The AJC’s Woman-to-Woman column is a steaming pile of shit. I’ve known this for several months, yet I admit I still sometimes visit it for the trainwreck factor. The latest debate* debacle, “Does what women wear contribute to sexual assault?”, is no exception.
I’m not going to waste my time or yours picking apart the asinine and disturbing blame-the-victim attitude the “right-leaning” columnist takes. Instead, I decided to have a go at one comment (by a person named Wiley) that I plucked from among its 500+ mostly-useless peers:
The focus needs to be on raising boys correctly. Not suppressing our daughters.
It starts with manners. Teach your boys early that it is NOT ok to verbally harrass a female you do not know. It is not OK to approach a female & comment on her body parts. It’s not ok to sleep with muliple women at the same time. It’s not ok to hire a women to dance naked at a college party, it does not make you a man. It makes you look like a fool.
First of all, let me say that from what I can tell, Wiley is one of the few commenters to leave truly thoughtful and sensible comments. So I’m not picking at him/her specifically (how could I, since I don’t even know who s/he is). From his/her comments I believe that s/he pretty much has the right idea, but I only point this out because I think there are plenty of people out there who have mostly the right idea.
Obviously the first sentence is spot-on. Recently I was reading a blog (unfortunately I don’t remember where, or I’d post a link) where a guy wrote about talking with some friends of his who were all relatively new fathers. Some of them were saying stuff like, they’re not going to let their daughters leave the house til they’re 30, because they don’t want them getting raped. The guy said, “If you don’t want your daughters to be raped, you should teach your sons not to rape” - and slowly watched the lightbulbs go on over their heads. So, in summation: yeah.
Now, as to the rest. Let me repeat, s/he has the right idea in general. But a few things stuck out at me.
[I]t is NOT ok to verbally harrass a female you do not know.
Probably just a typo, but that had me asking, “So, it’s okay to verbally harass a female as long as you know her?” I know, that one’s kind of nit-picky. Moving on.
It is not OK to approach a female & comment on her body parts.
No quarrel with this one. Obviously in terms of certain relationships, it’s a different story, but it’s pretty clear here that she’s not talking about those circumstances. E.g., you are not entitled to go up to any random woman and say shit like, “Hey, nice tits.”
It’s not ok to sleep with muliple women at the same time.
And that is where I put the brakes on. Reading along, and then… whoa! What? Which of these things is not like the others?
It bothers me that a lot of well-intentioned people conflate obviously abusive behavior such as verbal harassment with, well, having multiple sex partners. To me, it’s apples and oranges, the two don’t even come close to being in the same realm for comparison. But I understand that for a lot of people they are, because their ideas are based on a lot of underlying, unquestioned assumptions - ones that I held myself for a while, until I was in my late teens and began to really question and examine all that stuff.
The major difference here, of course, is agency. If a man verbally harasses a woman, she has had no choice in the matter. She didn’t invite him to harass her; he imposed his sense of entitlement on her. But as for having multiple sex partners? By that same logic, the women in the scenario are denied any agency - and that is the definition of objectification. (So yes, I am saying that Wiley’s statement objectifies women.) What is the assumption here? That the women in the scenario don’t want to have multiple partners? Or maybe, that they don’t want to have sex with this hypothetical man who has multiple partners? (That, of course, would be rape.) Now, if Wiley meant, “It’s not okay to be in a supposedly monogamous relationship and run around on your partner behind her back,” then I can get behind that. But the issue there is dishonesty, not sex.
Well, now I’ve expended a bunch of energy writing about all that, and I don’t feel like writing about the last sentence, about hiring a dancer. The multiple sex partners statement was the main issue that was a red flag for me, anyway.
Maybe Wiley hasn’t given a lot of thought to why s/he holds those views about sex; maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction. Or, maybe she honestly believes that having multiple sex partners is wrong. Whatever the case, let me also point out that a disagreement such as this one isn’t something that would prevent me from standing in solidarity with such a person to oppose violence against women, restriction of rights, objectification, and so on. But it’s something that bugs me because I don’t think enough people question these commonly accepted assumptions or acknowledge the potential they have to do harm (see Bitch | Lab for more).
