MeDotOrg wrote:When my best friend was growing up she was told "If rape is inevitable, just relax and enjoy it."
Swear to God, that's what she told me.
I believe you. Take a guess why.
Jersey Girl, I would agree that the objective to raise women with the necessary consciousness and ability to effectively confront a situation like that. But I would imagine that because of different things like low self-esteem and just being unprepared to deal with the situation, some women are overwhelmed
Let me just stop right here and point out that I have walked this earth as a woman for years longer than most posters on this board have likely been alive. I well understand the variables that come into play in these types of situations. I don't know who EA thought he was lecturing or correcting or what-the-hell-ever, but I do have first hand experience (and also second hand accounts--because women talk to each other) to draw on that he'll never have, so he can basically take his overused "victim blaming" cop out and stuff it.
Until we engage the issue beyond
what a sick “F” the perpetrator was and recognize that there are indeed self defense and evasive measures that a victim might take (some of which come as reflex to some women though certainly not all), encourage women to take self defense classes in order to determine how, when and whether or not to use such techniques, take measures in an attempt to prevent such things from happening in the work place, and recognize that the feminist movement has
let women down, we're no further along in countering these offenses against women than the next string of victims that come along.
I could see someone saying "If I run out that door screaming, I will be a laughingstock. My bosses' career will be over, and I'll be the butt of dirty jokes."
This is where awareness comes into play. This is where the feminist movement has let women down. Sure, we can get the jobs, but how do we handle work place sexual misconduct? More than that, how do we attempt to prevent it from happening? This is the dialogue that needs to be happening right this very moment in time. God help us as a society if we fail to seize this moment.
I think one of the great things to happen with the #metoo movement is that women will less inclined to feel that the world will laugh at them.
I couldn't possibly agree with you more.
But I can see someone being in the situation of enduring a private humiliation rather than a public one. Again, I think that attitude was born of a society where women were not believed.
I can, too. I lived in that society.
My sister was raped in a car, by more than one man. Sometimes there is no way out. If she tried to fight, she was hit.
I am so sorry for your sister. Of course there was no way out or for her to defend herself.
But I would never suggest that a woman become the next victim. I would say her first objective should be to survive the experience.
Yes, the first goal when faced with a crime situation is survival. Again, this is where the dialogue can help and where training can help. Even with training, there is no way to predict how one will respond in such situations. I wrote previously about being trapped in a locked car. I made it out. It's possible to make it out. Not in every situation, but to suggest that stating that it is possible to thwart such an attack amounts to "victim blaming" is simply non-thinking naïvété.