Reader MB sent me a link to this story:
A new ICM opinion poll commissioned by Amnesty International indicates that a third (34%) of people in the UK believe that a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner. The poll, ‘Sexual Assault Research’, published today (21 November) as part of Amnesty International’s ‘Stop Violence Against Women’ campaign, shows that similar “blame culture” attitudes exist over clothing, drinking, perceived promiscuity, personal safety and whether a woman has clearly said “no” to the man. For instance, more than a quarter (26%) of those asked said that they thought a women was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing, and more than one in five (22%) held the same view if a woman had had many sexual partners. Around one in 12 people (8%) believed that a woman was totally responsible for being raped if she’d had many sexual partners. Similarly, more than a quarter of people (30%) said that a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was drunk, and more than a third (37%) held the same view if the woman had failed to clearly say “no” to the man. UPDATE: See also Volsunga’s post. UPDATE 2: And The F Word. UPDATE 3: Mind the Gap has a list of links.
@Dianne: I guess the silver lining with Italy is that it shows that even when fascists can capture the executive…
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Of course, as numerous threads here have made clear, there is much dispute about what it means to say “You are responsible for X.”
For some, it means, “You are responsible because you increased the chance of X by a non-negligible percent.” This is largely an empirical question. Apparently, about half of rapes occur when the victim is drinking alcohol. By chosing to drink alcohol in a social setting, the woman is — on a statistical level — increasing her chances of being raped, and is therefore “responsible” under that definition.
For other, it means, “You are responsible because you were asking for it, and it’s your fault. I blame you — the victim — for what happened to you.” This is a moral judgment.
Assumedly, for many people there is some sort of combination of the two in their definition of “responsible,” but the wording of the questions makes it hard to distinguish who among the one-third or so who think the women are “responsible” are moralists or just empiricists.
A good indication of the kind of thinking at work here is the comment section on the Daily Mail’s coverage of the story – the Mail being a right wing tabloid newspaper in the UK. For example:
i.e. Women provoke rape by dressing like sluts, call foul unneccessarily and should understand that rape is just this thing men do.
It’s horrible reading.
It’s kind of funny the way Richard makes excuses for people who blame the victim while….blaming the victim. For example, about half of all rapes occurr when the victim isn’t drinking alcohol…..but you can’t blame the booze and the victim then, so let’s ignore it, shall we?
Guh. How vomit-inducing. My favorite part is:
Two things here I love. First, the implication that if a woman doesn’t ‘understand the psyche’ of a rapist and gets raped, it’s her fault, because, after all, it’s the job of every woman to get inside the head of every potential rapist in the world, and to not do anythbing that might tweak their particular sick little rape triggers.
That’s one.
The other thing that I just adore about this quote is the implication that this is “just one of those things that men do.” It’s not even about the rapists’ psyche, it’s about “the male psyche.” Well, include me out of your little club, fucker.
—Myca
Ginmar,
You have been making that argument, but I don’t think it is logically correct. It would be if people were drunk half of the time. If women are drunk 1/10 of the time, then they are 9 times more likely to be raped when they are drunk than when they are sober. If half of all rapes occurred in Wyoming, we wouldn’t say that Wyoming is just as safe as the rest of the world. We’d recognize that there are many fewer women in Wyoming, and they are all in much greater danger.
Also, I was merely drawing a distinction between the “Victim Blaming” in the heading and the question wording of “Is the woman responsible?”
Or do you think that question wording has no impact on results, and “Is a woman who drinks partially RESPONSIBLE for rape” would get exactly the same result as “Is a woman who drinks partially TO BLAME for the rape?”
I think of all the stats its the “37% [view the women as partially or totally to blame] if the woman had failed to clearly say “no” to the man” that bothers me the most. The idea that silence (or even a less forcefull no) equals aquiesence is the foundation for everything else. Or rather, the idea that we are always talking about female aquiesence, never what the woman wants and desires, is the foundation for everything else.
“The other thing that I just adore about this quote is the implication that this is “just one of those things that men do.””
Myca, I also like how, despite all their insistence that women can be (reasonably) safe by not associating with the wrong type of men, the people who tend to blame the victim also tend to see rapists lurking in every man.
Somebody else pointed out that, as much work as we still have to do, it still shows a tremendous amount of progress in attitudes.
Just flip the numbers and look at the other side:
Not perfect by any means, but in contrast to attitudes ten, twenty, thirty years ago… Back then, most people would’ve thought the woman was responsible in these situations; now that’s a minority.
Can we at least acknowledge that success and feel good for that much, even as we recognize there’s still more work to do?
Whoops; not sure why the blockquoted text is bolded. That wasn’t my intent.
Richard, I’ll tell you what. I thnk you’re splitting hairs. You don’t want to deal with the raping habits of men and prefer to discuss the drinking habits of women who those men rape—but only if it’s alcohol.
I really don’t care how you word the question. If it’s got ‘woman’ in it instead of ‘man’ it’s victim blaming. Everything else is just refusing to deal with the issue.
Now, come one, split some more hairs. But the fact is, you’re talking about women and the women in this article aren’t committing rapes.
Richard: when even framing the topic as “British Poll: Rape and Victim-Blaming” the default is that rape is the status quo, the inarguable fact of life, and that the only shades of grey or areas of question are the actions of the women who are rape. The status quo view of rape is a disembodied act that is played out on women because of what women choose to do. To continually *not focus* on the men who are raping is to continually blame women for rape.
A more appropriate approach would be to name the rapists out-right: British Poll: Men who rape and Victim-Blaming.
Then it becomes obvious upon whom the focus should be.
Richard B,
You are confusing probability and responsibility again.
I could significantly reduce the probability of being killed by a motor vehicle if I never go out my front door again. When I see you recommend that as a course of action then I’ll start to take you seriously.
Besides, it only takes one cloistered nun to be raped or one 80-year-old with limited mobility to blow your theory completely – both of these happen and even the right wing tabloids will give you the stories.
In the past few weeks I learned that British men’s demands for prostituted bodies is estimated to have doubled in the past ten years, that lapdancing clubs only first opened in England the 1990’s, and the popular weekly ‘lad mag’s’ have only been around the past 5-10 years. British men’s perceived ‘right’ to access women’s bodies anytime, anywhere, any way undoubtedly has an impact on attitudes towards rape and in fanning the flames of an already raging rape culture.
Men’s demand for prostitution doubling in the past 10 years has been stuck in my head since I read of it because I’m often told that prostitution always has been and always will be, like it’s some unchangable force of male nature I’m stupid for trying to alter. Yet, if men’s demand for prostitutes can be shown to double in a matter of ten years time, surely men’s demand for prostitutes is not the immutable constant prostitition’s defenders say it is. If it can change one way it can change the other, and as quickly too.
The Guardian article says, “The conviction rate for rape is 5.6% – the lowest ever recorded, with 741 cases resulting in conviction last year. A study in 2002 found that one in 20 reports of rape led to conviction, compared to one in three in 1977.
Before someone pops in with the old “correlation is not causation” line, I’ll add that even if it were possible these are unrelated phenomena (I can’t see how), wouldn’t that beg the question of why they’re correlated? Why would British men be demanding more prostitutes, more lapdances, more male-defined sexual activity from women at the same time they increasingly think less of women as humans for doing it?
You are confusing probability and responsibility again.
No, I am just stating that the word “responsibility” means different things to different people. If I am “confusing probability and responsibility”, then chances are many poll respondents are, too.
It is also the case that polls that given “Total/Partial/Not at all” choices tend to generate “Partial” as an answer, no matter what the question is.
UK of all the crazy things. If I’ve heard once I’ve heard 1000 times how much better they are than we are.
I am often in the UK. This means…what? That I’d better not carry money on me or in my purse, because if I get robbed it’s my fault? And being a woman seems enough to justify being raped.
Well, my bad.
This comment from a male reader —
Rape is an appalling crime, but we need to realise the basic instinct on the man’s part that drives them to commit such an act. There will never be an antidote for it, and although it is unfair on women, it will continue to happen. Women need to be aware and take steps to make sure they don’t become victims. If this means dressing modestly or drinking in moderation, so be it.
made me yet once again think of Golda Meirs’ comment when it was suggested that the solution to outbreak in assaults against women was a curfew to keep women in after dark: “But it’s the men who are attacking the women. If there’s to be a curfew, let the men stay at home, not the women.”
No one who offers the excuse that men can’t control themselves ever suggests that controlling men’s behavior is the answer. Instead the solution is always for women to give up their freedom. That men should curtail their activities to make women safer never enters into the discussion; the focus is always on women’s behavior. And the only explanation for that focus is that no matter they may say to the contrary, people do blame women who are raped for their rapes.