* Ed. note: If this is 10th grade debate class, Diane and Shaunti get a B- and a C-, respectively
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39 Responses to "Wherein I question a major news publication"
Let me fix that for you:
The AJC
’s Woman-to-Woman columnis a steaming pile of shit.In our society, a man who sleeps with multiple women tends to have a “playa” attitude toward women, treating them as objects for his gratification, which would fit into your objectification analysis.
Sure it is a generalization, so slam me for that, but the reality is that a man that respects a particular women will treat that woman as she would like to be treated. Most women would rather be in a monogamous relationship. Unless the guy can find a number of woman that agree to be in such a relationship, if he does engage in such relationships he is being dishonest and disrespectful.
I wonder if what she meant was that it’s not OK to have mutiple sex partners without full disclosure to all parties. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable having sexual relationships with more than one guy at the same time unless both knew about the other, and I would hope any guy(s) that I might be sleeping with would affirmatively inform me if they were getting it on elsewhere, but that’s just my personal view on good sexual/relationship ethics.
Toadvine,
Where are you getting your information about what “most women” and “most men” want and do? Sources, please. Otherwise, I call BS.
Sara,
I absolutely agree. That’s exactly the point I was making when I said:
There’s also the question of whether Wiley was talking about threesomes/foursomes/moresomes, in which case this takes the debate to a new level of hotness.
I’d agree that the boys should be taught behaviors and morals that would extinguish rape in later years. The point that women who wear whatever clothing they want should not be “blamed” is a good one, but what if the clothing worn is associated with a higher risk of experiencing rape? Do we just say ’so what?’
A high percentage of rapists would fall into either the antisocial or the psychopath categories, so no manner of “teaching” them as boys would dissuade them from raping as adults. So, knowing that these men exist, is it wrong to let women know that certain behaviors that they do could contribute to increasing the risk that they may be raped? Or do we ignore important and useful information because of, to use your words, knee-jerk reactions against “victim blame,” whatever that is?
What if research noted that if where the incident occurred was isolated (the woman doesn’t usually find herself there and doesn’t go back there) lowers the chances of future assaults? What if research showed that inebriated women are more likely to suffer assaults? If we suggest that women be careful about where they go or how much they drink, are we victim-blaming? What if clothing is found to contribute to the risk factors for women? What do we do with that information or do we ever try to figure out the contributing factors at all?
Serious questions I’d like to read your answers to.
I would agree about the AJC…unfortunately, it’s just a large, metropolitan fishwrap, slight to the left of the Augusta Chronicle.
As for Russ and Toadvine: Yes, it is very much important that men and boys be taught from an early age to respect all women as free and equal human beings….but going from that to saying that women should temper their sexuality to “protect” themselves from the more aggressive and brutal men among our society is just plain off base and baiting.
Just because a woman wears suggestive clothing or engages in sex outside the charmed circle of marriage for procreation or monogamous intimacy does not make her any more an easy or deserving mark for potential sex offenders/rapists; any more than virginity or less suggestive clothing or a more conservative sexual bearing protects women from rape. The kind of rapist you describe, Russ, isn’t going to distinguish the kind of clothing or sexual history of his next victim; he’s just going to find the nearest and least protected woman available. And just because a woman manages to get drunk is no excuse to take advantage of her state, either. Remember that the assailant in most cases tends to be inebriated as well.
And this “men who sleep with multiple women just treats them as conquests” meme is so full of (sh)it…as long as the affairs are consensual, and all sides get their mutual pleasures, then what really is the problem with that??? And what does that say for a WOMAN who has multiple sexual partners…is she merely an evil, promiscuous slut who enables rapists and male sex predators, too???
Opposing violence against women and respecting women’s stated boundaries and space as human beings is a very good and badly needed thing; going from that to antisex baiting and regulating women’s sexual choices and their autonomy most certainly is not.
As Marcia Pally wrote so well: “Ban sexism, not sex.”
Anthony
And I concur wholly with Sara’s point about openness involving multiple sexual partners, too….but that to me is the fault less of the people involved than it is of the system and the unreal expectations of coerced and forced permanent monogamy that our culture insists on imposing on people. If we were more honest about our sexual feelings and more willing to accept diversity in our desires and cut out all of the backstabbing and the other BS, then there would be no need for cheating in the first place.
But then again, I’m a sex radical on this…YMMV, of course.
