The Rihanna/Chris Brown drama has been re-infiltrating the media lately with Brown carrying out his community service sentence in Virginia and excerpts from Rihanna's interview with Diane Sawyer on every TV outlet.
Lesser-intelligent men across the country said when news broke back in February that Rihanna "deserved it," that somehow she could have done something to deserve such a heinous beating at her boyfriend's hand. In situations like this, there's always someone to sit by and place blame firmly on the woman who is already suffering from the assault.
My university, like most, has an emergency alert system. It sends out e-mails and text messages when campus is closed or when other important information needs to get out, including announcements from campus police. An e-mail was sent out this past week to inform people of a sexual assault that had taken place Halloween weekend, reading:
The victim was offered and accepted a ride from a local bar after drinking back to her residence. The suspect drove the victim to an off-campus apartment where she was assaulted before being driven to her residence.Are they really trying to communicate that had she not been drinking, or had the venue not been in a bar, that this wouldn't have happened? Maybe not to her, but this suspect was surely looking for someone to attack that night. It seems like excuses are constantly being made for men who commit these crimes.
She was drunk. She deserved it. She was stupid to be in that situation. Anything to take the pressure off the attacker.
What do you think? Am I reading too much into the wording, or does it really infer the blame should be on the victim? How often do we really see women being victimized on TV, in the movies, or in other media?
Recommend
Comments (34)
I think you're reading too much into it. I interpret the reference to the bar/drinking not as a lessening of the attacker's guilt, but simply as a precaution to other students to make appropriate arrangements for transportation when they go drinking, since it's a common pastime. It's not saying "Oh, it was her own fault", it's just providing a description of the crime.
Well to answer your post, no we don't deserve it. Nobody deserves it! It's equivalent to people saying because a girl dresses slutty, she must have wanted sex. No, she just likes dressing that way and if anything, she maybe wanted to be a cock tease.
But as for being drunk and accepting rides from strangers? That is pure stupidity. Where on earth do you expect to end up? That's why you go with friends and watch each others back. That's what taxis and car services are for.
Right and wrong is relative, too bad lame justifications like "she deserved it" doesn't hold up in court.
Of course, the wording could also be to warn girls about this behavior. It could be something like, "If you are drunk, you have a higher risk of being sexually assaulted." I'm pretty sure this is true, although I don't have the facts to back it. It's also a warning not to accept rides from men you don't know well. So I see the email's wording more as making it into a cautionary tale rather than blaming her.
I agree~ the wording is shitty.
That said, there are definitely courses of action that people take that put them into more vulnerable positions. No, they don't "deserve" it, but they should know better. Such as the example girl... it's not intelligent to get a ride home from a bar with a stranger when you're drunk. It made her a target.
It's her fault in the sense that she could have avoided the situation, but the person who took advantage of her is still a criminal, and he still deserves punishment.
people make poor choices (like the girl at your school), but by no means do they "deserve" bad things happening to them. short of actually throwing the first punch, no one deserves to be assaulted.
Obviously the woman shouldn't have put herself in that situation, but regardless of how stupid she may have been to make a decision like that...there is no reason why the blame should be put on her. The guy did it. End of story.
I know of some situations where the girl was dating the guy, they had sex, they broke up...and THEN she said it was rape later. In my opinion, simply because she had hard feelings toward him after the fact. In a case like that I can see how the girl is at fault, but not in this case.
According to Edison Bernardo De Souza of Brazzil Magazine, on October 22, tourism student Geisy Arruda showed up to class at Uniban, near Sao Paolo, wearing a pink minidress and "heavy makeup," which apparently prompted her fellow students to go completely insane. Two hundred of them gathered outside her classroom to gawk at her, and when she left to go to the bathroom, men followed, physically fighting with her and trying to take cell phone pictures between her legs. A professor then tried to hide her in another classroom, but 700 students massed outside, shouting,
"Let her out Professor, we want to rape her."As she finally left, escorted by police, some students took videos, including the one above, where you can hear chants of "puta" or
"whore."Uniban chose to respond to the situation by expelling Arruda. And rather than doing so by contacting her directly, the university decided to take out an ad in Sao Paolo newspapers Sunday titled "Educational Responsibility - Education Is Made With Attitude Not Complacency," explaining that it was kicking out Arruda because her dress and actions provoked "a collective reaction in defense of the school environment." Uniban's lawyer Josias de Souza helpfully added that Arruda was responsible for her harassment, explaining, "she always liked to provoke boys, the problem was not with her clothes, but the way she acts, talks, crosses her legs, and walks."
http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/11402/1/
No one deserves to be assaulted. I did not see that the wording, as you provided, implied the attack was in any way the victim's fault. It provided the facts of the situation. If the attacker repeats this modus operandi...the facts can give a heads up to others about which situations to be especially careful of.
