Comment on the New Statesman

I tried to leave this comment on the New Statesman blog about abuse women bloggers receive.

But damn it! Something is wrong with the commenting! And it isn't appearing.

Here's the article: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley/2011/11/comments-rape-abuse-women

So, will write it here instead:


I think sadly a lot of the comments on this blog prove the blog's point.

It reminds me of discussions on street harassment. Every woman i know has been harassed on the street, yet when it is discussed we are told it isn't that bad, it isn't a gender thing, men get harassed too...but do men regularly have women scream in their faces sexual threats and hate language?

Similarly on blogs. All the male bloggers i know who do get abusive comments say it is nothing compared to the systematic, endless sexually violent abuse that their women peers get.

It IS a gender thing. It simply is. It isn't 'it happens to men too' and it isn't 'it's not THAT bad'. It is about using sexual threats to silence and intimidate women.

I don't have too bad a time of it on my blog although it does happen. i've had threats and sexually aggressive language used against me, but for me the worst are the 'persistents' - the ones who know they're banned but come back over and over again to write nasty abusive messages, apparently taking glee in the fact that i will have to read at least part of it before i realise who it is and hit delete.

The worst i've experienced though is when i have written for unmoderated sites or been quoted in my local paper. In the latter, the abuse ranged from the usual - fat, hairy etc to men saying what they wanted to see happen to me, to eventually people writing abusive things about my family.

In fact, there are names on this comment thread who i have seen engaging in this sexist and abusive behaviour - writing sexually aggressive insults about women bloggers, writing posts abusing other bloggers and, in my own case, speculating about my sexuality and my sex life in a sneering and mocking (and uninformed!!) way, and suggesting i engage in certain sexual practices to 'prove' something.

It is silencing. After the worst bout of very sexualised aggressive comments on my blog i nearly shut it down.

But i didn't and i won't because i have a right to a voice, and they have no right to use their freedom of speech to threaten me with rape.

Hopefully this won't appear 4 times on the NS site and will try and post it there if it starts working...

Bristol Fawcett report reveals the impact of the cuts on domestic abuse support services

“Fair” has been the buzzword from the start. Since the emergency budget announced by the Shadow Chancellor in the summer of 2010, to the last budget plans of April this year, we have been assured over and over again that these cuts will be fair. ‘We’re all in it together’, we were assured. ‘The most vulnerable will be protected’, the line went.
But it didn’t take long for the National Fawcett Society, as well as some Labour MPs, to uncover who would be shouldering the real burden of these cuts. Women. Yvette Cooper’s and Fawcett’s investigation into the emergency budget discovered that the 70% of the money raised from the cuts would come from women’s purses.
Considering the assurances given that the most vulnerable would be protected from the cuts, it has been shocking to learn that a sector that works hardest to protect the vulnerable are in the firing line for budget cuts and centre closures. I am talking of course about the domestic violence sector. From Devon initially facing 100% funding cuts to their support services (eventually reduced to 42% cut) to Women’s Aid’s announcement in March that 60% of refuge services will receive no council funding in the coming year, it seems that it is exactly the most vulnerable, and the most silent, groups of people who are having their lifelines cut.

So what does this mean for the city I live in, Bristol. Partly as a response to Fawcett’s national challenge, the local Bristol Fawcett group have created a report to explore how the cuts are impacting women living in the city. Amongst the shocking statistics, there is plenty of evidence to see how cuts to health and social care, legal aid, housing and benefits system will make the lives of those fleeing violence harder.

And there have been direct cuts to support services too. The city council were faced with the difficult decision of how to allocate money to domestic violence support services, and the commissioning process led to funding being given to one central organisation, Nextlink. This has left a range of local community charities and support services without funding. Whilst it is important and necessary that funding has been provided to tackle domestic violence, there have been some questions raised over this decision, with concern that centralising services will reduce choice for women seeking to leave violent relationships. The commissioning process has meant that Bristol now only has one council-funded organisation that specialises in domestic violence. Nextlink will be running support services for women and men, as well as providing dedicated support for BME women and men.
As the cuts start to bite, domestic violence continues to be a big issue for the city. Bristol Fawcett’s anti-cuts report found that between 15,400 and 22,000 Bristol women will experience intimate partner violence each year, and around 130 women are raped in the city each month. These women are from all the different communities and areas of Bristol, and there is a real concern within the sector that the cuts to support services will reduce women’s choices and accessibility to the services they need to leave a life of violence.

