So, a newspaper called The Hype Weekly has basically told women that if they get raped, it’s mostly because they’re acting like boys and egging nice normal men on until those men have no choice but to rape them. Huh! They explain:
From the men to our better counterparts: please don’t go to the house, frat and dorm parties. Please don’t drink until you can feel the effects. Please don’t cavort with boys you would not be proud to introduce to your parents and grandparents. Please don’t imitate boys in their behavior, laugh at their jokes that degrade you, or keep their company when they stop behaving themselves. If you work for an employer that expects you to use your femininity to intoxicate men, reconsider keeping that job. Please do encourage yourselves and each other to seek out the company of real men and, if there aren’t enough this FPD, then keep company with each other apart from the boys.
What’s fun about this is the way it reminds me of the scene in the Handmaid’s Tale – a dystopia – where a woman has to recount the story of being raped while all her fellow handmaids chant “it was her fault, her fault, her fault.”
I am going to say something, and I am going to say it until the point sinks in:
Rape is not your fault. You did not bring it on by something you said or wore or did.
Rape is not your fault. You did not bring it on by something you said or wore or did.
Rape is not your fault. You did not bring it on by something you said or wore or did.
Rape is not your fault. You did not bring it on by something you said or wore or did.
Rape is not your fault. You did not bring it on by something you said or wore or did.
Rape is not your fault. You did not bring it on by something you said or wore or did.
Rape is not your fault. You did not bring it on by something you said or wore or did.
Was that helpful?
I hope so, because it’s probably good to be reminded that just as you can be raped if you are dressed as though you are going out for a wild party at the club, you can also be raped if you are dressed like a Mormom schoolteacher (I bring this up only because they strike me as infrequent clubgoers). You can be raped if you are chatty and outgoing. You can be raped if you are ladylike and demure. And, if you are raped, no matter what you were doing at the time, someone will claim you did something to bring it on yourself. That is because some people believe that everything done by anyone in posession of a vagina incites men to rape. It doesn’t. Men have the choice to say no Those people underestimate the agency of men, and the vastly overestimate the responsibility of women.
Rape has nothing to do with your character. Do you want to prevent rape? Make sure men understand that sex is not a good thing unless both people are enjoying it.
