From: dcrosgr@uoft02.utoledo.edu
Newsgroups: talk.rape
Subject: Re: Critisizing the victim?
Date: 14 Aug 92 00:40:44 EST
Organization: University of Toledo, Computer Services

This will be long, as I have been requested nto to edit to save on bandwith.

In article <Bsy4EA.1q7@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, seiffe@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Erica Seiffert) writes:
> In article <1992Aug13.001749.9381@uoft02.utoledo.edu> dcrosgr@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes:
>>In article <Bsvp63.Eq3@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, seiffe@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Erica Seiffert) writes:
>>> 
>>> 	DC,
>>> 	
>>> 		I understand your position, however I am trying to point
>>> 	out that it is practically impossible for a woman in this socieity
>>> 	to avoid a "high risk" situation. ANY situation where in she is
>>> 	alone with a man (generally speaking...) can be a "high risk"
>>> 	situation for that woman. The point is that the "way the world
>>> 	is" a woman can be sexually assulted by her husband, her brother,
>>> 	her clegyman, her doctor, her teacher, her boss..etc.  
>>> 		A woman has to learn to appraise every situation and every
>>> 	person. DC do you ever worry that your placing yourself at risk 
>>> 	when you talk with a Professor alone? Do you ever wonder if you
>>> 	shouldn't have some one with you when the maintenance man comes
>>> 	by to fix something? Do you ever set up a little  emergency "code" 
>>> 	system with your friends when you go out on a first date?
>>>
>>> (etc... deleted)
>>
>>From what you have said, it looks like a prudent person is constantly
>>evaluating her circumtances for indicators that this is not a good situation to
>>be in. To use military jargon, when enough red flags go up, you should be
>>moving out of there.
>>
>>You will PLEASE NOTE I have never advocated going up to rape victims who
>>stayed when they should have gone and telling them, "Boy, were you ever stupid!
>>Most people could have seen that attack from miles away."
>>
>>I do however, strongly advocate that in an effort to shock a little reality
>>into younger femalesby telling them in no uncertain terms, just like we do with
>>AIDS and drugs, that if your brain tells you not to be doing something, it is
>>stupid to ignore that warning.
>>
>>Maybe you feel rape victims will be upset becuase they backwards apply a future
>>warning to their past actions, and conclude that the message is calling them
>>stupid for having been victimized. I can see where that could be a concern.
>>
>>I, however, am more concerned with lowering the number of victims than with
>>watching out for the feelings of those who have already been attacked.
>>
>>Jugment calls.
>>
>>If you can find a happy median, that still send out a very clear and strong
>>message to immature females, I am sure most of us would appreciate it.
>>
>>DC
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 		DC
> 
> 		I wish you had quoted my entire passage before posting your
> 		response. However, I will try and restate what I said once
> 		before to see if it makes anymore sense to you.
> 		
> 		If it is a given that in any situation, any person can be
> 		a possible assaulter, than a woman (men do this to, I'm
> 		not sure if it is to the same degree because I've never 
> 		experienced life as a man in this society) must appraise
> 		each situation and person in order to decide who/what is
> 		"safe." A woman may label some one as safe, and they may
> 		not be a threat to her for 20 years, but maybe one night, or
> 		one day that person suddenly acts contrary to all that that
> 		woman has judged and then rapes her. That woman's body has
> 		not only been violated, but her ability to trust her 
> 		judgement has also been damaged (generally speaking, no
> 		offense is meant to any surviors out there). The same thing
> 		goes for any situation that a woman has always decided to be
> 		safe and then one day it isn't.
> 
> 		If you want to shock young females into being aware of the
> 		dangers,DC, then start advocating that they view EVERY 
> 		situation, not just the bars or the frat parties, but study
> 		groups, church socials, parades..etc. as a possible 
> 		threat and that every person, be it their doctor, teacher,
> 		boss, child-hood playmate, ANY person can be an assaulter.

Right. I agree with this.

> 		
> 		Therefore, they'll either have to live isolated behind doors
> 		or make decisions on what situations and which persons to
> 		trust. If they get raped or assaulted, then they weren't
> 		being stupid: the situation or person weren't as safe as they
> 		had thought. I don't blame it on the victims, because quite 
> 		frankly NO ONE should have to spend time worrying if they are 
> 		putting	themselves at risk the minute they are with another
> 		person or walk out the front door. 