One of the organisations that lost their council funding in the commissioning process was WISH, a domestic violence support service and charity based in South Bristol who offered support to both women and men victims and survivors. Facing closure, WISH received funding from BBC Children in Need to run a project working withyoung perpetrators of violence.

I spoke to Sian Taylor, an independent domestic violence advisor working with the charity about the impact of the cuts on WISH and the victims and survivors of violence who they support.

Taylor explained that ‘the funding cuts mean we will have lost our core work of supporting victims and survivors.’

Both the Bristol Fawcett report and Sian Taylor recognise that the problem with the cuts isn’t just an issue of lack of funding for support services. It goes a lot deeper than that. In the socially deprived areas of Hartcliffe and Withywood where WISH is based, issues such as housing provision and cuts to other benefits make it harder for women to leave violent relationships.

‘The cuts to housing benefit have a massive effect on those who want to leave and don’t feel able to,’ Taylor explains. ‘Not having access to housing makes it harder for them to be independent. The perpetrator of domestic violence often feeds on making their partner feel that they are completely dependent on them, and they will make their partner feel like they can’t leave. Many women end up staying with a violent partner because he controls the finances, so she fears that she can’t cope without him or that she is tied to him because she doesn’t have the money to get away. As a result, a lot of people who leave end up going back. We often find that someone leaving a violent relationship will return a couple of times before leaving for good.’

High private rental costs, cuts to housing benefit and depleted council house provision work together to make leaving a violent relationship difficult financially, as well as the obvious emotional trauma. This lack of support, encouraged by the cuts, leaves those trying to escape with limited options. Currently, if someone has a mortgage and tries to leave a violent relationship, they will find it difficult to get the financial support they need, be that from council housing or benefits – a situation that completely ignores how domestic abuse works and how perpetrators often control and withhold money. ‘Victims of domestic violence shouldn’t be penalised for owning a house’, argues Taylor. ‘People fleeing a violent relationship don’t always have access to money and that needs to be better understood’.

Although ostensibly legal aid has been protected for victims and survivors of domestic violence, in reality it is becoming increasingly difficult for it to be accessed. In order to claim in a domestic violence case the claimant needs to provide “evidence” of the violence. This of course sounds reasonable, but in practicality it can be hard to define what evidence of domestic violence is. Taylor explains to me that on average there are 35 incidences of violence before a victim goes to the police – 35 incidents that aren’t recorded and therefore aren’t evidenced. Evidence also immediately suggests physical violence, which ignores the nature of  how domestic violence works. ‘The definition mustn’t be just about physical violence but about coercive control, emotional abuse – these are difficult to prove and difficult to evidence, but they are still violent acts. By not taking this into account, it makes it very hard for those leaving to get the help they need’.

When I wrote to Theresa May earlier this year to find out more about how the cuts were impacting on the domestic violence sector, she responded that ‘the Government has made it a key priority to take a strong lead on tackling violence against women and girls to help ensure this issue remains a priority at local level…local authorities must not see this sector as an “easy cut” when making difficult decisions.’ She assured me that the government ‘have also provided ring-fenced Home Office funding for local specialist services to tackle VAWG with over £28 million allocated until 2015 for Independent Domestic Violence Advisors, Independent Sexual Violence Advisors and Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference co-ordinators.’

But in a country where two women a week are murdered by their current or ex-partner, 100,000 UK women are raped each year and 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence in their lifetimes (rising to 1 in 3 teenage girls), this simply isn’t enough money or support. If it were, vital organisations such as WISH would not have had to cut their support services. Women and men in violent relationships are among the most vulnerable in society, and this is an issue that affects people across the country, and across class.

