I am so ANGRY. Why? Because of this:
I shouldn’t have to explain why this is so very wrong, but just in case: TEACH PEOPLE (IN PARTICULAR: MEN) NOT TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT.
One more time for the cheap seats at the back: PEOPLE SHOULDN’T RAPE – IT’S NOT THE VICTIM’S RESPONSIBILITY TO STOP IT, IT’S THE PERSON WHO COMMITS THE CRIME.
If someone is robbed, we don’t say “oh, you shouldn’t have had stuff that they could take.” If a man is beaten up, we don’t say “oh well, he shouldn’t have been there that late at night”. And if you do, then you are so deep in a hole of victim-blaming that you need to take a long hard look at yourself.
These are the four A’s that the ADF Chief should be teaching:
Appalling – ALL sexual assaults are an appaling and despicable act.
Actions – you are responsible for your own actions.
Accountability – did you get that? You ARE accountable for your actions.
Angry – we should all be ANGRY. Women are ALLOWED to be angry. Angry that assaults happen and even angrier that this is the message STILL being sent out. This awful, wrong, patriarchal message that it’s a woman’s responsibility to ‘not get raped’.
I’ll also add a 5th A: ASSHOLE – the type of person who sexually assaults (and the ADF Chief).
This is not up for discussion. The blame and fault lays with the attackers, NOT the attacked. (Some more appropriate A words for you.)
Stop teaching women ‘how to not get raped’.
Stop excusing offenders.
Start teaching men NOT to rape.
Start validating victims.
Start feeling ANGRY.
No one ‘asks for sexual assault’. If a child was sexually assaulted, you wouldn’t say they asked for it – why is a woman any different?
Anyone who assaults anyone ever in any way shape or form has made the active choice to do so. They are responsible for their own actions.
By teaching men that ‘women ask for it’ – and by being ATTRACTIVE, no less – you are saying that women exist for male pleasure. That women dress for men, exist for men, that it’s all about men. If you don’t see something wrong with that, Google ‘human rights’.
Women-blaming is wrong. Victim-blaming is wrong. It has to stop.
No discussion, no argument – just affirmative ACTION.