Anthony
I wholeheartedly concur. It was no small shock to me to see how women are treated once I moved to something that more closely resembles American statistical reality (i.e. this college town / suburban paradise).
It’s not how I was brought up, and I can’t really fathom why men compete to see who can treat women with the greatest crassness, irreverence, insincerity, dishonesty, and selfishness. Where I come from, boys are taught to compete to treat women with the greatest esteem, care, sincerity, respect, and deference.
Also, perhaps Wiley thinks that non-monogamous relationships are wrong and was just instantiating that belief. By and large, I would concur. It’s okay to make value judgments about other people’s choices; we don’t live entirely in the bubbles of our subjectivity.
It’s really late and I (and you, fair reader, by extension) would probably be better served if I wrote this at a time when I was more cognizant. Additionally, I have never been raped or had anyone confide in me such a trauma nor have I ever done any kind of formal reading on the subject. What I’m trying to disclaim is this: I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about - so feel free to call bullshit where you see fit. But I have watched some Law & Order SVU.
I don’t think rape, per se, is so much about manners and like, personal moral imperatives, as it is an act of violence that stems from exposure to violence, via acculturation, childhood first hand experience, take your pick. I think teaching boys to treat women with respect, etc., would go a long ways towards improving the overall prevailing attitudes towards and about women, but I don’t think that it would somehow decrease the incidence of rape. There is, natch, the fine line - is the rape a “date rape” - a circumstance in which I think the whole “teach (by example, preferably) our boys better attitudes towards women” approach would prove to be more meaningful. But rape rape is, in my opinion, less about “women as objects” and more about “super sincerely fucked in the head”. I concede that since women are overwhelmingly the majority of the victims in any given rape scenario, it would be shortsighted to say that the perpetrators are people don’t harbor negative attitudes towards women, but are just fucked up, generally speaking. I’m just saying that, in most instances, I think that to see a decrease in any classification of rape, there must be a categorical rejection of violence, period. And we don’t have that. We loves the violence.
People rape for a myriad of reasons, I imagine, is all I’m saying. And I think the whole notion of simply promoting more positive attitudes towards one gender is kind of misguided. To me, there is a huge difference between the need for genuine equality (which is to say, not just legally sanctioned equality, but actual equality, where people actually believe in it) and the need to not be raped. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but they are not … Rape is more than a violent act, but it is an act of violence first. I don’t even know wtf I am saying anymore. I’m going to bed.
First person to find the point I was trying to make wins a kajillion dollarz!
I agree, Melissa. They don’t really belong in the same discussion:
The connection is an interesting subject, but is not in and of itself a proximate factor in bestial violence.
I’ll clarify my point a little by way of an extreme example, but it does illustrate my point –
Let’s pretend that there is a street in Athens on which an average of 25 people get shot per month. Now let’s suppose we do a study and find that 21 of those people were drunk, 18 of them wore a white t-shirt and jeans, and 22 of them were alone at the time. I’d avoid that street first of all, but if I *had* to walk down it or if I wanted to walk down it, because why should I change my desires and wants due to other people (?!), then I would wear not-a-white-shirt, not-jeans, I’d be sober, and I’d try to be with someone. Does that make me place the blame on the other victims because I looked at the statistics and protected myself?
What if I found out that people who walked down that street with authority and purpose did not get shot? What if I found out that most who resisted ended up not being shot? What if I learned some of the contributing factors to who resists and who doesn’t?
Sure, I shouldn’t have to wear a certain thing, not drink, and not be with someone all the time, but the reality is that if I go down that street I’d be increasing my chances of getting capped greatly if I didn’t heed the warnings.
I don’t give a crap who is to “blame” at all — obviously it’s the rapists — but I am all for not having anyone get raped, beaten, or taken advantage of by any means necessary, even if it means educating women about things they can do to decrease their risks. We can complain that it’s not fair, that it amounts to “victim-blame,” and that the world should be different, but by doing that we endanger women further by ignoring the factors on one side of the equation.
And should anyone think that it’s all conservative hacks that came up with the factors that increase a woman’s risk of sexual assault, I’d direct you to the research of Karen Calhoun among others that support my arguments.
That should read:
I don’t give a crap about arguing who is to “blame” at all — obviously it’s the rapists — but I am all for not having anyone get raped…
I’m one day hoping to have the opportunity to comment on a blog thread supplied by the AJC that goes something like: “If You Wrote Steaming Shit Columns for a Reeking Dirt Heap Like The AJC, Would You Be A Gen-u-ine Ho?”