‘I'd like to see more refuge provision’, Taylor says when I ask her about what we could be doing more of in our city. ‘I'd also like the sentencing for offenders to match the crime - offenders are often released having had short custodial sentences (if sent to prison at all) - what kind of message is that delivering to our society? And why would women want to go through the ordeal of giving evidence in court if sentencing is so minimal anyway? I’d like women to have a choice of services. I’d like to see women supported, regardless of age, history, and whether they have a criminal record. I’d like to see those fleeing violence given priority for social housing. And I want to see more protection from harassment.’

The future of WISH, in a rather more limited role, is safe, for now. With funding from Children in Need for two years for the 11 to 24 Project, the team are moving further into prevention, working with young people and young perpetrators of violence. Taylor hopes that the project means that rather than ‘mopping up’ the aftermath of violence, it will tackle the root causes of violence with an aim to educate around consent and respect. But after those funded two years, Taylor isn’t sure what the future holds.

‘Wish have two years worth of funding, after this the future is uncertain. So many good projects are set up but then plugged because of funding constraints - I dont want this to happen to Wish.'

To learn more:
http://www.thewishcentre.org.uk/index.php?page=234
http://www.bristolfawcett.org.uk/

Stats on VAWG in Bristol: ( Based on a rate of between 7 and 10%. Domestic Violence is often under-reported. The British Crime Survey 2009/10 records a rate of domestic violence of 7% http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb1210.pdf

Women’s Rape Crisis, [online] Available at http://womensgrid.freecharity.org.uk/?p=4513

British Crime Survey shows a lifetime rate of sexual abuse or rape of 19.7%: Home Office., 2010.
Crime in England and Wales 2009/10 findings from the British crime survey and police recorded crime (Third Edition) at p.72 [online] Based on Female population of 220000. Available at:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb1210/hosb1210?view=Binary

National VAWG stats: Home Office and BCS as above

Cuts to Devon services: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2011/jan/25/domestic-violence-charities-face-100-cuts

Women’s Aid announcement: http://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic-violence-press-information.asp?itemid=2599&itemTitle=Women%92s+Aid%92s+survey+reveals+fear+that+over+half+of+refuge+and+outreach+services+could+face+closure&section=0001000100150001&sectionTitle=Press+releases

Women's representation in sport

I was asked to write an opinion piece for the Fresh Outlook on the news story about women boxers wearing skirts. I actually felt a bit conflicted about it, as was concerned that it was fuelling a story that perpetuated the idea that women are othered in sport, rather than seeing women and men as equal in the sporting world. But I wrote it anyway.

The news that Polish boxers are expected to wear skirts, and the debate as to whether boxers from other countries should therefore do the same, will come as little surprise to observers of the way women are perceived when they take part in the male-dominated sporting world. It is a perfect example of how discussion of women in sport, if and when it happens, often seeks to strip away the sport and athleticism of the competitors and turn it into a conversation about clothes, or women’s bodies.

When a volunteer from Bristol Fawcett looked at the representation of women in the Guardian Sports pages over the month of November 2009, she found that 1048 of the images were of men, whilst only 28 were of women. And, unlike the in the photos of men, none of these women were pictured passionately, energetically and powerfully engaged in their sport. We weren’t shown their strength, their determination or their triumph. The women were either completely divorced from their sport, glammed up to show that ‘athleticism and sexiness can go together!’ or else they were shown crying. Whilst of course there is nothing wrong with looking glam, it says something quite stark about how we see women in sport that out of over 1070 images of sporting stars, we couldn’t find one that showed women being athletic.

This is symptomatic of a wider invisibility of women in sport. The BBC only agreed to show the Women’s Football World Cup after immense pressure was put on the broadcaster. Despite the fact that, as in cricket, the women’s team was far more successful than the men’s team. In areas where we are familiar with seeing women in sport, such as in tennis, a new issue arises. The All England Club (who host Wimbledon – perhaps the most famous tennis tournament in the world) was criticised in 2009 for putting matches between conventionally attractive women players on high profile courts (that get a lot of TV coverage) whilst former champions and top seeds were shifted on to courts 2 and 3. In 2002, Martina Navratilova also accused the BBC of sexism over its coverage of the matches, citing the same reason.

