My boyfriend, his sister and I had been running back and forth down I35 from Dallas to Austin and back for over a year. I might have been 18, but was probably a little younger. We drank our cranberry juice and vodka cocktails out of water bottles, as we sped down the highway. We did it because we could. There was nothing holding us to one place or the other except friends and parties. It was late one night when we stopped at a tiny gas station along the way. I went in to use the restroom as they filled up and waited in the car.
Music was blaring from the car and I drunkenly stumbled through the door, bumping into a rack of candy on my way in. The older man behind the counter smoked a cigar and looked me up and down as I sought out a sign to where the bathroom was. Even in my highly inebriated state, I started to feel oddly uncomfortable with the leering.
I found the restroom and as I went to make my quick exit, back out to the car, the man behind the counter called over to me. “Hey, girl. Come here.” I looked back at him and that’s when I heard it. The unimaginably loud sound of the front door being bolted shut. As soon I heard the “ssshuuk,” I grabbed for the glass door and pushed. I could see my boyfriend and his sister just standing around outside. I waved to them and tried to call out, but they didn’t seem to see me at all.
Let’s stop for just one moment.
I was drunk. I was surely wearing something revealing. I went in by myself.
Is it the equivalent of walking down a dark alley with a mini skirt on?
My husband and I have argued before over whether there is a foundation for someone “asking for it.” His stance, as I understand it, was that if a woman is walking down a dark alley with a miniskirt on – they are partially culpable if something happens to them. I, on the other hand, in theory believe that is merely victim-blaming and all responsibility is the perpetrator’s, no matter the surrounding events or attire.
In the case above and in other incidents though, I feel guilt when I get unwanted attention. It is my fault. I brought it on. I opened that door. So, in my walking into the gas station, inebriated and dressed provocatively, I felt that I deserved to be placed in that situation. It was my fault. I brought it on.
When I finally walked out of the gas station, confused and angry, I got in the car and told my boyfriend and his sister about what had just happened. Their response… obviously, I did something to bring the situation on myself. Let’s just get out of here and forget all about it.
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Lucinda Bliss
Constant Calliope
Survivant
PatienceP
DH Austin
Lesley Clark
Salon.com
Comments
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/21/us-more-men-raped-than-women?CMP=twt_gu
The upshot: "Feminists have long argued that sexual assault is about power and not sex – it's about turning what should be a pleasurable act into a weapon and an expression of dominance. We've argued that the role of sexual assault in society isn't just about individual violence – one person wanting to do harm to another person for a specific reason – but that it's a broader form of gender-based terrorism, where women and girls are positioned as always vulnerable, and where rape serves as a pervasive threat which curtails our full freedom to move through public space. Those things are all true, and sexual assault of women and girls is still very much a social tool employed to keep us fearful and relegated to the private sphere."
I am so angry right now at your so called friends!
I still though keep getting caught in that trap of thinking it's all my fault and I brought it on myself, despite knowing, logically, that it isn't true. It's a hard habit to break.
In this world where rape prone horn dog men write the laws, I guess maybe you did.
You should be able to wear whatever you want and parade around anywhere you want dressed like that but if you do, you're just being dumb. If you were attacked, it would not be your fault but YOU WERE ATTACKED. Who cares whose fault it was? YOU WERE ATTACKED!
Of course, you failed to mention what actually happened between waving to your friends and walking out.
Funniest line: "I was surely wearing something revealing."
This is an example of the worst kind of assumptions people make, but then again, aren't all assumptions sort of the worst assumptions we can make?
I'm quite sorry to hear what happened to you, but I think your story falls short if the intent was to provide a metaphor for victim blamers everywhere. Your husband is wrong to use the word "culpable".....the proper word is careless. There is nothing that removes blame from a perpetrator, but careless behavior does get you into a hell of a lot more trouble than careful behavior does. That's not a lesson that should be minimized.
They might find her a blanket to cover up with. They might call the police or social services for her so she could be safe. They might think she's got alcohol problems.
So no. Blaming the victim is wrong.
On the other hand, I'll be first in line telling my own daughter how to be safe at parties. Go with a friend. Give yourself a drink limit. Don't go anywhere with someone you don't trust. Think before you drink. Because not all men are honorable.
remember: only 50 yrs ago, when the beatles invaded,
gals had to wear skirts, always.
there is no end to the
danger a woman brings on herself
exposing her lovely body to some creeps.
but it is apprecitated heartily by 9999 men to the one
in 10000 who are triggered into sexual psychosis.
and even if you were not dreseed 'revealingly'
you probably would have been his 'victim'/
men gauge by the eyes, first.
especially predators.
live free and have fun but be careful.
It is not the equivalent of wearing a mini skirt in a dark alley to go into a business to use the restroom while dressed to go clubbing.
It is also not an invitation to rape to be in a mini skirt in a dark alley; but your odds are higher of an attack in that dark alley.
You are guilty of nothing in that story but poor taste in boyfriends and friends.
r./
People who take advantage of others who are vulnerable, weak, fragile, or being foolish/stupid are very very bad people. Criminals.
Recently, my husband and I were first on the scene of an accident where a woman who had been talking on her cell phone entered an intersection and was t-boned by another car. The woman at fault was dazed, trapped in her car and her PURSE was in the street. Well....she was stupid right? Talking on her cell phone!? She DESERVED to get her purse snatched up by the first person on the scene! Of course we did not steal her purse. We called 911, checked on everyone involved, returned the purse to the driver and worked to keep them calm and alert until help arrived. To me these two situations are exactly the same. Ill-advised behavior doesn't excuse criminal victimization.
But I do agree with Darla in that we have to personally understand—as females--the emotional, psychological and sociological mechanisms that are at work in the male population in order to be able to work with the hand that we’ve been dealt. I don’t want all of the women—feminists or no—out there pointing fingers out into the XY ether, and saying, “If I wasn’t aware/sober/smart enough, then having sex with you that night was rape.” Because if we believe that statement, then aren’t we relinquishing our rights a bit? By admitting that we were not in control of our own faculties—and that the man should know and then navigate around this--aren’t we giving the man all the power to make our decisions for us as they deem fit? But, then again, we should have the same freedoms they do: we shouldn’t have to relinquish our freedom to get snockered when and if we want to, and definitely shouldn’t have to feel like it’s a personal favor for our date not to rape us when we’re drunk.
It’s so dicey, all of this stuff. Walking around in a mini-skirt in a dark alley without fear of rape or post-assault blame is something we should enjoy as free, equal citizens of this world. On the other hand, abuse and revocation of freedoms by those stronger or more powerful or—shit—just plain opportunistic is a cold, hard part of reality that we might never be free from.