I don’t think I have to explain the prevalence of victim blaming and rape culture in our society. And the worse thing is that people don’t even realize how they endorse rape culture, which clearly demonstrates how deep the problem is. I’ve had the misfortune of involving in discussions with such people often – so thought I’d write this quick post to address their ‘argument’ rather than repeating this over and over again.
Before that, let me get this straight – under NO circumstance is a victim to be blamed – 100% of the blame lies on the rapist. Not even if she’s alone, piss drunk and naked – NONE of this implies consent. It’s not some privilege they ought to earn. If you even attempt to imply otherwise, you’re blaming the victim – it doesn’t matter if you preface it with “I’m not blaming the victim here, but..” crap. To quote Teju Cole “we agree that there is rampant misogyny, but misogynists are nowhere to be found; homophobia is a problem but no one is homophobic“ – I’d say the case is pretty similar here.
Now back to the topic – the argument I often hear is that although they intend not to blame the victim, they are merely suggesting that women should take preventive measures – which according to them, is wearing ‘non slutty’ clothes (the standard of this ‘sluttiness’ varies from person to person for the record), which apparently gives men no choice but to rape. Well yeah, lets forget the fact that even women who wear hijabs are brutally raped, or sexually abused – my friends here themselves have blogged about the misfortune they had to endure, coming from orthodox Islamic communities (Read here and here). So please don’t give me that modesty crap – there is no correlation between rape and dress – men who rape don’t care what you wear. Such veiled victim blaming just helps in spreading rape myths and further promote rape culture.
There’s often this analogy I hear that’s being used by victim blamers to justify their position – “What if you left the house open and your house gets burgled? Are you not to blame for that?” Well there’s so much wrong with this asinine analogy – I don’t even know where to begin. The analogy equates a property crime with a violent crime (I don’t even have to point out the asshatery in comparing women with property here), so it’s a false analogy to begin with. For the sake of argument, lets ignore that – however here is the problem, the dress in not analogous to the lock – but consent is. Rape is the violation of consent of the victim – so lock here is the consent which prevents women from getting raped, when rapist break the consent and enter, it is rape.
So stop spreading such rape myths. It’s not trivial – it promotes victim blaming and you’re taking part in it, knowingly or unknowingly. Rape victims already suffer of this stigma associated with rape – many of them are even scared of reporting a rape due to this. And this post is especially addressed to all Muslims (not all) and Mullahs who spew such garbage – I don’t care if you ‘choose’ wear hijab, but don’t fucking endorse your religious dogma at the expense of victim blaming – it doesn’t make you any less of a bigoted asshole.
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