I hadn’t hear that Golda Meir quote before. Thanks for posting it! We should make bumper stickers of it for our next Take Back the Night march, although I doubt it will do much good.
If rape were instinctual, we’d be castrating men.
I just found this How to stop rape, dunno if it’s original to that blogger or been around, but it’s worth reading.
It begins:
And goes on from there.
If rape were instinctual, we’d be castrating men.
Maybe castrating rapists would be a good idea.
“Instinctual” is not the same as “can’t be controlled.” Instinct tells people to do a lot of anti-social behaviors that we have learned to control.
My quibble with the idea of a “rape culture” is with the idea that humans are basically good*, so that the reason men rape is that culture is screwing them up. I think the opposite is true: humans are inherently savage, and society exists to control and eliminate savage behavior.
* Or with the idea that in a “state of nature,” women and men would rape in equal proportions. Every time someone points out that nearly all rapists are male as a signifying something about our society, they are implicitly assuming that in a “state of nature,” men and women would rape in equal amounts (or not at all).
I am often in the UK. This means…what?
Probably not much. Keep in mind that all these startling statistics remain a minority POV, even by this poll.
The “idea” of a rape culture is that the particular culture does work to control and eliminate savage behavior, but turns a relatively blind eye towards rape, viewing rape as normative rather that truly savage.
The problem, Lis Riba, with telling men not to rape is that men who actually care about stopping rape probably are already taking it.
I do, however, think that the admonition for men to call the police whne their friends are engaged in rapacious activity is useful, because I have a feeling that there are a lot of men to whom the possibility of taking the initiative and telling on a friend simply would not occur if it were not pointed out to them.
What advice would I give men?
(1) Don’t get drunk unless you either know that you do not become aggressive when drunk or unless you have a trusted (and stronger than you) sober friend who will restrain you if you do become aggressive.
(2) If you plan on having sex, make certain that you do not get drunk or high or whatever enough that your ability to comprehend whether or not your partner has consented is impaired.
(3) Do not make close friends with anyone or any group who displays tendencies that make you think he would be a rapist; you don’t want to get into a situation where you friend or friends ask you to get involved in a gang rape. Plus, if you need to turn one of them in to the police later, not being a friend will make it a lot easier.
(4) Do not take substances that are known to cause aggressiveness (e.g. anabolic steroids) outside of genuine medical need.
(5) Actively intervene if you see a man trying to attack a woman (I have actually done this – intervened, that is). At the very least, call the police.
I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I have for now.
but turns a relatively blind eye towards rape, viewing rape as normative rather that truly savage
Or, as Catherine Mackinnon (and others) have noted, our culture permits a great deal of overlap between what is considered appropriate male sexual behavior and what is considered inappropriate. Refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer, for example.
re: behaving in a flirtatious manner and wearing sexy clothes.
I was 33 when I got married. In my single days, people often told me that the reason why I had not yet succeeded in landing a man was because I wore clothing that was too frumpy and I didn’t know how to “send out signals” to a man. So women are supposed to know how to dress just sexily enough and act just flirtatious enough to be properly attractive, without crossing the line and inviting rape. Yeah, right.
Richard, the different meanings of the word “responsibility” does not explain the “many sexual partners” question. How is it susceptible to a probabilistic interpretation? I submit that the respondents must have been using the term in the normative sense in responding to this item, and if that’s the case, it casts real doubt on whether they were using it as you suggest in response to other items.
Richard, the different meanings of the word “responsibility” does not explain the “many sexual partners” question. How is it susceptible to a probabilistic interpretation?
One of the major components of rape is men who think that past consent is an indefinite open pass, is it not? Obviously, the more such men there are, the greater the odds that one of those men will ignore a “no”.
Robert, your answer has the respondent thinking like this: “Well, if he knows she consents to intercourse with many other men, than any guy whom she has not consented to intercourse with but who knows she’s had many partners can be expected to assume that she’ll consent to intercourse with him, and to continue in that assumption even when she says no.” Further, the 8% that said a woman who was known to have had many sexual partners was totally responsible is tied for the highest “totally responsible” answer. So, between those two things, do you think that the “merely speaking empirically” explanation is really prevalent in the partial/total respondents? Or is it likely that many more of them simply think that rape is the proper punishment for female promiscuity?
You asked how it could be probabilistic; I answered you. I have no psychic insight into the motivations of the survey respondents.
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Glaivester,
I appreciate your constructive ideas on how to stop rape. Changing men’s behavior will decrease incidents of rape far more than changing women’s behavior. Restricting women from drinking or wearing certain kinds of clothes never completely eliminates the risk, but preventing men from raping always will.
Ah, daytime TV.
I got the flu and got stuck with it for a few days.
This guy showed up on one of these who-is-the-father shows, and said, “Well, we had sex on the first date, so she’s a slut.”
And that makes you what exactly?
LOVE the Golda Meir thing.
Tuomas:
I think that Robert was assuming that we were talking about someonme being raped by someone who was formerly a sexual partner. What I think that Robert was saying was that the more sexual partners a woman has, the greater the probability that one of them will be someone who is willing to rape her. (E.g., if 1 out of 10 men is willing to rape someone they have slept with, then someone who has one sexual partner has a 10% chance of having a sexual partner with such an attitude, and a woman with 5 has a 41% chance of having at least one sexual partner with such an attitude, assuming that the sexual partners are chosen randomly throughout the population. On the other hand, if women who have large numbers of sexual partners tend to choose partners who are less likely to be willing to rape, then larger numbers of sexual partners may actually reduce the risk of rape).
I am not saying, of course, that having large numbers of sexual partners excuses rape, nor for that matter am I making any normative arguments about number of sexual partners. I also doubt that most of the people taking the survey were distinguishing normative from probabilistic arguments.
But I do want to be clear about what I think it is that Robert said.
Well, yeh, knowing lots of men increases the odds that one might meet a rapist (a criminal), since most rapists are men. Since statistically more men than women are murderers by violence, knowing lots of men increases the chances that one may be murdered by violence. I guess.
On the other hand, knowing lots of women increases the odds that one may meet a poisoner, since poisoners tend to be women.
And all this adds up to…what? That we all ought to sit in closets and never see anyone??
And why do so many people seem to think that all this criminal activity is OK or is the victims’ fault or something?
it cannot be said often enough. Rape is a crime. Accordingly, rapists are criminals. We have always had criminals, and probably always will. The victims of crime may or may not have been imprudent (like, by not staying in home in their closets all the time) but fundamentally such considerations are irrelevant. Who cares? The people who need attention, and restraint, are the criminals.
It’s like a lot of this discussion seems badly focused to me. Rape happens. So, it’s the woman’s fault. (For whatever reason.) Or, it’s not the woman’s fault.
Women (and men) should to exercise prudence (like, by not walking alone at night in questionable locations). Or, no one has any obligation to exercise prudence. Or something.
Rape is a crime of violence, not unlike robbery, assault, murder, and their friends. That rape occurs sometimes in intimate surroundings does not distinguish it from its buddies. Very often murder, for example, occurs inside an intimate relationship.
There are things you can do to diminish the likelihood that you will be murdered, from not walking alone at night with conspicuous jewelery in slum neighborhoods all the way to never going outdoors at all (and never having anyone in). Every individual has his or her own comfortable risk level.
But whatever your personal level of comfort may be, crime is crime. And crime is committed by criminals. Nothing the victim did or didn’t do diminishes that.
These results don’t look good at all. But for them to establish that people take a particular view of *rape*, rather than crime in general, don’t we need to compare these results to the results for similar questions regarding other offenses? Maybe we’d get similar numbers for mugging.
I mosly agree with Ampersand on rape issues, but we still can’t draw that inference from these data. If we do, we’re just engaging in circular reasoning.
Glaivester, Tuomas and I are not the same person.
Also, I think you are wrong about what Robert meant. I said that the question did not admit of the explanation that Richard supplied. Robert says that one could reason that a woman who is promiscuous is more likely to consent in general, and that therefore a man who has not been her sexual partner might nonetheless presume she consented to intercourse with him. I said I thought that reasoning was not defensible, and Robert did not claim that it was, but merely said that was one way that Richard’s explanation could apply to the question. If I had misinterpreted Robert’s response, he would have so advised me.