Air Kisses,
Pauline Ashley-Wilkes
http://www.truegritz.com/ (Ho footprints fer sure!)
A few responses…
Anthony,
Thanks for stopping by. You made a lot of the points that I was going to make, so instead of being repetitive, I’ll just defer to your comments! Also, interesting/amusing that you mentioned the Augusta Chronicle… did you used to live in Augusta? I survived the first 18 years of my life there, then got the fuck out.
Russ,
In your first comment, you say:
Not only am I not at all convinced that’s true, but neither is Karen Calhoun. From an article about Calhoun’s work:
Furthermore, I’m sure you’re familiar with the stats that show that approximately 70%-80% of all rapes are “acquaintance rape,” with the figure approaching 90% for college students. 30% of (reported) rapes involve a weapon. (Stats from: Violence against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice.) A huge part of the problem with how we approach rape in this country is that people tend to assume rape is something that happens in a dark alley with a stranger and a knife, when actually that’s the exception. On a personal/anecdotal level, I have friends who have been raped, and not one of them was attacked by some random psycopath on the street; they were raped by acquaintances, friends, partners.
You also asked several questions, including:
Obviously we try to figure out contributing factors. But factors such as what women wear are not causes in and of themselves. The behavior some men exhibit in reaction to seeing a woman dressed a certain way is a symptom of the root of the problem - that is, how women are generally perceived and treated by society. The “clothing” standards are completely arbitrary, and I call bullshit on anyone who argues that women are “protected” by covering themselves up - take that to its logical conclusion and you’ve got all women wearing Burquas By Target ®.
As Anthony said, (and yes, I know I am being repetitive here) we need to fix the societal problems that lead to sexual assault in the first place, rather than employing a Band-aid solution that never teaches men/boys to treat women as equal human beings.
Melissa,
Yes, rape is about violence, but regardless of the particular situation, objectification is the result. I don’t like how the word “objectification” gets thrown around to mean any number of things, thus minimizing actual objectification. (Belledame has a series of good posts on this topic.) An object has no thoughts or feelings. It has no agency. It cannot do any action on its own; it can only be acted upon. And that is exactly how the act of rape employs victims - they are objects. There’s more I would like to say about this in particular at some point, but it’s late and I’m tired, so I’ll save that for another time.
valeko,
You said:
Maybe. But this was a completely inappropriate (and irrelevant) context in which to bring it up, if that was Wiley’s only point. S/he presented it in a list of behaviors which constitute disrespect toward women, or “bad manners.” If s/he didn’t mean it to be interpreted as such, there was no point in including it in that list. The issue of monogamy is a completely different subject than the one at hand (in the Woman-to-Woman column).
Alright, that’s enough for now. Oh, and Pauline… :D You rock.
Karen is talking about a very specific type of rape, which I know you know about because you educate me about it in the latter part of your comment. She is saying that not all rapists are psychopaths, which is correct. I agree. But there does exist that subset of rapists who will rape anyone no matter what you teach them — in fact, the more we treat psychopaths the better they get at being psychopaths and the better they get at avoiding arrest in the future. Karen researches college aged women who are assaulted, for the most part, and these women are the most likely to be victims of acquaintance rape. So, let’s leave the psychopaths out of this for simplicity’s sake.
Correct.
Correct.
You’ll notice that I never disagreed with either of these points, but I added to your conclusions based on them. Your (and others’ so we don’t single you out) method of reducing rape seems, so far, to be changing society and teaching boys not to perpetuate these stereotypes and patterns of behavior. Ok, that’s good, but I’m saying right now that that will never happen to the extent it needs to to be a solution. While you’re trying to take care of that societal upheaval can you do away with all racism, sexism, homophobia, and violence, too? That would be great, thanks. We should do all we can to change those things and decrease the existence of those attitudes, but I do not think that you will ever get rid of them totally. Do you agree or disagree with that? If you agree, then you see your solution only gets us so far and does not solve the problem. There will be still exist attitudes that will increase the chances of a boy raping someone later in life. If you disagree, can you let me in on your method of cognitive dissonance because life would be easier to live in such a ideally hopeful fog.