And of course we all remember how earlier this year, comments by high-profile Sky pundits about a woman who works as a lines person exposed the sexism women face in this male-dominated world.

Let alone the disbelief that shook the athletics world that a woman could run as fast as Caster Semenya can.

Even the way we talk about women in sport shows an accepted and unconscious level of sexism. Women boxers. Women tennis players. Women footballers. Women’s cricket. Women athletes. Can you imagine someone saying the ‘men’s football world cup’? Because when it comes to sport, our default is male. Women are almost consistently ‘othered’.

Arguably, the two most widespread news stories in women’s sport recently have involved beach volley ball players’ bottoms and Polish boxers’ skirts. I say widespread, as they are stories that I have been exposed to as someone who doesn’t follow sport, suggesting that they have been mainstream news items. Indeed, it is this that I have been asked to write about. We haven’t heard about the incredible athleticism of the volley ball players. Or the determination and strength of women who box. We’ve learnt a lot about what they’re expected to wear, or what they’re planning on wearing.

The achievements of women in sport are many and they are impressive.  They are equal to and even surpass the achievements of their male counterparts.The women who box are athletic, strong, ambitious and passionate about their sport. They are not clothes horses. They are not women boxers. They are boxers. They are athletes.

Fawcett Protest: the coalition has cost Bristol's women £45 million

Bristol Fawcett offer a stark warning as coalition cuts cost Bristol’s women nearly £45 million -
double the cost to the city’s men. 

A report compiled by the local gender equality activist group Bristol Fawcett has found that the coalition spending cuts are costing the city’s women nearly £45 million – twice as much as the cost to men. The group fear that the impact of the spending cuts on women will entrench and increase gender inequality in the city.

Bristol Fawcett and their supporters will be gathering on College Green between 12.30 – 1.30pm on 3rd November to protest the impact of the cuts on women, ahead of the council’s budget announcement.

But where is this huge cost coming from? The report explains how the cuts are impacting on Bristol’s women. Key findings include:

• The changes to the benefits and tax system will cost Bristol’s women a shocking £44,825,450 .
• This includes cuts to tax credits, benefits to pregnant women, family and care benefits and unemployment benefits.
• Cuts to housing benefit leave Bristol women up to £15 a week worse off.
• The cuts to the EMA will leave around 3,000 Bristol students without the support they need to continue their education.
• The council are cutting the health and social care budget by £7.3 million and the PCT by £19 million. The number of women needing these services outnumber men by several thousand.
• Women make up 63% of council workers in Bristol. The council are planning 240 job cuts in 2011/12 alone.

Bristol Fawcett believe that “these cuts are unfair and unnecessary. The impact on women’s lives will further entrench economic and social inequalities between men and women living in Bristol.”  The report was produced with the aim of illustrating just how dramatic the impact of the cuts has been, and continues to be, on Bristol’s women. The results are clear – women are bearing the brunt of the Government’s deficit reduction plan, and it’s costing them dear.

The National Fawcett Society, an organisation dedicated to fighting gender inequality, has praised the report and the reasons for writing it:

“ Drastic reductions in public spending have left women facing a triple jeopardy of cuts to jobs, benefits and services that have over recent years helped to narrow the gap between women and men. This report spells out the real impact of cuts on the ground in Bristol, and shows clearly how many will have a disproportionate impact on women. It’s reports like this that help us make sense of what’s actually happening to people around the country.”

Anna Bird, Acting Chief Exec, Fawcett Society

Bristol Fawcett have worked closely with a number of local organisations to collect their data and develop the report, including Shelter, Child Poverty Action Group, Unison, Bristol Citizens Advice Bureau, Voscur (a voluntary services organisation), Bristol Violence and Abuse against Women and Girls Strategic Group,  Bristol Partnership Equalities Action Group, Bristol Rape Crisis. NextLink (support housing for domestic violence survivors and victims) and Platform51 (formerly the YWCA).