Robert says that one could reason that a woman who is promiscuous is more likely to consent in general
No I don’t.
but the reality is that people tend to place themselves in the situation and assume that others will behave as they would. blame is something constantly thrown around because many people hold certain groups more responsible for their actions than others, and often consider certain acts and certain behaviors, regardless of severity, negligible at best.
one of the more interesting things i learned from a practicing attorney was that prosecutors often try to avoid mostly female juries in rape trials because of the greater likelihood that the women would simply blame the accuser.
the blame game is part of our culture, and unfortunately it is considered acceptable when applied to certain groups of people. even in the instance of rape, reverse the situation and it is considered absolutely acceptable to hold the accuser responsible.
Thomas:
Sorry. My mistake. I need to read people’s names more carefully.
Well, yeh, knowing lots of men increases the odds that one might meet a rapist (a criminal), since most rapists are men. Since statistically more men than women are murderers by violence, knowing lots of men increases the chances that one may be murdered by violence. I guess.
On the other hand, knowing lots of women increases the odds that one may meet a poisoner, since poisoners tend to be women.
And all this adds up to…what? That we all ought to sit in closets and never see anyone??
I don’t know that Robert intended it to add up to anything. I thought it was just a musing on how one might argue that having more sex partners increased the risk of being raped, in response to Thomas’ question (comment #25).
Susan, the problem is that sexual assault–unlike most other crimes–intersects directly with cultural ideas about women’s sexuality and autonomy.
but the reality is that people tend to place themselves in the situation and assume that others will behave as they would.
Well, OK. And this is true of a lot of other crimes as well. People who live in upper-class, gated communities don’t make good jurors where home invasion is involved. They don’t sympathize. (“Everyone should be as safe as I am.”)
Don’t confuse the difficulty of getting a convinction under specific circumstances with the fact that certain behavior is, by definition, criminal.
Susan, the problem is that sexual assault”“unlike most other crimes”“intersects directly with cultural ideas about women’s sexuality and autonomy.
Yes. But that’s the kind of idea we’re trying to move away from, yes?
We need to insist upon the idea that behavior defined in the criminal code as a crime is in fact a crime, and accordingly should be punished. In no criminal code of which I am aware is the victim’s behavior mentioned. If a rape victim did not consent to intercourse, if a mugging victim was not engaged in charity when he gave his wallet to the mugger, well then, the rape/robbery was a crime, and should be so treated.
We need to insist upon a certain amount of inflexibility here.
Speak of the devil…
About all these posts about rape, can we all agree that the concept of risk reduction and the concept of rape reduction are (mostly) separate issues?
Here goes:
Risk Reduction (2 broad categories, or don’ts and dos):
1)The measures women can take to avoid potential rapists, or to avoid potential rape situations. Personally, I think all this boils down to what a woman personally can do, or will do, and there is little need for me or anyone else to assume that women are being stupid on purpose, or just haven’t heard any of it before. And much of this advice is basically “not-meism”.
2)Women being aware of their rights, and willing (if needed) to assert those rights. In short, trusting their own instincts, verbal assertiveness, physical assertiveness (self-defence classes etc.). I suppose this is o.k. advice generally, and doesn’t hurt. Nor does it demand that women to give up essential freedoms. However, let’s not pretend that this makes the woman immune from rape. And also, some people just aren’t naturally assertive, and have hard time faking it.
Rape reduction(education, law, and inviduals):
1) Fighting all the prevalent Rape Myths (he paid for the dinner, she owes him sex, if she is dressed “provocatively” she is asking for it etc.)
2) Law enforcement. Making sure rapes are investigated with vigor, and rapists are prosecuted and punished with harshness befitting the crime. Essentially, making sure rapist don’t get away with rape, and pay the price.
3) To men (and why not women): Work on acknowledging attitudes that you (or I!) have that consider women anything less than full human beings and inviduals, even when objectifying them. Challenge sexist attitudes. Also, Glaivester’s list on post 22 was good.
Problems arise when people who focus on risk reduction respond to strawman definitions of the feminist position (that is focused on the men who rape, and on rape-supportive attitudes). Such as “We can never create a society where no one rapes”(true, but it doesn’t mean we cannot reduce rape).
On this survey, I wasn’t really surprised. Are you familiar with the the cognitive bias known as Just World Hypothesis (google should give some results)? Seems to me that these people have attitudes that line up well with that theory. Shortly, the JWH assumes that many people have the attitude of “We get what we deserve, and deserve what we get”, and innocents victims challenge that worldview. Therefore, the innocent victim can not really be innocent, but must have brought the crime upon themselves. Thus the need to second-guess the woman’s actions, and even to call her stupid, or a slut.
(Oh, and men are raped too.)
Robert, are you referring only to men who have been the prior consensual partners of the victim? Because I do not understand that to be the question the respondents were asked. They were asked if a woman was wholly or partly responsible for being raped if she was known to have had many sexual partners, not if the assailant was one of her prior partners.
As a woman who has been raped I think it necessary to point out that the culture of blaming is incredibly damaging.
I was raped by my first lover. We’d been having sex for five months. That morning I went to his flat expecting that we would have sex. I’d previously been taking the Pill but wasn’t covered that day and told him so before I got there. I said that he’d need to wear a condom and he agreed, saying that he had some. After I got to his bedroom he changed his mind. Despite my protestations he put his penis inside me without a condom. I said ‘no’ very clearly. I told him that he was hurting me and that I was scared. He shook his head at me and told me to relax. Eventually I stopped saying ‘no’. Because he wasn’t listening. We were both sober. For reasons I never managed to wrap my head around he also anally raped me that day and repeatedly forced me to deep throat him (he made me gag so much that if I hadn’t had an empty stomach I would have vomited on him). Towards the end he told me that he wanted to come in my mouth. I shook my head. He said it again. I looked at his eyes apprehensively and said ‘no’, anticipating that he would force me to oblige. He didn’t and I remember feeling incredibly grateful. Because, you see, he’d forced me to do everything else that I’d said I didn’t want to do that day. It was kind of him to give me a choice, don’t you think?
Not.
I didn’t report the incident. The rape. I worked in the same institution as this man and may do so again in the future. I felt that I was to blame for the rape. I thought others would blame me and tell me that I deserved it. After all,
– I went to his place, knowing that I would be alone with him and expecting that we would have sex
– I’d had oral, vaginal and anal sex with him previously
– I’d changed the rules by telling him that I wanted him to wear a condom
– I only said ‘no’ about 20 times
– I didn’t scream loudly, just said “no”, “please stop”, “you’re hurting me” and “I’m scared”
– He was more sexually experienced than I (he was the first person I’d had sex with; I certainly wasn’t the first person he’d had sex with) and I figured that I was probably just mistaken about what had happened
– He was a ‘good guy’ and (I figured) good guys don’t rape so I really must have been mistaken.
So, thanks to the blame culture, after I was raped by a man I trusted and adored I tortured myself by telling myself that I deserved it. I didn’t report it because I didn’t want to hear others tell me that I deserved it. I cried for months. I haven’t seen him since. I sometimes think that I see him in the street and I shudder with fear. My stomach does flip-flops. It’s a pretty fucking screwed up situation but thankfully it’s a lot better than it used to be.
And, in case it makes a difference to anyone, I wasn’t a young teenager when this happened. I had a university education when I started having sex with him. So I wasn’t young, although perhaps I was naive. Naive enough to think that the man I loved wouldn’t rape me. Naive enough to believe that it was my fault.
Whenever I hear someone say that women should take more precautions to reduce the risk of rape I feel as though he/she is saying that it was my fault that I was raped. Please stop with the blame culture. It wasn’t my fault. It was his fault. His choice. Not mine.
I tend to agree with Susan that, ultimately, rape is first and foremost a violent crime, not a sex crime. It’s about power and control and ownership. It is a physical act that says, “I will not be denied.”
By definition, the victim has no choice in the matter. So how is the woman supposed to be responsible?
Richard, if you don’t shove your wallet down the front of your tighty whities, and subsequently have your pocket picked, are you responsible? Should pick pockets get a pass because you tempted them with your wallet there bulging in the ass of your pants?
Pardon the bad grammar. No caffeine, and english as a second language.
Samantha, how did you arrive at this astonishing premise? How did they measure demand for sometime-illegal services? And did they report it as a percentage, or an absolute number?
Here in Egypt and in other middle eastern countries making eye contact is a come-on. Since I livedi n Saudi Arabia I can’t make eye contact with people on the street anymore as it has become engrained in my psyche that I should immediately look at the ground if there is a guy in sight strolling in my direction. Also, if they do hit on you (which happens to me occasionally in spite of head scarf and looking down) you are not supposed to talk to them at all even to tell them to leave you alone. Anything you say will be encouragement. I was followed nearly to my door becuase I made the mistake of telling the guy to stop and leave me alone. I was actually getting kind of scared though it is a crowded neighborhood and he could not have done much. I jsut get mad that people think that a woman in public deserves to have her privacy violated in that way to begin with.