The truth is that drinking does effect our judgement and capability to protect ourselves from predators. This is a fact. It in no way exonerates the predator, it is simply a fact and useful to keep in mind.
When we choose to drink, we leave ourselves more vulnerable to our own poor choices as well as the poor choices of others. There is no right that guarantees extra protection for those who use substances to dull their own good sense.
Your post sounds a little bit like "shouldn't a woman have the right to drink, take a ride from a stranger and NOT be at risk?" A nice idea, but the fact is we live in a world where some not nice people do not nice things to other people, and sometimes people make choices that leave them more vulnerable to the not so nice people. Since no amount of whining or talking about rights will cause crime to stop, we need to take some precautions for ourselves. That may not be "fair" but it is the reality we live in.
This doesn't make the crime any less heinous or the predator any less guilty, it is just a reminder to the rest of us to take the reasonable precautions we can to protect ourselves.
No one deserves to be assaulted, raped, abused, etc. No exceptions. Stop the victim blaming and let's actually start blaming the perpetrator for once.
i dont think "she deserves it" is a right thing to say to a victim.. but if she's stupid enough to geting silly drunk & look like a likely prey, she only has herself to blame... still it shouldnt be used as a form of defence to lessen the guilt of the criminal.
hrm, i think you're reading too much into it.
I think that some girls give others a bad name by being retarded and blaming men for doing something that they didn't do.
There's always going to be someone somewhere saying that the bitch deserved it.
I think, though, that nobody deserves to be beaten or sexually assaulted; no matter how drunk you are.
the problem with all these comments is that they assume that the person who offered the girl a ride was a total stranger.
However if you read carefully, there was NO indication of the degree of relationship between the perp and the victim. In other words, you can't assume that the person is always a stranger--he could have been an acquaintance, a classmate, a friend of the victim's friend, etc.
The other problem is that there's the faulty assumption in thinking the girl was drunk. There are varying degrees of drunkeness (e.g. slightly between partially sober and tipsy to flat out completely drunk).
The announcement does appear to be slightly biased/tilted towards saying that the girl likely made a stupid choice in accepting some ride-specifically by saying "after drinking..". It also appeared to subtly hint that the ride was offered by a random stranger, but still you can't assume that it was by some random stranger. Once again, no degree/type of relationship between perp and victim was given or indicated.
Anyway, in answer to the question: no one deserves to be assaulted/raped/be victim of any type of violence or harm whatsoever. I think the announcement is slightly biased/tilted and that you may be partially correct about that.
I will not deny the truth that we all bear the responsibility for our own safety and making choices that help in increasing chances for our own safety.
Throughout history there always have been violence against humans generally, but thanks to the feminist movement, issues about violence against women have been brought to attention. We will always see violence against women everywhere: media, home, community, etc
People don't know what's coming to them until it's too late.
@salvatruca_stalking_havok13@xanga - Exactly! I hate when people try to "justify" someone's abusive actions. I know women can be violent too but if you're a big muscular guy, you dont beat the shit out of some girl in retaliation. Self defense is one thing but an asswhipping is another. I'm not talking about the Rihanna/Chris situation there but I have heard of some cases where a woman was doing the hitting/attacking & the man got in trouble for pushing her away or hitting back once in self defense & that's not fair. It's a double standard. NO ONE deserves or asks for abuse. Period.
Going back to Rihanna & Chris, I think he's trying to downplay the whole situation & he's not really acknowledging what he did. His apology sounded scripted & he even said he listened to his lawyers & waited to talk. That's just crazy. I dont like the fact that the day Rihanna's interview comes out, he goes on the same day & says he wishes it was kept private or whatnot. He's attempting damage control but it's making him look worse.
No one deserves to have the crap beat out of them by their SO, no matter what the circumstances. I think it's just (in Chris Brown/Rhianna's case) fans of CB who want to believe that he's a "good guy," and that "she deserved it." But we all know that he's a scumwagon.
I do think new reports and things of that nature go a little on the blame side, yeah. OF COURSE they had to mention that was drinking! It makes for a more interesting story, unfortunately. But that poor girl, it didn't matter if she was drinking or not, she was likely to get attacked either way. :(
It doesn't quite give enough detail, but was the attacker someone she knew? I sure hope so. I would never get into the car of a strange man offering to "give me a ride home," ESPECIALLY if I'd been drinking. We're taught from a young age to never go anywhere with strangers, and sadly, because of sick people like this guy, it transfers on to adulthood as well.