In response to the report, Bristol City Council have told Bristol Fawcett:

“We are consciously thinking about the three aims of the Equality Duty as part of the process of our own decision-making on our Medium Term Financial Plan. The Equality Duty will be one of a number of factors that we need to consider. We will therefore be looking closely at this report which will assist us in making our recommendations.”

Barbara Janke, Leader of Bristol City Council

Bristol Fawcett hope that their report will be a wake-up call to decision-makers, and bring an end to budget policies that deepen gender inequality in the city.  There are fears for the city’s most vulnerable, as domestic violence charities lose funding  A local domestic violence support service, Wish for a Better Future, lost all its local council funding as a result of cuts to local government spending. One independent domestic violence advisor told Bristol Fawcett, “the funding cuts mean we will have lost our core work of supporting victims and survivors.”

Women are facing a choice of pay-cuts, redundancy and reduced pensions in the public sector. Said one worker,

"I'm a local government employee and over the last eighteen months there have been reductions in staff numbers through the ending of temporary contracts. This has meant huge gaps have appeared in the work of the organisation with either no one to do them at all, staff covering for absent posts and areas of important work simply not being done. We are constantly being presented with schemes to "encourage" us to leave with varying incentives like voluntary redundancy, part-time working and early retirement, yet no forward planning to direct who is eligible to leave nor information about who will cover the work if people do leave. All colleagues are concerned about their jobs and futures and management just don't seem to understand the level of fear and worry people have. Now we are told the government are introducing a pension tax on public sector workers to help pay off the debt. I'm in line to lose an extra £1000 per year along with having my pay frozen for the last three years, inflation and the VAT rise, I'm experiencing about a 20% pay cut in real terms and now they want to punish us even more for something that was nothing to do with us. The public sector has been successfully demonised by the government but we are the people providing services for those most in need - you can't privatise everything. This country is going back 30 years and no one seems to be standing up to try to stop it."

Event details:

• Location: College Green
• 3rd November
• 12.30 – 1.30pm (press call for photos at 1pm)
• Who’ll be there? Bristol Fawcett, the report authors, supporters and the women affected by the cuts

Notes:

• Bristol Fawcett is a local branch of the National Fawcett Society. They campaign and lobby to improve policy and services for women and girls and bring an informed gender equality perspective to local decision making bodies.
• Last year, the National Fawcett Society challenged the coalition government’s emergency budget. They believed that the budget would disproportionately have a negative impact on women, and estimated that 70% of the cuts would hit women’s purses directly. A judicial review of the budget was called, and the Government admitted they had not conducted a gender equality impact when creating the budget. In response to this, Coventry produced a report on the impact of the budget cuts on women which motivated Bristol Fawcett to create their own report.

No Women No Peace vigil TONIGHT!

Ten years on from the invasion, Bristol feminists stand in solidarity with Afghan women. Their demands are simple. Include Afghan women in peace negotiations.

In 2001, the protection of women’s rights from the Taliban was used as a justification to invade Afghanistan.

10 years on, women’s rights are being compromised, as women’s demands are ignored and their presence is excluded from peace negotiations. The very negotiations that aim to decide their futures.

On Monday 31st October, women and men across the country will gather to hold vigils as they stand in solidarity with the women’s rights activists of Afghanistan. They ask the Foreign Secretary to remember and consider that without women involved, there will be no peace.

Why the 31st October? The 31st October is the anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 that:

• Affirms the importance of women in peace making initiatives
• Urges member states to keep women fully involved in conflict resolutions and the peace making process

What is the Bristol Feminist Network asking?

"Later this year, William Hague will attend an international conference that will decide what happens next for peace in Afghanistan. We ask him to respect the UN Resolution. We ask him to urge his colleagues to proactively ensure that Afghan women are involved and have a voice in the negotiations that will decide the future of their country. The 31st October will see women and men gathering across the country to tell William Hague: DON’T TRADE AWAY WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN AFGHANISTAN."