The women who want to dress attractively here basically give up the right to be treated like human beings. The harrassment of non-headscarf-wearing women is appalling. As I wear a headscarf I don’t get harrassed (usually), but boy do I see how the other women get treated. And they are not dressed “provocatively” by Western standards at all. Usually they are wearing very, very modest clothes, but if they have their hair down that is enough to prompt the guys to act like utter creeps. And all you hear from the elders and the media and everyone is that it is the girls’ fault for the way they dress.
I think those who blame any victims of violent crime in the US (and the UK in this example) and particularly those who blame victims of sexual crimes, seem to have a wish to make American/British culture even more like Middle EAstern culture than it already is, and i think this would not be a good thing. Although I love the middle east and I love living in Egypt the double standards about women’s behavior and the limits the society seeks to place on women really disturb me on a daily basis.
A story like the above one from “barbados butterfly” would not even be told. A woman would never tell anyone. Alternatively women who have had something like this happen to them in the Middle East end up in prostitution as they are considered not marriageable.
By the way I think you are very brave for telling your story even anonymously on the Internet. And it was completely not your fault, if he chose to force behaviors on you it is his fault for using force.
So, thanks to the blame culture, after I was raped by a man I trusted and adored I tortured myself by telling myself that I deserved it. I didn’t report it because I didn’t want to hear others tell me that I deserved it. I cried for months. I haven’t seen him since. I sometimes think that I see him in the street and I shudder with fear. My stomach does flip-flops. It’s a pretty fucking screwed up situation but thankfully it’s a lot better than it used to be.
Thank you for sharing your story with us.
I’m so sorry this happened to you: I hope you’re getting help.
Barbados Butterfly, I’m sorry that happened to you. A similar incident happened to one of my roommates. Please consider getting counseling – you don’t deserve to be walking down the street feeling upset because you might see him again.
that was not my intent. it is just that the difficulty of getting a conviction is part of the systemic problem of blame.
I guess what it comes down to is that I would like a “control” survey:
A person (or a man) is fully/partially responsible for being assaulted and mugged if:
a: He is walking alone at night.
b: He is dressed in a very expensive suit in a poor neighborhood,
c: He is looking through his wallet jammed full of cash in a public place.
d: He was walking around drunk.
e: He was boasting and swaggering around saying how he was the strongest man in the room.
etc.
I’m guessing that you’ll get twenty to thirty percent of people saying that a man is at least “partially responsible” for the assault in any of these cases. I don’t know, though, since the study has not been done.
The prevalance of rape-specific victim-blaming would then be the difference between those who said men were “partially or totally responsible” for assault and who said women were “partially or totally responsible” for rape.
You would certainly get a much smaller number.
In re Barbados Butterfly: Corner case. Her experience sounds like a nightmare, but she has experienced an statistically atypical rape and is generalising.
it is not that surprising since people tend to distance themselves from criminal acts. the further away it is from them, the less they have any responsibility to fix it or deal with it. and it cannot get any further than saying the person brought it on herself. even the concept of “innocent” tends to make people point their fingers. essentionally they ask, “how innocent can you be if you’re drunk?” or “how innocent can you be if you were flirting with him?”
the only real way i see this changing is by getting people to internalize the experience of the victim.
i do not think it is that rapists do not consider women fully human. they could think women are people, and still do it. in most instances, the act has next to nothing to do with the victim, hence it can happen to any woman. the issue is more that we need to challenge the perception that it is alright to act out whatever it is going through your head, or to take out your feelings of anger on other people.
we need to address the fact that it is wrong to violate someone’s boundaries, and perhaps start having some stricter penalities for doing so.
it is unfair to real victims to equate unagreeable male sex with real rape.
Richard Bellamy: I guess what it comes down to is that I would like a “control” survey
Why would you like a “control” survey? From your further comments, it appears you would like one in order to be able to persuade yourself that “blaming the victim” is something that just happens, and that all victims are similarly blamed, and avoid having to face the fact that women are blamed for being raped as a means of keeping all women in fear.
it is unfair to real victims to equate unagreeable male sex with real rape.
We don’t know that Tuomas meant to do this: he may only have meant, as men often do, to try and wrest the subject of discussion away from women, on to men.
Is it really astonishing that since the internet pornography explosion men would increasingly seek pornography in the flesh starring themselves?
Here’s the link to the Oct 2 Guardian article mentioning the British Sexual Attitudes Survey.
“The number of men who pay for sex has doubled in the past 10 years, according to the British Sexual Attitudes Survey, and campaigners say myths about ‘happy hookers’ persist. In fact, around 80 per cent of prostitutes in London brothels are from overseas, and at least 1,400 women a year are trafficked into the UK sex industry.”
From your further comments, it appears you would like one in order to be able to persuade yourself that “blaming the victim” is something that just happens, and that all victims are similarly blamed, and avoid having to face the fact that women are blamed for being raped as a means of keeping all women in fear.
I don’t understand this. There is a study that you conclude means that we “blame the victim” of rape. Further, you conclude that rape is the only crime in which this happens, or that it happens far more commonly than for any other crime.
All I am saying is that one data point does not create evidence. My experience clearly does not match those of many posters here, but I accept that it is possible that my experience is not “the norm.” I would think that others would accept the same, and look at comparative evidence, not simply evidence that support your pre-conceived views.
A person who think that’s men are responsible for being assaulted and that women are responsible for being raped when either is out alone at night is not evidence of a “rape culture” that permits rape above and beyond other crimes. To make the point, you need to show comparisons between crimes, not simply one data point.
I think I have posted this before, but I have been on a jury once in my life.
It was a carjacking case where a man claimed that three men took his keys and stole his car. The defense? He lent us the car, and then got scared that we didn’t bring it back far enough. There was a girl at the party, and he was trying to impress her, and they claimed that he lent them the car to show how generous he was because the carjacker was friends with the girl. No one else at the party testified (I don’t know why.)
In the jury room, we deliberated for three days. Four of the 12 jurors of both genders (not me) began with thinking “Not Guilty — Guys do stupid stuff to impress girls all the time.” I remember thinking how stupid this guy was to go to a party in a rough neighborhood where he didn’t know anyone just to go try to pick up a girl. It didn’t sway my vote, though. We eventually convicted on most (although not all) of the counts.
Male victim, male defendants, all the same race. It played out EXACTLY like the stereotypical jury room in a date rape case, except that it was “acquaintance carjacking.” This is part of the reason that I am dubious that there is a “rape culture” any more than there is a carjacking culture. I think it comparable non-rape situations, most people are similarly likely to assign some blame to the victim, or accept a “consent” defense. That is why I look for comparable statistics from non-rape situations.
All I am saying is that one data point does not create evidence.
And yet, as far as I can tell, nobody even thought about conducting a survey asking about victims’ culpability in any other crimes committed against them.
Doesn’t that very lack of foresight indicate that bias exists?
The entire focus of this survey is on whether rape victims bear any responsibility for being raped.
Nobody’s asking about the perpetrators [“Do you believe a man is totally responsible, partially responsible or not at all responsible for raping if he is drunk?”]
Nobody’s asking about other crimes. [“Do you believe a person is totally responsible, partially responsible or not at all responsible for being mugged when walking alone late at night?”]
It’s just rape, and it’s just focused on the victim.
And yet, as far as I can tell, nobody even thought about conducting a survey asking about victims’ culpability in any other crimes committed against them.
Doesn’t that very lack of foresight indicate that bias exists?
A bias by Amnesty International? There’s just no vested interest in researching other crimes.
I described a lengthy example of an actual jury I was on in which a man accused other men of carjacking, and the defense was consent, but it’s “awaiting moderation.” Some jurors thought it was a valid defense. I don’t know how often “acquaintance carjackings” occur — at least once in my experience — but it played out just like a date rape case.
Richard: There is a study that you conclude means that we “blame the victim” of rape.
You don’t think this study means the victims of rape are being blamed? Suggest you go read the threads following Nick’s posts about rape: you will see many direct instances of victim-blaming. This study isn’t bringing up an unusual idea: the only startling thing about it is the proportion of people who still believe that a woman who is raped is wholly or partially to blame for being the victim of a violent assault.
All I am saying is that one data point does not create evidence.