The two passages where I agree with you (saying correct) are the cases in which teaching boys not to rape (to simplify what we teach them) will help the problem. But it is totally illogical and naive to think that this will solve the problem. There are factors besides those societal and behavioral at play. And you are suggesting that we ignore those factors because “[they] are not causes in and of themselves.”
That seems eerily familiar for some reason — oh yeah, it’s because I teach Research Methods to undergraduates and a whole chapter is devoted to correlational methods. And I wrote:
Notice there is no mention of clothing causing rape in my comments.
Calling bullshit on that argument only works when you are arguing about those rapists who are psychopaths — clothing surely doesn’t matter to them because they are psychopathic and not driven (totally or mostly) by society’s ideas about what is sexy, what means (wrongly) that a woman “wants it,” and what they are or are not taught.
So, again, you are right in saying that covering up will not protect you from them, too bad we’re not discussing those psychopaths right now. We are talking about date rape and acquaintance rape, though. And you still haven’t shown me how clothing, or style of dress, isn’t associated with an increased risk of rape. Right now you’re implying that we ignore those factors (as mentioned above after the two passages where I wrote “Correct”) in favor of changing society, a difficult task.
And I’ll admit that the “Burka by Target” thing you (and others) are so fond of is a cute example, but it falls flat in this case.
Are there neighborhoods or areas in Atlanta that you won’t walk around in after dark? Is it hypocritical of you to do so while at the same time thinking that women shouldn’t do the same thing with clothing if clothing is shown to increase their risk? Are you picking and choosing the protective measures that are allowed?
I say we do whatever we can to decrease the incidence of rape — societal measures plus teaching women about what has been shown to increase their own risk of being raped. Maybe clothing increases it, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But I do know that drinking and being alone with someone increases that risk. And I do know that stereotypes exist about women who wear certain types of clothing or who have multiple sex partners. I agree that those stereotypes do not mean that they want sex from whoever. I agree that they behavior does not cause rape to happen, but it is part of the correlation in acquaintance rape and date rape. So, I can see that it might contribute to increased risk.
If we let people know this, they can use all that agency you talk about to decide whether it’s worth it to them to engage in those risky behaviors or not. It’s a cost/benefit type thing — is it worth it to get blackout drunk and risk being raped or not? Is it worth it to be alone with a drunk guy who you know only superficially and increase the chances of rape or not? I’m for giving women all the information that may help them to not get raped, you seem to want to ignore a big portion of the equation because it’s a “Band-aid solution.” Why not do both?
Do you give money to charity? (I know you do) Do you also want to see changes brought about that will forever level the economic playing field? You have a link for giving to health clinics providing help to evacuees, but you also fight for universal health care. Do you see worth only in the bigger universal health care fight?
Are the two ways of solving the problem incompatible? Small donations to what exists now and fighting for societal change? I don’t think so and it’s obvious you don’t either.
So why do you think it is incompatible to change society while at the same time protecting women in whatever ways we can in the case of rape?
True, but have you shown that it IS associated with an increased risk? I think one big problem I’m having with this whole argument is that I doubt what a woman wears significantly contributes to whether she is raped, either by an acquaintance or by the man with the knife in the dark alley. Even if a woman’s provocative clothing can influence how men see her and assume how receptive she will be to advances, I still would be willing to bet that more traditional victim selection considerations (such as can the rapist gain her trust, get her alone, physically overpower her, keep her from screaming or fighting too much, and hope she doesn’t report it afterward) are what motivates a would-be date/acquaintance rapist too. I’m not sure if this has been studied in any meaningful reliable awy, or even if there is a way to effectively study it, but my gut feeling is that the clothes a woman wears do not significantly affect her likelihood of being raped and play little role in a rapist’s determination of who he is going to attack. If someone is aware of reliable research on this point, I’d love to hear about it.
(forgive me if the formatting is all fubar, I am an HTML idiot.)
Sara, I quote myself here:
“Maybe clothing increases it, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But I do know that drinking and being alone with someone increases that risk. And I do know that stereotypes exist about women who wear certain types of clothing or who have multiple sex partners. I agree that those stereotypes do not mean that they want sex from whoever. I agree that their behavior does not cause rape to happen, but it is part of the correlation in acquaintance rape and date rape. So, I can see that it might contribute to increased risk.”