No, no one should have to. However, based upon your knowledge, are some
situations more likely to result in an assault than others? (You can drown in
six inches of water, but no one ever worries about drowning in a wading pool
because the odds are not as high as diving off of a high-dive alone.) I fal
situations are equally as likely to result in an attack, then there is no
reason to re-inforce the message, as there is no message other than "Always be
on guard."

If, however, a person is more likely to be raped alone in a dorm room with some
drunken lacross player she met last week than if she is with other friends in
the commmon areas of the floor, then she should be told that she is entering a
situation where she ay be at higher risk.

> 
> 		You keep saying you didn't call any rape survior stupid 
> 		for being in a situation where they got raped. However, the
> 		word itself, and particularly how you have used it has implied,
> 		either directly or indirectly (consciously or unconsciously),
> 		that very same idea(IMHO); that they were stupid..
> 
> 		Let me ask you something (I'm still waiting for you to 
> 		answer honestly my previous questions) 

Please don't start an Ataylor routine here. I do not believe I have failed to
answer ANYONE's direct questions to me. If I have, tell me the date of the post
and the title and I'll go back and re-read it.

And, leave out the qualifier 'honestly'. That is all you get from me.

							if for the past
> 		10 years you lived just outside a quiet little town and every
> 		day of those past 10 years you left your car unlocked, then
> 		one day it gets stolen, were you stupid? I wouldn't think so.

Nope. But, if I lived in downtown Detroit where cars are stolen every night,
it might be kind of, for lack of a better word, stupid for me to leave it
unlocked overnight. True, locking it up might not prevent the theft, but why
make it easier for them. (Amazing how this whole analogy can be applied to rape
situations.)

> 		Some where in the course of living where you did, you appraised
> 		that it was fairly safe to leave your car unlocked, and then
> 		one day, some one came along and VIOLATED that safety. 

Right. And based upon the information you presented in your hypo, it may have
been reasonable to leave the car unlocked. I have lived far enough out in the
country where this was the norm.

However, where I have also lived, and live now, car alarms and The Club are
more common than unlocked cars were where I used to live. Just because it was
safe there does not mean it is safe where I now live. And, to say that I had
the same rights in both places is to stick my head in the sand and avoid
reality--yes I had the same rights in both places, but that fact is irrelevant.

Yes, a woman can be attacked anywhere. But that statement does not nullify the
fact that she is more likely to be attacked in a frat house or dorm room than
walking to her car.

Did you read the studies I posted? 98% of all on-campus rapes are done by jocks
and greeks. Ninety-eight percent! (Please do not assume I am attacking
either group, I am merely relying information.) These attacks do not happen
walking to parking garages, or in the bushes near the physics building. They
happen in dorm rooms and frat houses.

And if she is more likely to be attacked there, she should be more on guard
there.

That does not nullify her need to always be on guard, it merely states she had
beeter be on additional guard when walking through the Valley, because unless
He is with her, she is very alone.

> 
> 		Perhaps you'll never get the point I'm making, and pehaps
> 		you don't even care. I don't know, I don't know you. However,
> 		hopefully I can get it across to someone who needs to hear it.

I understand fully what you are saying. And it is based upon the principle
that women are always at risk, so when they are attacked, it is just something
that happens.

I try to add that if the situation is high-risk, use your head and get out of
there--now.

Do yo agrre that some situations are more high-risk than others?

Do you also agree it would be a smart thing to do to avoid the high-risk
situations?

If you answered yes to both of those, you agree with what I have been saying,
as that is basically ALL I have been saying.

> 		
> 		If nothing else, DC, I ask that when talking about rape don't
> 		use the word stupid in association to anything other than
> 		the rapists. Than perhaps some of us wouldn't get so upset.
> 		Supposedly you are going to be a lawyer someday, therefore
> 		for your sake I hope you learn that certain words carry certain
> 		emotional connotations and they way you use them can have an
> 		emotional impact that may be quite contrary to what you had
> 		intended. In other words, it's probably not a good idea to
> 		wave a red flag in front of a bull, if all you want to do
> 		is get his attention.

The reason why the matador waves the red flag is so the bull will charge, thus
exposing its vulnerable back and shoulders as it charges by...

DC

Newsgroups: talk.rape