If this were the only study on how people think about rape, rapists, and victims of rape, and if there were no other information anywhere to be found, you would be correct in referring to it as “one data point”. But it’s not, and there is plenty of other information.
A person who think that’s men are responsible for being assaulted and that women are responsible for being raped
Interesting that you should put it that way, as if you believed that being robbed or non-sexually assaulted was something that happened only to men.
when either is out alone at night is not evidence of a “rape culture” that permits rape above and beyond other crimes.
However: one person is not evidence by him or herself of a culture’s attitudes – one person could be a psychotic freak. Hence the study referred to did not just question one person, but about a thousand: and, as I’ve said already, many people plainly do assume that if a woman is raped, it’s wholly or partially her fault. Look at some of the responses to Nick Kiddle: look for jokes about rape (Nick quoted one in one of her posts).
Look at your own attitude that suggests that a woman who is raped is in an equivalent position to a man who’s had his wallet stolen – and that robbery, being non-sexual, is not something that happens to women.
Thank you for your very clear story, Barbados Butterfly. I am so sorry so ugly a thing happened to you! The only reasonable way I can see that you might have avoided it was to stay indoors all the time.
This guy was really a piece of work, on that we can all agree.
I’m interested too in how your story supports the idea that rape isn’t about sex or sexual pleasure primarily – it’s about power, the exertion of power. This creepo was obviously miffed that you, mere woman that you are, should deny him his Prerogatives, so he’ll show you, you uppity woman.
I wish him all the misery his attitudes and behavior promise.
Next,
I think so too. We’re playing with the word “resposible.”
On the one hand, it means “the initiator of the action, the person ultimately to blame for how things worked out.” This is always going to be the rapist/mugger/murderer/other criminal.
Or does “responsible” mean “prudent,”as in, “That guy who walked through the slum with his big fat wallet showing is partly responsible for what happened to him when he got mugged.” In other words, he didn’t exercise enough prudence to protect himself from what were, on any reading, bad men.
A lack of prudence is unlikely to be morally reprehensible, though plenty of rapists try the excuse, “Well, she was asking for it.” Crime is committed by criminals. The law does not excuse crime on the ground that the carelessness or lack of attention of other people made the crime possible. It’s still a crime.
However, those of us who do not wish to be victims of crime exercise – men and women both, it isn’t just women who lock doors – some prudence to prevent that. How much? That’s an individual decision.
I don’t think the man that raped Barbados Butterfuly was statistically atypical. Ginmar had a thread a while ago where women could share their rape experiences in a safe(r) space and there are so many women who had similar stories of trying to say no to friends and boyfriends and not being listend to, and these men they trusted raped them. What’s your evidence, MG, that this kind of rape is atypical?
Jesurgislac, nothing in Toumas’ post makes me believe that he is trying to turn this into a debate about men.
Also, I do think that he does point out one major flaw with the survey – it focuses on female victims. I would be interested to see the result of a similar questionare about male victims – here I would expect that 0 procent (or close enough) would blame the victim, which clearly would illuminate the victim-blaming of the people who answered affirmative to the question about female victims. It’s only the victims fault if it is a woman.
I find it repulsive that we, in this day and age, still encounter people who think that the victims of rape, are in any way to blame.
I just wanted to respond to Susan’s notion of “prudence.” I do agree with you that people should be responsible for themselves and to err on the side of caution when entering sketchy situations, but the problem I have with your argument is that one cannot always foresee potential danger unless it is clearly visible. Perhaps you are an extremely perceptive person and can judge a person’s character and their intentions when you first meet him/her, but most cannot. Most people aren’t psychic, and as much as one can do to prevent bad things from happening to them, that just isn’t always good enough. I think you’ll find in many situations, there is nothing that can prevent them. Beyond locking your doors and wandering alone in the middle of the night, what more can you do to protect yourself?
Secondly, how does one measure the goodness or badness of a person, male or female? Do you have a chart to gage it? My goal here isn’t to be sarcastic and rude, but I question the how realistic your argument is. Life is not based on careful calculations and strategically planned guides to ensure your personal safety. Even if one could, such a guide would not work for everyone because everyone has different life situations.
For example, I live in an extremely safe, middle-class surburbia, where almost all the houses are not only deadbolted but have security systems. My friend, on the other hand, lives in a rundown apartment building in the downtown area, where a car blew up outside her apartment building in her back alley, and a gang shooting took place in the same alley two nights later. I do not need to take the same precautions as she does because my living situation is far different from hers. However, if she did not take those precautions, would it be her fault if something bad happened to her? She can’t afford to live anywhere else to improve her situation, but should she spend all of her time attempting to prevent something from happening when chances are that if something were to happen, it would happen regardless of her precautions?
One can make up as many “should haves,” “would haves,” and “could haves” as he or she wants, but they often don’t make a bit of difference. I’ve been physically assaulted and sexually assaulted. The latter I never pressed charges for because I was ashamed. In both cases, precautions wouldn’t have worked because the first scenario happened while I was still in grade school, and as much as I ignored and avoided this person did not prevent him from attacking me. In the second scenario, I was drugged and raped by a man I trusted implicitely and didn’t take any precautions because I didn’t feel I needed to. I had known him for a long time. Does my error in judgement mean that it was my fault?
I’m not expecting sympathy or any “I’m sorry that happened to you” comments, but I simply disagree with your analysis. Perhaps my own personal bias has a great deal to do with that, but prevention, in my opinion, is a fruitless effort to avoid the inevitable. Perhaps locking your doors makes you safer from a break-in, but don’t you think that if someone wanted to break into your home that a lock would prevent him/her from doing so? And regardless of whether or not one exercises the appropriate amount of caution (how do you judge how much is appropriate?), it is never the victim’s fault that someone has harmed him/her. A person never asks to be assaulted. Even if you think it is stupid for someone not to be careful, stupidity isn’t a good enough excuse to blame the victim for a crime committed against him/her.
This is absolutely correct. I am no better at this than anyone else.
Of course not. And even if you had knowlingly gone home from a bar with Jack the Ripper rape is not your fault. I thought I made that clear. In all cases, crime is the fault of the criminal.
I’m not sure what analysis you are attributing to me with which you disagree. I’m finding it difficult to locate anything in your post where we differ, except possibly your last sentence in the immediately above paragraph.
I don’t think rape is in all cases “inevitable.” This is pretty strong language. I, for example, have never been raped; since I’m now 60 years old, this “inevitable” thing better hurry up if it expects to get me. I am not attributing this relative immunity to anything but good luck; but there is good luck, you know. Perhaps one can increase the odds in one’s favor somewhat by exercising prudence (0r, as in your case, maybe not), but there’s no guarantee of course.
People lock their doors and install burglar alarms all the time. Sometimes their homes get broken into anyhow; but the locks and alarms load the dice, just a bit, in the direction of safety. (Or that’s what lock and alarm companies would have you believe.) If you don’t alarm your house for whatever reasons, it still isn’t your fault when you are burglarized. Burglary is the fault of the burglar.
I think we can do a few things, if not everything. But that staying indoors in the closet alone at all times is a sure-fire rape-prevention strategy doesn’t mean we all have to or should do that, or are morally culpable if we don’t.
We have to live. Living, unfortunately, includes risk. One of these risks is rape. People who think that rape alone of all crimes is likely to be the fault of the victim need to be hit upside the head.
You weren’t asking for sympathy. But I am sorry this happened to you.
In all Anglo-American jurisdictions, rape is a crime, right along with assault, murder, robbery, and a host of other buddies. All these crimes restrict or can restrict the safety with which law-abiding persons can use the public space, and are thus doubly represensible.
In all cases, crime is the fault of the criminal. Criminals should be apprehended, restrained and taken off the streets.
You don’t think this study means the victims of rape are being blamed? Suggest you go read the threads following Nick’s posts about rape: you will see many direct instances of victim-blaming. This study isn’t bringing up an unusual idea: the only startling thing about it is the proportion of people who still believe that a woman who is raped is wholly or partially to blame for being the victim of a violent assault.
Again, you are (consciously?) NOT addressing my point. OF COURSE there is victim-blaming. I am only asking whether there is MORE victim-blaming regarding rape than for other crimes. Accumulation of evidence that there is victim-blaming in rape does not address how it compares to victim-blaming of non-rape crimes. Citing seventeen examples of victim-blaming for rape, or a study showing that 30% of people blame rape victims, does nothing to show how it compares to other crimes.
Because people DO blame other crime victims (whether they should or not, and assuming the same definition of “blame”) for walking alone at night and getting mugged. And people DO say that a braggart was “asking for it” when he gets punched in the nose.