The relevant parts are in bold. I don’t know if clothing contributes or not, but I can see how it could. I’m arguing a hypothetical.
If X increases risk of being raped, then shouldn’t we know that and teach women about that?
Plus, Amber, et al. say that men need to be disabused of the stereotypes and such through teaching — one such stereotype being linked to how certain women wear clothes that indicate their sexual promiscuity; i.e., “If she’s in a low cut top and mini-skirt, then she was asking for it” (no one has mentioned this misperception specifically, but we all know it exists and have all heard it before). If men didn’t believe this, didn’t believe that women were objects, then rape wouldn’t exist, so say Amber and others. This belief is tied to the clothing women wear — the clothes are part of the stereotype. It’s not the only risk factor, but if you believe men need to be taught against this stereotype, then you, by definition, agree that clothes contribute to the beliefs (she wanted it) that increase the risk of rape.
At least I’m arguing from a theory that is consistent based on what we do know about stereotypes. The other argument (Amber, et al.) ignores this possibility in total because it doesn’t mesh with their idea about how things “should” be.
Again, I don’t know if clothes increase the risk or not, but they could. What about the factors we do know about? The alcohol and isolation and such? Do we say screw that, women should be able to drink however much they want without fear of rape (even if reality does not agree with us) or do we warn against drinking so much and instead teach women how to be safer?
Do you want to ignore contributing factors because they conflict with your desires, and it’s unfair and less than some imagined ideal where eveyone is safe, and increase the chances of you getting raped? Or do you compromise in order to be safe?
Do you want to be right or happy?
We can sit here and argue about “shoulds” — the world “should” be safe, we “should” be able to do whatever we want without repercussions, but that’s not reality.
So, Sara, since we know that alcohol increase the chances of being raped, would you agree that we should teach women about the safest way to drink?
And if clothes are found to contribute to date rape, would you agree that we should teach women about that, too? Amber can answer this, too, whether or not she thinks we would find this in reality.
So, the question isn’t “do clothes contribute to rape” (I think they might, y’all don’t) it’s “if clothes contribute to rape, what do we do about it” (doesn’t matter what we believe about clothes)?
Those “yous” in the above comment are not meant to indicate Sara specifically. It’s the universal “you” or “one” I’m trying to get at.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that irrespective of what a woman wears, that availability/access is going to be a much larger factor than anything else. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t matter if you were wearing a hooker outfit or a “prarie muffin” getup, if you met the wrong guy at the wrong time, you would be 100% as likely to be raped as anyone else. It makes much more sense therefore, to say that one should not walk alone at night through, let’s say, Central Park, and to leave what one may or may not be wearing out of it. Also, regardless of what one chooses to wear to a party, one should not allow oneself to become inebriated and shut up in a bedroom with some guy you may or may not know (which is why we always employed the buddy system at parties). If a certain frat is known to harbor rapists, then one should not go to parties there, regardless of whether or not one’s underwear hangs out of one’s pants.
There are all sorts of dumb things you can do that will increase the liklihood that you will be raped, but I think that clothing is at the bottom of the list. It’s much more effective to always have a buddy-system going, for someone to know when you intend to come back and for you to actually call them if that changes, and to avoid situations that are needlessly risky than it is for you to wear a trenchcoat everywhere you go. Some people may say that this makes your roommate/friend into your “mom,” but what it does guarantee is that somoene will always have a decent idea of where you are when you should be back, and someone will always come looking for you if you’re mysteriously absent.
Nikki, how can you victim-blame like that?! You’re saying that a woman who gets inebriated and goes off alone with a man is to blame for her actions and deserves what she gets! We need to teach men not to take advantage of drunk women! Women should be able to drink until they blackout if they choose!
See how silly that sounds — you wrote about things a woman can do to keep herself safer. If clothes were found to significantly increase the likelihood of rape, then I’m guessing you’d add clothing to the list of warnings (as in, be careful about wearing ultra-revealing clothes, etc). Now, I’m not arguing that clothes do or do not increase the risk — I did say that I think it’s possible and if that possiblity is correct, then we should add clothing to the list that you wrote about above. I also never said that clothes should be at the top of the list of warnings. I agree that there are behaviors that contribute more to increasing risk. So, Nikki, we seem to agree, but Amber is saying something different — that any behavior a woman engages in that correlates with a higher risk doesn’t matter because it doesn’t cause the rape, therefore we are blaming her if we mention the correlation.
