just been visibly broke they wouldn't have been robbed, its their own fault for being able to support themselves, which is an incredibly imperfect metaphor, but makes just as little sense as blaming rape victims,"
This is where I run into problems with the issue. I don't agree with blaming victims, but telling people that certain behaviors are more risky is not blaming the victim. Take a look at
this travel site from the UK government. It's about staying safe while abroad, specifically dealing with money. Some of the advice:
- don’t carry more money than you need for the day/evening
- if you need to carry a lot of cash ask your partner or friend to carry some for you
- keep a small amount of cash in your wallet and the rest in a secure money belt or inside pocket
- if you have several credit/debit cards, only take one out with you
- leave your cash, cards and travellers’ cheques in a hotel safe – check it is secure
- don't pass on any personal (e.g bank) details unless you are confident the request is genuine as financial scams are becoming increasingly common worldwide.
Yes, people do give advice on how to avoid being a robbery victim. If I look I'm sure I can find advice on how to make it look like you're still at home while on vacation so your house will be less likely to be robbed, how to install new locks, how to install a safe and many other things that are done to prevent robbery. Around the apartments I live in there are lots of signs saying "Lock your doors, take your belongings, don't leave valuables in plan sight." or something like that. If someone left their iPod sitting on the seat of an unlocked car in a mall parking lot, you can damn well bet that
someone would tell them it's their own damn fault for leaving it that way. They'd be wrong to blame the victim, the thief is still the one at fault, and no one asks to be robbed (except for insurance fraud), but that doesn't make the advice to not leave valuables in unlocked cars any less prudent and valuable.
Oh, the shit-storm that would ensue if I were to post this response on Tumblr.
I gotta admit that, while typing it, I was thinking about how I hadn't played in a while.