To show that there is a “rape-culture” and that rape is tolerated at higher levels than other crimes, your study needs to also look at OTHER CRIMES! That is why I suggested at #52 a study that would ask about crimes against men.
If there is a rape culture and lots of implicit mysogynism, then the results of my poll in #52, when asked about male victims, will look very different from the results of the actual poll. My belief is that they will not, because the level of blame directed at rape victims is very similar to the level of blame directed at other crime victims who engage in behavior that a societal consensus (correctly or incorrectly) believes to be “risky”.
What’s your evidence, MG, that this kind of rape is atypical?
I have the sick feeling that it isn’t.
Richard Bellamy: you might want to note your persistent identification of crimes against property that belongs to men with crimes of violence against women, because I’m fairly sure this is an example of your unconscious bias, not a deliberate equation of women as property that belongs to men. Still, it’s certainly there.
Moving on:
Male victim, male defendants, all the same race. It played out EXACTLY like the stereotypical jury room in a date rape case,
With the important exception: We eventually convicted on most (although not all) of the counts.
Stereotypically, had this been a woman who’d gone to a party where she knew none of the people there, and had been raped, the odds of any jury convicting her attacker would be miniscule.
“ This is part of the reason that I am dubious that there is a “rape culture” any more than there is a carjacking culture
There isn’t a carjacking culture, because you and the other jury members agreed that a crime had been committed – a man’s car had been stolen – and convicted the perpetrators, even though you thought the man was stupid to have put himself in that situation.
There is a rape culture, because in the same situation, a man who raped would not be convicted: his victim would be blamed for her behavior.
I suspect that Richard is onto something here. We do have a tendency to blame the victims of all types of crime. It’s a way of assuring ourselves that we have (a wholly illusory) sense that we are in control of what is probably an uncontrollable situation.
(“I, being smart, would never take strangers home/leave my house unlocked/walk alone with a conspicuous wallet at night/ pick a verbal fight in a bar; therefore, I will never be raped/burglarized/mugged/assaulted.”)
I for one need more data, of the type suggested by Richard, before I’ll buy into the idea that rape is unique here. It may be. It may not be. On the data presented, we just don’t know.
Susan: We do have a tendency to blame the victims of all types of crime.
Do we? Does a person who is mugged normally have to convince the police that they didn’t consent to hand over their wallet to the mugger? Does a person who has been burgled before normally have to convince anyone that this didn’t mean they wanted to be burgled this time? If someone’s taken by a con artist, do they usually have to persuade people that they didn’t actually want to lose their life savings to someone else? If you’re hit in the face do your friends ask you if you wanted to be hit? If you’re shot by an acquaintance, does anyone argue that as you knew this person socially, you must have consented to being shot by them?
No, Susan. People really don’t make the same excuses for other criminals and other kinds of crime that they do for rapists and for rape.
I have begun an interesting exercise lately. While watching the morning news, I am observing language bias. So far I have noticed that almost all property crimes are set up as “The thief did x”. Assaults are more variable, but commonly, when the victim was a man, the form is “The assaulter did x”, but for a woman the form is “The victim was assaulted”. Rape is almost entirely in the form of “The victim was raped”.
Leaving aside for a moment obvious journalistic problems with passive voice as less interesting than active voice, what is the purpose of using passive voice when describing female victims? My assumption is that the use of passive voice allows one to forget the actor and focus on the object (the victim). For people who are lazy of thought (far too many of them) the object becomes the actor. In other words, by saying “The woman was raped” rather than “The man raped the woman”, the media is not so subtly transfering blame to the victim. It’s almost as though the perpetrator doesn’t exist if you don’t mention him. I guess all these women who are “being raped” are accidentally impaling themselves on a man’s accidentally erect and naked penis after accidentally having their pants or skirts removed.
This sort of critical review of the media is very instructive. I recommend it to anyone who doesn’t think that there is a bias toward victims.
I agree with many posters here that, in my opinion, rape victims are blamed for their victimization more than other crime victims.
Still, there’s nothing wrong with testing beliefs. I don’t see anything wrong with doing a study of the sort Richard suggests; on the contrary, the way that rape victims are blamed is something that should be studied more, and in a variety of ways.
I lived in a high crime city and I can say without reservation that most people blame crime victims for being victimized, regardless of the crime. And a man who gets robbed when drunk or by a prostitute barely registers as worthy of anything but derisive laughter.
But I think rape is different, still, because some people just won’t get it through their thick heads that acqaintance rape is a cruel crime committed by criminals, and not a “misunderstanding” between friends. If you have any doubts I have two words for you: Kobe Bryant. Go read the police report on the Smoking Gun if you want to see how violent his attack on that hotel worker was. And yet people were so willing to believe it was all just a big mistake.
The distinction in the case of rape may be related to the nature of the crime.
Rape is sexual contact without the consent of one person. People do not commonly consent to handing over their wallet to a stranger in a dark alley, so that’s not usually an issue in a mugging. But people consent to sexual contact all the time. How to tell if this was one of those cases, or one of the other kind?
Well, we could take the victim’s word for it.
But wait, it gets more complex. In our legal system we don’t convict anyone of a crime unless the criminal intended the criminal conduct. If a man, for example, is sleepwalking, and kills someone in the process, if he can prove that he was not conscious he cannot be convicted of any crime. We need what lawyers call the rens mea, the evil mind.
Thus, sexual intercourse happens. (That’s pretty easy to tell.) She says she didn’t consent. That’s her testimony, subject, as is all testimony, to be tested. Is she telling the truth? He says, she consented, or he reasonably thought she consented. If he reasonably (not in his wildest dreams, but reasonably) thought she consented, he’s like the sleepwalking murderer. He’s not guilty of rape, because he didn’t intend rape.
Now, there is ample room for people to lie their heads off here, especially the guy. But just as not all women are telling the truth when they claim they were raped, so also not all men are lying when they say they honestly thought she consented.
I fully realize that I’m going to get shot in the head here for this explanation, but like it or not, that’s how the law works. Rape is a tough crime to prove for a number of reasons.
There is a rape culture, because in the same situation, a man who raped would not be convicted: his victim would be blamed for her behavior.
Once again, is that true? Anecdotally, I’m sure it is. But statistically? The statistics I found said:
” Less than half of those arrested for rape are convicted, 54% of all rape prosecutions end in either dismissal or acquittal. The conviction rate for those arrested for murder is 69% and all other felons is 54%.”
So, outside of murder, accused rapists are convicted 46% of the time, and other accused felons are convicted 54% of the time. Perhaps the bias you describe is seen in 8% of juries? I’d buy that, and think it should be fought against, but 8% is a relatively low number.
In total numbers, juries convicted 3100 people of sexual assault in 1997, compared to 3100 robberies, 4700 aggravated assaults, and 3200 murders (See Table 6 of link).
http://www.ncsconline.org/WC/FAQs/VioCriFAQ.htm
So rape is being prosecuted at levels comparable to other violent crimes. Maybe that level is too low for all crimes? Probably. I haven’t been in a “real” fight since I was 12, so it’s very easy for me to say anyone who punches anyone anytime should be locked up.
The same argument applies to the small percent of sexual assaults reported to police. How many fights that meet the legal definition of “assault” are reported to the police? How many bar fights? Neighborhood brawls? High school slaps?
I do not doubt that there are some extreme mis-carriages of justice regarding rape. I merely question whether those mis-carriages are of a type different than for other crimes. If rapists are 10% less likely to be prosecuted, that should be fought against, but it doesn’t create a “rape culture” any more than it creates a “violence culture.”
the way that rape victims are blamed is something that should be studied more, and in a variety of ways.
Actually, I went looking in the scholarly literature to try to find some comparative figures to those reported by this study. Unfortunately, most of the articles are locked behind subscription barriers, but if you search Google Scholar on “rape myth” you’ll find massive numbers of articles and measures on the subject.
>>So, outside of murder, accused rapists are convicted 46% of the time, and other accused felons are convicted 54% of the time. Perhaps the bias you describe is seen in 8% of juries? I’d buy that, and think it should be fought against, but 8% is a relatively low number.>>
I think this number needs to be taken into context per one of the other survey responses described in the article:
“Six out of seven people either said they didn’t know that only 5.6% of rapes reported to the police currently result in conviction or believed the conviction rate to be far higher.”
Again, though, where is the point of comparison?
5.6% seems like a very small number. But is it?
How many reported simple assaults/ aggravated assaults/ robberies lead to convictions? 5.7%? 10%? 50%? I have no idea.