But I’d bet that women who wear certain clothes are more noticable in a party crowd and since there are stereotypes that women wearing certain clothing “want sex” they are more likely to be targetted than a woman in less revealing clothes. So, in the party case (not the Central Park at night case) the clothes would be a big part of the dangers — something has to set that woman apart from the others to get a man to *try* to get her alone. Surely, it’s not totally random.
Sort of like pedophiles who target latchkey kids who are lonely, bored, and unsupervised, the future-rapist may target a woman they believe to be more likely to have sex. They may target the women who are considered “sluts” (wrongly) because of what they wear and may not listen when she says “NO” because if she dresses like that, she obviously wants it.
Right. And that’s what we need to teach perfectly normal, non-psychopathic boys to stop thinking. Clothing is not some signal that can be interpreted to mean something. It’s just whatever she chose to wear that night, and the guy’s perception of it is his perception, which he should not act upon. If, however, you’re drunk at a party with some guy (who is also more or less drunk) you are both putting yourself in a stupid situation where consent may or may not be clear when you end up in the bedroom. *Particularly* if you are both drunk, one can end up with buyer’s remorse over the experience, one can be less able to communicate one’s wishes, and one may be less observant or aware than one normally would be of the “stop signs,” so to speak.
And in the mean time I say we teach women that some men hold this misguided viewpoint so they can have all the relevant information. Doing both, warning women of clothing choices and teaching boys that clothing doesn’t mean “rape me,” are not incompatible.
I agree that clothing never means “it’s ok to force me to do something,” but I disagree that it’s totally devoid of meaning for the woman. Certain types of clothing are made to instill a sexual feeling in the wearer or to put forth a sexual attitude or to outwardly sexualize the wearer. If this weren’t true, why would women wear uncomfortable high heels and other clothing in order to “look good.” Victoria’s Secret (not just the undergarment part), for one, would go out of business if there was no meaning to clothing. Clothing would be pratical and utilitarian.
But this is another topic, so I’ll stop there.
Right, and when it’s 95 degrees outside, it’s practical and utilitarian for me to wear short shorts and a tank top. Does this “sexualize” me? Fuck if I know - esp. bc I consider myself to be always “sexualized,” in that my sexuality is an integral part of my being. Anyway, anyone else can interpret my clothing choice however they’d like, but they’d do well to remember the world does not revolve around them and any sense of entitlement they feel to act on such conclusions exists only within their own head.
Is that the only reply we can expect from you, Amber? If so, nice job ignoring the entire comment thread thus far in favor of taking the easy and avoidant way out.
Christ, take it easy there, will you? No, that’s not the only response you can expect, but I’ve been out all day and have a lot of stuff to catch up on now that I’m home, so blog commenting isn’t at the top of my priority list (and might not be for the next few days, quite honestly). Not that I should need to explain myself, but if you’re going to get all trigger-happy like that, I might as well say something.
Sorry to jump the gun, there, but if you saw the next comment from the author composed of complete drivel then you might wonder if the writer was avoiding the central issue. I mean, you took the time to write something and it could have easily been “I’ll write more later, but..” followed by some tiny bit of actual content.
/snarkiness
Ok, all kidding and pointless irking of you aside, seriously now, I do look forward to your comments whenever you get a chance — I understand about being busy. Take your time, no hurries. Later.
Rather than contribute anything directly related to the already fully engaged debate, I just want to share something I found last week.
A co-worker had this book in his car. A gift, apparently, from an in-law. From the cover alone, I thought that it would be excellent review fodder for you, Amber. The title: For Men Only. The authors: Shaunti & Jeff Feldhahn. In it, the authors claim to offer an under-the-hood look at just how women think.
One of the “best” observations is how women are like swamps, in that you are never sure of your footing and the wrong next step can put you in deep water. The book follows up this statement with a promise that further reading will serve to … no lie … de-swampify women.
Go. Read. Review.
Women are like swamps? That sounds a little too much like a crude Shakespearean analogy for my (wait for it…) taste.
In all seriousness, though; I did hear about that book, and immediately my BS radar went off. Maybe I can track down a copy at the library or something.