 Event details:

•  Location: Pero’s Bridge, Bristol City Centre
•  Demo gathers at 5.30pm, press photo call at 6pm
•  Monday 31st October
•  Wear green scarves, in solidarity with Afghan women’s rights activists.
• More info: http://www.bristolfeministnetwork.com/

Anti-rape campaigns, men and offence

*trigger warning*

Note: this post is about victim blaming. I tend to talk about male rapists and women victims and survivors. This is not to silence or ignore that men are victims and survivors of rape and sexual violence too. It is just because that the safety campaigns are focused on women and issues around victim blaming are generally focused on women's behaviour.

Don’t drink. Don’t walk by yourself. Use the buddy system. Carry a whistle or an alarm.

Every woman reading this post will know what I’m talking about. This is the standard advice issued to women every Christmas, every time certain crimes are committed near to where we live.

How refreshing then, that Scotland has decided to direct this advise to someone else. To men.

The latest rape prevention campaign from Scotland has done what feminists have been campaigning for and arguing for, for a long, long time. They have decided to focus their attention on the cause of rape rather than the victims. And the cause is, of course, men who choose to rape. 

Compare the Scottish poster to this one from Wales. South Wales Police say this is an old poster (2 years I think?) but it is still being used in venues across the area. 

This is the more familiar message. Women, we’re told. Watch your step. You could be a victim, especially if you drink alcohol. It’s up to you to make sure you’re not vulnerable to rape. It’s up to you to make sure you don’t ‘put yourself in the position’ where you might be raped. The message is ‘don’t be a victim’. But the message really should be ‘don’t be a rapist’.

There are so many reasons why campaigns like this Welsh poster cause harm to women. Here are just a few.

One, by telling women that they are responsible for preventing rape by changing their own behaviour, we are creating a culture of blame. If we are ‘warned’ that we’re more likely to be raped when drunk, surely we’re more likely to blame ourselves for the violence committed against us if it has happened when drunk. The same goes for wearing a short skirt, knowing the attacker, having a relationship or friendship with the rapist, taking drugs etc etc. Of course there are reasons not to get drunk or take drugs, such as your liver and your brain, but this is not one of them.

Two, when you create this idea that a woman is responsible for not being raped, and is therefore blamed because her behaviour is seen as ‘causing’ the rape, you end up with women reluctant to report violence to the police. If we can’t trust that we will be believed and listened to, that we won’t be blamed, then how can we have the confidence to go to the police and tell them what happened to us? How can we trust that the court, the jury, the CPS won’t look at the victim-blaming advice dished out to women, and think that we should have taken steps to prevent rape?

Three, the advice is utter BS anyway. Women are raped when they are sober, when they are drunk, when they are wearing trousers, when they are wearing skirts, when they are young, when they are old, when they are walking home on their own at night, when they are in their homes, when they are in their workplace, by strangers and by people they know. Because of this, there is no preventative advice that is given to women on earth that will actually stop someone who has chosen to rape from raping.

This culture of blame is part of rape culture. It is the belief that women are responsible for the violence committed against them, and that they should feel shame for the violence committed against them. Rape culture means that women and girls can and will be held responsible for their rape, if they break a set of invisible rules that serve to exonerate the rapist and blame the victim.

Even if that child is 12 years old: http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-mail-justice-and-child-protection.html

When Jo Yeates was murdered in December last year, Avon and Somerset police issued safety advice for women urging them to not walk home alone in the dark. BFN quickly got on the case, getting in touch with the force regarding how the safety advice was inappropriate (http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2011/01/bfn-response-to-polices-warnings-re.html) and met with the police to discuss how they could amend the advice. My colleague asked them whether they would consider changing their anti-rape campaigns so that they addressed men rather than women. The police explained that they couldn’t, because men would find that campaign offensive.

Because men would find that campaign offensive.

