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SilentShadowDreamer's Random Notes Notebook
No trees or electrons were harmed in the making of this journal... However... Some brain cells were seriously inconvenienced...
I Write About Stuff
Warning for discussion of rape and rape culture.

Some people say things that are so clear, so strongly-worded and so beautifully-worded that I have nothing else to say except this. This. A thousand ******** times this.

The one thing that I wish she had also addressed in the "Why didn't she fight back?" victim-blaming method is this.

The people who ask, sanctimoniously, why a woman didn't fight back - "It's easy, just kick him in the balls!" - don't stop to think what they are doing. They are judging her. They who have no idea what her situation was, whether she was afraid of escalating the situation, if he had a weapon, if she was dealing with one of a thousand things already happening - they are judging her and auditing her reaction. They are telling her what she should have done. They are victim-blaming.

If she HAD fought back, if she'd screamed and fought and kicked and punched, the exact thing that the author describes would have happened to her. "Geez, him leering/flirting/groping was just a compliment, why are you so touchy, you're such a b***h." This essentially boils down to: "Your body is public property, if a guy wants to touch it, well, that's his right because he has a p***s, just get over yourself, you frigid prudish b***h." She might even get arrested for assault if she lashes out and hurts him. Those same people who previously told her that she needed to fight back will now scrutinize her to see if she deserved to fight back.

True story: They will never say she did.

We just can't ******** win.



August 1998 - October 2011; 1998 - October 2013; 1997 - August 2014; ? - August 2017
RIP, my babies. I love you, and I'll see you again someday.

Mostly on tumblr these days. Find me there!

Life is short. Take your chances, let them change you. Nobody said it would be easy, we just said it'd be worth it.




User Comments: [1] [add]
SilentShadowDreamer
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Wed Oct 24, 2012 @ 06:01am
*Note: Fully aware that not all sexual assaults are committed by men and not all sexual assaults are committed upon women. Right now, though, I'm talking about societal expectations of men, of women, and of those who identify as one or the other. That's not even getting into how society treats those who identify somewhere else on the gender spectrum.


User Comments: [1] [add]
 
 
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