Amber, I want to apologize for my last comment — it came off as less snark and more mean than I intended. My bad.
Sure, clothing can have sexual meaning for the woman (or man, for that matter) wearing it. Thing is, it’s really not up to anyone else to determine that meaning for her. You ask. And if you get the feeling she’s sending out mixed messages–well, okay, she’s sending out mixed messages. Best stick with the one that says “no,” and go find someone else who has a straightforward “yes.”
As per psychopaths: well, yes, they’re out there. Thing is, since they don’t have empathy (pretty much by definition), they’re going to do pretty much what they think they can get away with.
Which is another excellent reason why getting the zeitgeist (i.e. mainly the non-psychopaths) to the point where it’s understood that “no, that halter top does not in fact indicate ‘up for grabs’” is important.
Finally, per teaching women what to do:
Well, you know, there are some excellent self-defense courses out there, ranging from assertiveness training, to alertness to spotting “red flag behaviors” in potential assaulters, to martial arts, to proper use of guns and other weapons. These, by and large, are useful. Particularly combined with simultaneous attempts to address unravel misogynist assumptions in (all) genders.
Telling women “gee, you really shouldn’t wear that, you might get raped”=not helpful. And not just because, you know, I have a right to be comfortable without being bothered, although yes, that certainly factors.
It’s not helpful, Russ, because ultimately it doesn’t work. It instills a mindset that’s both fearful and complacent: gee, if I wear the baggy sweater I’ll never get raped. Doesn’t work like that. It’s a form of magical thinking, in fact; and it comes from a position of powerlessness. “If I only could find the magic formula for placating him, the crazy (temporarily or otherwise) person will leave me alone.”
And contributes *massively* to unneeded guilt and shame in women when they *do* get raped. Because there’s always *something* you coulda, woulda, shoulda. And if the internalized voices aren’t gonna tell you that, chances are excellent the cops, the courts, the fair-weather friends *will.*
belledame — points well taken, but I still say that allowing women to make informed decisions is important. Let’s say that clothing does impact the chances, but someone comes along and reads Amber’s blog and leaves believing that clothes have nothing to do with it at all and how dare you suggest otherwise!!11!!!1!! OMGWTF!
Wouldn’t it be better if she knew the contributing factors? In other words, wouldn’t it be nice if we all know as much as we can about things like this so we can make the most educated and informed decisions rather than acting on reactionary positions. Maybe I’m the only one that thinks knowledge is good for knowledge’s sake no matter what you do with the information (whether you act on it or not).
What you are arguing is that there are better ways to protect yourself than watching what you wear. No kidding. I’d advocate women get trained in self-defense, too. And I believe it was Nikki who wrote about the buddy system and not getting goofy drunk, all of which I agree are almost surely more important than clothing.
But Amber is saying something much different. Remember, the original argument she put forth was not one of the relative merits of the different protection methods. She claimed that we are blaming a woman who takes precautions to protect herself. The only fair way to combat rape is man-focused. If we take her argument out to its logical conclusion (a dangerous thing to do given the history of “It’s my blog, I’ll be inconsistent if I want to”), then we arrive at a position that states that whatever a woman does to protect herself results in “victim-blame” because she shouldn’t have to alter her behavior at all because it’s the man’s fault.
But, for the reading comprehension impaired, I’ll again state that this is all hypothetical and I have no idea if clothes add risk or not.
To the tune of “Sailing” by Christopher Cross:
Waaaaaiting
wasting awayyyyyyyy
Even though I’ve always known it to be
Just a dream that you would answer me
And I can guess your excuse, you see
Now, how about that for a witty reminder?!
It’s been a few days and even more posts and comments on other posts. Still nothing to say on this thread?
Argh. I haven’t forgotten. Sometimes I go weeks between an initial “I’ll do [x]” pronouncement and actually doing it. That’s how I roll. Don’t like to force or rush anything. So, yes, I am getting to it, but I’m not promising it tomorrow or the next day. I want to be able to get my thoughts together sufficiently. I mean, you have no idea how long it took me to write the posts of any substantial length these past few days. I don’t like to just go off half-cocked most of the time.
Eh, it’s no problem. The song jumped in my head and I thought I’d better use it before I lost the ever-so-funny version forever. I’m like the Weird Al of Being Amber Rhea comments.