I think it's in the middle. They are inferring it, but I don't think it's to blame the victim, I think it's more of a "this is the situation you should be wary of being in... obviously he took advantage of it."
It is never the victim's fault.
And any predator or abuser always has choices and can choose self-control or to let it go.
1.) Unless a woman is attacking me with some kind of weapon, I'd never hit a woman like that.
2.) I think you are reading wayyyyy too far into the police notice. They are simply describing the situation. By doing this, they are telling everyone the type of location and situation that this attacker used. So, most likely, if you avoid that kind of situation (in my mind, accepting the ride was retarded), you shouldn't have a problem. Like you said, that attacker was going to attack someone, he's a bastard, no question. But he couldn't have done so if the woman didn't play into his plan by putting herself in that situation. I don't think this woman was "asking for it", but I don't know many girls who would accept a ride from a stranger late at night when they're drunk.
I think you're reading too much into it. I think media often shows women being victimized, probably to a demeaning degree. It's rare to see women be the assailant. Don't think any man or women deserves anything like that, without a good reason (like they killed your kid or something, and even then not sure how I'd feel about it). But yeah I do think the girl was stupid, if people were not as stupid the guy no matter how much he was out to do it that night would not have been able to find anyone. While I don't like it when girls go overboard about how dangerous the world is, I do think a little more intelligence is important too. I'm a guy and I would never take a ride from a random strange guy or girl that I may have just met and never talked to before. You just never know what might happen. Especially if I had been drinking and met them at some club or bar.
We NEVER deserve it.
I actually think it was more women who liked Chris Brown that believed she deserved it, from reading the comments on the various articles I read when news first circulated about it.
Sometimes people do "deserve it" because nothing is black or white. If a woman straps her children into a car and sends it off into a link, effectively killing them, and she gets assaulted in prison by other prisoners, am I supposed to believe that's not karma? Whoooooo knows.
No One deserves it, these days women and men are assaulted and the victim gets blamed from being somewhere at the wrong time/wrong place and etc.
I don't think the message was intended to sound that way. Maybe it sounded like it a little my dear but not fully.
Lets say a couple is at a bar; the man openly flirts with another woman, he gets a smack to the face and she storms off. Thats perfectly acceptable because he kind of deserved it. But if a woman does the same kind of flirting, its perfectly fine to get into a fight with the guy she was flirting with but not her?
I got kicked in the balls for saying this girl STUNK in middle school. It was mean.. but she smelled fucking HORRID, she was mouthing off about something or another, so I came out and said well you need to take a bath because you smell like dog shit and she kicked me square in the balls(just to make this clear... she was 5"6 in flip flops and I MIGHT'VE been 4"9 in boots)... I chase her around the school yard cussing most of the way to "get her back" after laying on the ground in pain for 3-5 mins... the teacher grabs me by the back of the shirt and snatches me up and starts yelling at me for chasing her. I told her the story and she didnt want to hear NONE of it "you DONT chase girls, you DONT hit girls!" this bitch was HUGE... deSTROYED my junk and if I had caught her SHE probably would've beat MY ass... I called the teacher a witch and got 3 days of ISS... all for what? Getting kicked in my junk?... the girl, got NOTHING. My cock healed just fine(i had some bruising on my thigh i was embarrassed to admit to).. but even my PARENTS were mad(mainly about my potty mouth) and i told them EXACTLY what happened... and i didnt even TOUCH her. But chasing a girl and calling a teacher a witch for not seeing the side of the story of a student of hers whose twig and berries got knocked in... the punishment fit the pre-crime? Bullshit. Gender roles are hilarious. If any female EVER "deserved it" it was this broad. But.. am IIII a monstrous asshole for seeing the in-justice that way?
I mean NOW, as a grown ass man Ive learned to block any foreseeable trouble my ween(as well as my face) could get into from a female and if she needs to know she smells bad i make sure its on the phone or close to a door ...but if a girl, my long term relationship girlfriend gave me the clap, im supposed to be a gentleman about it?
I don't think woman should be hit period(unless by other woman) but if the love of my life gave me a VD I can't say I wouldn't hesitate. ...I mean, when speaking of Chris Brown and Rihanna, THATS the rumor. I have no clue if its true or not but after I heard that's what was being said I went from OUTRAGED to... "damn... he's still a lump of shit for doing that and deserves to have his ass beat/jail time or something.. but... i FELL YOU homey"
If a girl gave me AIDS, i PROMISE you I'm making the news for putting her in the hospital or burning her car to the ground with all her shit inside it... But any other circumstance outside of a life ending social disease; hands-in-pockets, walk away.