Never mind that women find it offensive to be told to police their own behaviour because some men choose to rape. Never mind the fact that victim blaming campaigns have a serious impact on women’s confidence in the judicial system, add to women’s trauma and prevent justice for victims of rape and sexual violence. Never mind any of that.

Because men find being told not to rape offensive.

The reason, of course, why men find campaigns that refuse to victim blame, and instead focus on the perpetrators of crime, offensive is because they believe that they are somehow being told that they are likely to be rapists when they’re not.

But this argument just doesn’t stand up for so many reasons. Firstly, there are plenty of campaigns that target the perpetrators of crime. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t steal. Don’t assault our staff. Don’t speed in residential areas. I don’t do any of those things and I don’t find a campaign that tells people not to do those things offensive. I find being told to ‘let your hair down, not your guard’ pretty offensive though. I find being told that it is up to me to not be a victim of crime very offensive.

Secondly, campaigns that tell men not to rape are not saying that all men are rapists. It’s not saying that all men are potential rapists. It’s telling men who choose to rape that if they make that choice, then they will be brought to justice. That the system won’t be blaming the victim for any longer, they’ll be blaming the rapist. It’s telling the person who chooses to rape that they are responsible for committing a violent crime – not the alcohol, not the skirt, not the victim.

If you find a campaign that targets the perpetrators of a violent and destructive crime offensive, then guess what? The problem is with you. Why are you so defensive? Why do you ignore the vital message (don’t rape and if you do, you will go to prison) and instead twist it into a ‘I’ve never raped anyone and never would how DARE you!’. I would advise taking a look at yourself and asking yourself why you find that offensive, and then ask yourself whether you would find it more offensive to be told:

‘don’t go outside. And if you do go outside, it is your fault if something bad happens to you’.

Don’t you think an effective curfew against women is a bit more offensive than a campaign to tackle the causes of a violent crime?

The final part of this blogpost will try and deal with some of the inevitable comments and excuses that this kind of discussion attracts.

1.     But campaigns that talk to men ‘tar all men with the same brush’

No they don’t. They say to some men that choose to rape that if they do so, they will be held responsible for the violence they have committed, not the victim. Just like a ‘don’t drink and drive’ campaign doesn’t offend me as a non-driver, an anti rape campaign should have no cause to offend men who don’t choose to rape people.

2.     It’s right to warn women to take precautions. If I left my car door open and was burgled…

A popular one this. So remember, women are not cars. We’re not houses. We’re not mobile phones or wallets or any other fancy goods. We are human beings. You cannot compare rape with stealing a car. Women do not leave ourselves ‘unlocked’ and vulnerable by living our lives – walking home from work, having a partner, living in a house, going to work or school or uni, having a drink, wearing clothes, knowing people. Unfortunately, there are not any precautions women can take to not be raped, because rapes are caused by rapists, not by women’s actions.

3.     Well, if women go out and get drunk and wear short skirts, they are vulnerable.

If women go out and get drunk and wear short skirts, then they are vulnerable to hangovers and cold knees. They are not vulnerable to being raped because the only cause of rape is a rapist.

4.     If I went out and got drunk and my wallet was stolen…

As per above, women are not wallets. And if you went out and got drunk, the police wouldn’t refuse to take your case forward because your drunken-ness meant you caused your wallet to be stolen. A jury wouldn’t tut at you and say that it was your own fault, and refuse to convict the thief. And women aren’t wallets.

So, in conclusion. Well done Scotland to running a campaign that says victim blaming is not acceptable. Ever. If you think a campaign that targets men is offensive, then ask yourself a few questions. And don’t compare women to wallets.

Useful info

Just discovered these useful links on rates of intimate partner violence in the UK, as well as a fascinating article on how incidents of domestic violence have gone up 25% since the Coalition Govt came into power (at a time of reduced resources for victims and survivors too - score Mr Cameron!)

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb1011/

http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2011/10/domestic-violence-soars-25-in-first.html


http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/articles/domestic_violence_-_the_facts_the_issues_the_future/