“Six out of seven people either said they didn’t know that only 5.6% of rapes reported to the police currently result in conviction or believed the conviction rate to be far higher.”
How many thefts reported result in a conviction? I can’t find the statistics but considering the cops’ attitude when I tried to report a theft “we’re never going to find the guy” I would be unshocked to find that it is a low number.
Very sensible, Richard. I have heard, again anecdotally in newspaper articles, that only a small fraction of murders ever result in an arrest, let alone a conviction. And although murder can be concealed, it’s a lot harder to hid than rape, obviously. (There’s usually that inconvenient dead body to account for.) But again I don’t even know if this is true in the first place.
I definitely agree that before we decide that this is a “rape culture” we need a lot of better information about other crimes. Perhaps it’s just a “criminal culture” which would certainly not be good news (!) but is quite a different matter.
Good point, Sebastian. When our house was burglarized the police candidly told me that they had no intention whatever of even looking for the burglar, let alone finding him. I guess we just filed the police report so we could invoke our homeowner’s insurance.
Does that make this a “theft culture”? Perhaps it does.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/cjusew96/cpo.htm
victim implies that one is not responsible for the acts, in which case it would be inappropriate to use that term in reference to males. however, from my experience men who have had unagreeable sexual encounters and boys who have had early childhood sexual experiences tend to get held to a higher standard than real victims because gender expectations.
i suppose one could conduct a study to measure the amount of “blame” projected on such males, but any such study would prove irrelevant to the issue at hand. and without a similar study being done for all crimes there is nothing to guage it against.
Susan: If he reasonably (not in his wildest dreams, but reasonably) thought she consented
But who gets to define reasonably?
Ginmar has linked to a case from her journal where a court found that three young men who filmed themselves having sex with a woman who was drunkenly unconscious were “reasonably assuming” she had consented – after all, she hadn’t told them no, so (the court concluded) it was reasonable for these young men to assume she’d consented.
Nor is that case unique. Rapists have produced as a defense that their victim had already consented to sex with them before; that their victim had willingly gone off to be alone with them; that their victim hadn’t said no; that their victim was dressed “like a tramp”, that their victim had agreed to invite them in for breakfast; that their victim was out on her own, was home alone and had left her bedroom window open – and all of these defenses of “reasonably assuming consent” have been accepted by a court.
He’s not guilty of rape, because he didn’t intend rape.
So, basically, providing a man keeps it firmly in mind that the woman he’s having sex with has consented to have sex with him – and bear in mind, above, exactly what rationale men have offered as “she consented” – in your view, even if the woman didn’t consent, the man didn’t “really” rape her? Because it’s the man’s point of view that defines rape, to you – how the woman feels about it just isn’t relevant?
I would like to see the citation of the case where “she was dressed like a tramp” or left her window open were accepted as indicating consent.
Robert: I would like to see the citation of the case where “she was dressed like a tramp”or left her window open were accepted as indicating consent.
“Left her window open” was an actual case discussed in Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will. A woman who lived in a basement flat said she left her window open for ventilation: the rapist said she left her window open as an invitation: the rapist was acquitted, on the grounds Susan seems to think are adequate – the court decided that the man genuinely thought that having a window open was an invitation and the woman therefore consented. This was in the 1970s.
“Dressed like a tramp” is a standard defense that I recall from a number of rape cases: how the woman dresses is used to judge that she was indicating she was sexually available and therefore the man could “reasonably assume” she’d consented to have sex. But specifically I was thinking of a case from 2001, which I read about three years ago, in which the rapist’s lawyer used the fact that the victim had at the time been wearing a thong on which the words “little devil” were written as a defense for the rapist. (The rapist did get convicted in that case, even though the girl he’d raped had been made to hold up her thong in court and read out the words written on them. The girl was lethally convicted: she killed herself after the case was over. link)
It is a standard tactic for lawyers defending rapists to ask questions about the victim’s clothing – including even the clothing she was wearing at court. “One barrister spoke of a case in which ‘the girl was basically just cross-examined because she had a miniskirt with a zip in it'”.link
So, in terms of actual citations, you have a case from the dark ages, and a case in which the rapist was actually convicted. And then a lot of handwaving about lawyers asking leading questions about modes of dress to get juries to think the victim was a slut and thus “deserved it”, which I agree is a shitty practice but which has little to do with what reasonable people accept as consent.
But who gets to define reasonably?
This is the job of the judge and/or jury.
Unhappily, courts make mistakes and hand down outrageous rulings all the time. I’d contend that most cases come out correctly, but anyone can look through case reports and come up with some colossal goofs.
This proves what? That our court system isn’t perfect? But we knew that, I thought. Anything any of us can do to educate the judiciary and the population generally about the realities of rape will produce more sensible court decisions. But while we remain human we will never get it right every time.
Still, I’m willing to bet that there are a lot of cases where the guy is packed off to prison without undue discussion. If indeed as Richard cites, “accused rapists are convicted 46% of the time,” then this not such a bad statistic. Remember that some of the accused rapists in question were in fact innocent of the crime, and should not be convicted. So maybe we’re not doing too bad.
I didn’t say anything like that. What I did say is that in all crimes, not just this one, the state of mind of the accused is relevant. In my hypothetical of the man murdered by the sleepwalker, the victim is just as dead as he would have been if the murderer had been awake. It seems, perhaps, unjust that we take the criminal’s state of mind into account, but we do. We always have. If a man accused of rape reasonably thought the woman consented, that’s important to us.
Try this one out. The man and the woman have sex. She consents, he consents. Then, later in the evening, they quarrel about something else. She decides to make life difficult for him by accusing him of rape. She didn’t “really” consent, is her story. Think this never happens? Well, everything happens sooner or later, including this. His state of mind really is important.
I am neither a prosecutor nor a defense lawyer, but I hear that rape is a difficult crime to prosecute. Perhaps less so now than previously. Precisely because the state of mind of the accused is so difficult to ascertain, as is the exact series of events. (“He said, she said”)
I am in no way defending rapists. I think they should be hung up upside down. Permanently. It is kind of a tough crime to deal with in the real world, though.
Robert: So, in terms of actual citations, you have a case from the dark ages
Within living memory, Robert. The 1970s may be the “dark ages to you” but not to me.
and a case in which the rapist was actually convicted
I had actually forgotten he was convicted in the specific case of the thong – that the girl killed herself a month later was something I’d remembered much more strongly.
And then a lot of handwaving about lawyers asking leading questions about modes of dress to get juries to think the victim was a slut and thus “deserved it”, which I agree is a shitty practice but which has little to do with what reasonable people accept as consent.
Robert, when lawyers ask questions in court about what the crime victim was wearing in order to show to the jury that the rapist might reasonably have believed she’d consent, they do it because it works – that’s their job as defense lawyers.
Susan: If a man accused of rape reasonably thought the woman consented, that’s important to us.
Given that “reasonably thought the woman consented” has been defined as “too drunk to say no”, or “dressed like a slut”, no, actually, it’s not relevant that the man thought she’d be willing. Part of the problem of the rape culture is that men are taught to assume that when they are entitled to sex, they are entitled to assume the woman is willing. And this permeates what a jury is entitled to assume is “reasonably thought the woman consented”.
Try this one out. The man and the woman have sex. She consents, he consents. Then, later in the evening, they quarrel about something else. She decides to make life difficult for him by accusing him of rape. She didn’t “really” consent, is her story. Think this never happens?
Not nearly as often as rapists claim it does, no. A woman who accuses a man of rape makes life difficult for herself, first and foremost, and knows – the police will warn her – that most likely she won’t see him convicted. But it’s a classic defense that rapists use: she was willing then, she just changed her mind later.
Jesurgislac, what alternative standard do you propose? Yes, courts and juries are going to make mistakes, and they are going to reflect social views that we may disagree with. But what’s the alternative?
It is undoubtedly the case that there are a lot of instances where what a man thought was consent was not, and it is certainly the case that there are men who pretend (or convince themselves) that there is consent where no reasonable person would agree (“the window was open, she wanted it!”). But men (and women) of good faith have to gauge consent nonetheless – and the variances in expectations and beliefs are going to inevitably lead to mistakes and confusion.
People do not behave like automatons from textbooks. Training boys and men to elicit/expect enthusiastic assent from their partners, rather than tacit assumptions of consent, is undoubtedly productive and leads to healthier sexual outcomes; it’s how I raise my kids (or will when they hit the appropriate age). But that isn’t the reality for 99% of sexually active people, and the legal system has to deal with people who behave how they behave, not how we might wish they would behave.
Women go to bars and get drunk and go home with guys whose motives are hazy at best – and there are a lot of rape cases generated from such encounters. What standard do you propose courts adopt to determine whether consent was in fact given, in cases where it is not obvious to outside observers?
Robert Writes: Jesurgislac, what alternative standard do you propose?
Certainly I think any idea that what the victim was wearing is any indication of whether she consented or whether the rapist thought she would have consented can be ruled out of court. Her clothes don’t consent for her. Neither should her past sexual history be brought up in court, under any circumstances. Nor, frankly, should any “I assumed she consented because she didn’t actually say she didn’t consent” reasoning.
But that isn’t the reality for 99% of sexually active people, and the legal system has to deal with people who behave how they behave, not how we might wish they would behave.
That’s a wonderful continuing excuse for letting men continue to rape women and get away with it, sure – if you assume that the law has to allow people to “behave how they behave”. The legal system doesn’t let a man who thinks he’s entitled to hit anyone who gets in his way escape conviction because “people behave how they behave” – why should it allow men get away with rape just because they honestly think “consent” means “she was dressed like a slut and she only said no a couple of times” or “she’s my girlfriend/wife so I’m entitled to assume she always wants to have sex with me even if she isn’t actually saying yes this time”. The legal system is all about not letting people “behave how they behave” when how they behave is criminal.
What standard do you propose courts adopt to determine whether consent was in fact given, in cases where it is not obvious to outside observers?
The standard Susan has offered appears to be: Assume the man accurately reports his state of mind, and his state of mind – whether he thought it was rape or not – shall be allowed to decide whether or not he shall be convicted of rape. For added bonus, assume that the woman might well be lying to get the man into trouble.
This is a terrible standard, as anyone can see: if I were to hit you over the head and kicked you in the balls, Robert, I would not expect you to have to convince a court that you really, really hadn’t consented to have that happen to you, no matter what you were wearing, nor where you were. And if I claimed that I’d believed your wearing tight trousers meant you were really asking to be physically assaulted, I wouldn’t expect a jury to believe me. Nor do I think a jury should believe a rapist who claims the same thing.
The witness shouldn’t have to discuss her past sex life, or her previous sexual encounters with the rapist, and certainly it’s irrelevant what she was wearing or if she’d been drinking. She’s testifying to a crime of violence: her veracity is at issue, not her sobriety or her sex life or if she’d spoken to the perpetrator or gone for a ride in his car. A rapist’s self-belief in his entitlement to sex is really not a defense.
Jaketk, would you mind clarifying what you mean by this?
A rapist’s self-belief in his entitlement to sex is really not a defense.
Yeah, that’s true. But courts don’t deal with “rapists”. Courts deal with accused rapists. And an accused rapist’s belief that the woman he had sex with wanted to have sex with him is a perfectly valid defense. It would be great if the court could psychically detect the truth of all cases – we could dispense with a lot of tedious procedural issues, and could forfeit a bunch of civil rights that would no longer be needed in the bargain. But courts don’t know.
When I say that people behave as they behave, I am not talking about people who go out and commit crimes. I am talking about the sexual behavior of the human animal – which is messy and contingent and not generally in conformance with the “can I touch you there” Antioch plan. (Which was unfairly mocked, but which is far from the norm.) Courts have to deal with that – which requires evaluating the state of mind of the victim and the perpetrator.
The standard for that which Susan has offered bears no resemblance to the absurd caricature you are presenting. The standard she has offered is the legal standard, that the state of mind of a perpetrator is material to whether he or she committed the crime. If you reasonably thought it was a deer, it’s manslaughter, not homicide. Courts have to decide whether the self-report is plausible or realistic – “you thought she consented because she was wearing a halter top? you’re a moron – lock him up.” – and that does leave open the possibility of a clever con-artist, or the beneficiary of a misogynistic jury or court, getting away with a crime. But again, what’s the alternative? Human judicial systems are imperfect.
The special pleading for what rape victims ought or ought not have to testify about, or have brought into court, is mixed. Generally, I agree that there can be no relevance to clothing. But many of the other things you mention are arenas where a legitimate defense can be built. Of course it’s relevant that the victim was drinking – if she has acknowledged that she doesn’t remember what happened, and thus the testimony of other people will be given more weight of necessity. Of course it’s relevant that she had rough sex with another man that same day – if part of the prosecution’s case relies on her thighs being bruised as an indication of violence. And so forth. It simply isn’t possible, or just, to exclude vast areas of evidence simply because it is possible those areas of evidence will be used to unfairly prejudice a jury. That’s the case in every crime. Could a prosecutor use the fact that an accused killer is a member of a violent gang to influence a jury? Sure could. Is the gang membership nonetheless relevant, in at least some cases? Sure is.
You mention that the victim’s veracity is what is at issue. And that certainly is material. But it isn’t the entire story; there is no crime on the books where the only material evidence is what the victim thinks, nor should there be. Certainly not one as serious as rape.
Robert writed:
I would like to see the citation of the case where “she was dressed like a tramp” or left her window open were accepted as indicating consent.
I remember hearing about this case at the time – this is the best reference that I could find:
BYLINE: KING, JIM Jim King Staff writer STAFF
DATE: March 30, 1990
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution
EDITION: The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta Journal
SECTION: LOCAL NEWS
PAGE: E/2
Steven Lamar Lord, who gained national notoriety last year when he was acquitted in a controversial Florida rape case, was convicted of attempted rape Thursday by a Gwinnett County jury that deliberated only 25 minutes. Lord was convicted of attempted rape, aggravated assault, robbery and false imprisonment for an attack on a 20-year-old Gainesville woman in 1988. Steven Lamar Lord, who gained national notoriety last year when he was acquitted in a controversial Florida rape case, was convicted of attempted rape Thursday by a Gwinnett County jury that deliberated only 25 minutes.
Lord, 26, of Lawrenceville, was convicted of attempted rape, aggravated assault, robbery and false imprisonment for an attack on a 20-year-old Gainesville woman in 1988. The victim had stopped at a gas station near Interstate 85 to use a pay telephone.
Lord forced his way into her car, then ran off when another motorist approached.
Last year, in a separate case, Lord pleaded guilty to raping a woman in DeKalb County in 1988 when she stopped to use an automatic teller machine. He was sentenced to life in prison for that crime. He still faces separate aggravated assault charges in Cobb County.
Gwinnett Superior Court Judge James A. Henderson sentenced Lord to 50 years in prison to be served consecutively to the DeKalb County sentence. Assistant District Attorney Scott Smeal said Lord will be eligible for parole in seven years.
“Clearly, the first interest of society is to isolate him due to the fact that he does present such a danger to women,” Mr. Smeal said. “He should be incarcerated until it’s determined he’s no longer a danger to society.”
Lord received national attention last year after a Florida jury acquitted him of rape charges in Fort Lauderdale. A juror in that case said jurors voted in favor of acquittal because they believed the victim had “asked for it” by wearing a lace miniskirt and no underwear.
Although evidence concerning the DeKalb and Cobb cases was presented in Lord’s three-day trial, the jury was not made aware of the Florida case.
Judge Henderson ignited controversy during jury selection by barring the public, including reporters, claiming his courtroom is too small for spectators and prospective jurors.
Another garbled misquote of wht I said.
1. The man’s state of mind according to himself is not the only question we have to ask. We also have to ask if his take on this was “reasonable.” Meaning, would a reasonable person in his same position hold that same state of mind.
For an illustration, let us take a man and a woman together. He wants to have sex. She really does NOT want to have sex but for whatever reason does not convey this to him, not by word, not by action. Is this rape?
Well, she didn’t consent. But she concealed that from him. I’d say (and the law would say) that it isn’t rape, because the man wasn’t in possession of the relevant fact (she didn’t want to do it) and hence lacked the requisite intent.
2. Rape is an unusual crime in that it depends on the intentions of both parties. If you murder Richard, say, it’s still murder, even if he liked it and asked for it. His consent or lack of consent is irrelevant. You can still be prosecuted. But since sexual intercourse under the right circumstances is a good thing (unlike murder) we have to do all this pondering about what the victim was thinking, as though trying to figure out what the suspect was thinking wasn’t hard enough.
3. News flash. Men lie sometimes. Women lie sometimes. We can’t take anyone’s word for anything without asking a few questions at least. You’ll be glad we do if you are ever accused of a crime you didn’t commit, on someone’s bare say-so.
4. I’m glad they finally got that guy in Florida. What goes around comes around, usually.