Advice columnist tells a rape victim that it was her own fault?

[snowdarkred]

I put this up on my facebook, but I'm posting it here too. This makes me sick.

I'm talking about a Dear Amy column at the Chicago Tribune that was published on November 27, 2009. A girl wrote in and.... I'm just going to copy and paste because I'm shaking with anger and I can' even type:

(The bold emphasis is mine.)

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Rape question a matter of consent

(Edit:Also of note is one of the headlines this ran under: Sobering Advice to Rape Victim. I'm not even kidding. This ran here. Because lame, judgmental puns are FUN, dammit!)

Dear Amy: I recently attended a frat party, got drunk and made some bad decisions.

I let a guy take me to "his" room because he promised that he wouldn't do anything I wasn't comfortable with.

Many times, I clearly said I didn't want to have sex, and he promised to my face that he wouldn't.

Then he quickly proceeded to go against what he "promised." I was shocked, and maybe being intoxicated made my reaction time a bit slow in realizing what was happening.

We were soon kicked out of the room by the guy who lived there, who was pretty angry.

I guess my question is, if I wasn't kicking and fighting him off, is it still rape?

I feel like calling it that is a bit extreme, but I haven't felt the same since it happened.

Am I a victim?



-- Victim? in Virginia

Dear Victim?: First of all, thank you. I hope your letter will be posted on college bulletin boards everywhere.

Were you a victim? Yes.

First, you were a victim of your own awful judgment. Getting drunk at a frat house is a hazardous choice for anyone to make because of the risk (some might say a likelihood) that you will engage in unwise or unwanted sexual contact.

You don't say whether the guy was also drunk. If so, his judgment was also impaired.

No matter what -- no means no. If you say no beforehand, then the sex shouldn't happen. If you say no while its happening, then the sex should stop.

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network Web site (rainn.org):

"Alcohol and drugs are not an excuse -- or an alibi. The key question is still: Did you consent or not? Regardless of whether you were drunk or sober, if the sex is nonconsensual, it is rape. However, because each state has different definitions of "nonconsensual," please contact your local center or local police if you have questions about this. (If you were so drunk or drugged that you passed out and were unable to consent, it was rape. Both people must be conscious and willing participants.)"

Go to your college's health department to be tested for STDs and pregnancy. See a counselor to determine how you want to approach this. You must involve the guy in question in order to determine what happened and because he absolutely must take responsibility and face the consequences for his actions, just as you are prepared to do. He may have done this before.

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Oh my fucking god, really? Really? I can't even begin to say how many things are wrong with this response. 'Amy' says that, yes, the girl was raped and then turned around and blamed it on her drinking. I.... This makes me want to punch 'Amy' in the face. Repeatedly. She blames the victim and then tells the girl to approach her rapist to confirm that he raped her. Because he obviously won't either deny it or try to silence her.

The 'advice' can be found HERE. Please send this woman hate mail. I'm not even kidding. I usually don't advocate that kind of action, but to say this in print to a young woman, plus all of the other women who read this....

Rape is never the victim's fault, nor is it about sex. It's about control, and for this woman to print this and call it 'advice'....

.

Comments

[little-ozzo.livejournal.com]

Your Brit Lit teacher and my American Gothic professor sound like they'd really get on. We had Edgar Allan Poe mentioned in just about every single seminar and lecture, even when we'd finished studying the Gothic and moved on to completely unrelated literature!

Your maths teacher sounds like a total shitbag, with no idea of respect, rights, or rational thought. I am incredibly sorry that someone made you a victim of long-term abuse, there's no excuse for it and it makes me extremely angry to think that someone I know has been put through something like that. You do seem like a very strong person, and your anger at this shows how you've managed to use your experience to form very positive views on the subject of victim-blame - i.e. it shouldn't exist - and that's not an easy thing to do! *hugs*

I didn't mean at all to criticise your wording - it's too bad the internet doesn't have inflection, LOL! It's just something that bugs me, because it's so individually defensive even if it is well-intentioned - and some of my irritation comes from the fact that I don't notice it at first. My instinct is to go, "That's nice, good on them!" and then I think and realise that I shouldn’t have that response, that it's all part of how society has instilled in everyone (including myself in some ways, despite growing up in quite a liberal family) this belief that men are stronger and women are weaker. Even though I don't believe that, there are these little attitudes that permeate my outlook just because this is still a world where men are seen as the stronger race - and I catch myself thinking things that are ingrained in me, but that I know aren't right.

Physically, women are not as fast, or as strong, and their emotions work in different ways, but that does not make us prey. Those things are not liabilities, and they certainly do not, as the theory that we are all "temptresses" implies, make us deserving of rape.

I think the thing is, if she were to issue some sort of statement - preferably with a retraction and an apology to the victim she wrongly assigned blame to - that said she realised she had made some grave errors in her judgement on printing this article, and that she obviously needed to think very hard about exactly why what she said was wrong, then I think it would be okay to back off. But as a 50 year old woman whose job is to offer advice, she really needs to make sure that she doesn't just get defensive, and that she really tries to make sure that her advice is good.

I half think that she printed the article to be controversial - that "Sobering advice for rape victim!" title makes me think she was trying to make a point. I just don’t think she had any clue how harmful making that - invalid - point could have on a girl who is a victim, and in no way of her own actions and judgement. Yes, going into a room, alone, with a guy who wants sex while you do not and are in a physically vulnerable situation, is inadvisable - but that is not a situation that should inevitably lead to rape. It is entirely the man's responsibility not to rape her. God, this makes me furious.

[glacialphoenix]

The TITLE was "Sobering advice for rape victim?!"

That's fucking insensitive. It's always unwise to get drunk, but it's insensitive on top of playing blame-the-victim, and what makes it ten times worse is that this is supposed to be 'advice'.

[little-ozzo.livejournal.com]

I know, right?! The thing is, that title also makes me think she was half doing it just to be a bit controversial, you know (although I still think she's just missing some vital cords between her brain and her fingers/mouth too) and that makes it worse; that she's willing to publicly place blame on a victim for the sake of a snappy headline.

And seriously: this is her job. To give advice, presumably good advice. I'm pretty sure she has failed to meet that specific criteria of her job description. And the thing is, yeah, she was drunk, and getting to a stage of durnkenness where you may not realise that a situation is becoming dangerous isn't advisable - it's also not illegal. Or rape.

Your icon fits this perfectly! :-)

[glacialphoenix]

The icon's actually me in my White Mage costume. It comes with a hammer slightly taller than I am (I'm about 162 cm.) I sincerely wished I could use it on her, and then I calmed down after venting.

I can't get over the fact that she adds that the guy's judgement may have been impaired. Yeah, it might have been, but the damn responsibility's still all his. HE committed a crime after he repeatedly reassured the girl that he wouldn't have sex with her, which pretty much sums up the whole issue for me.

(There was another poster who said that the advice column could be worse, and I agree - there are worse 'advice' columnists out there, but that doesn't excuse this particular one. I seriously hope she didn't make it worse for the poor girl.)

[little-ozzo.livejournal.com]

Venting does help a lot! The costume is very cool!

That bit irked me a lot too - because it was kind of like she was saying to the girl that the incident was more her fault because ,i.she had been drinking, but less his fault if he had been drinking. I don't see the logic in that. It's double standards.

You're so right, there are lots of awful advice columns around, and lots of people who have these views on rape and instinctively blame the victim - not always maliciously, just because they haven't thought about the issue beyond the general attitudes society has taught them to have - but Amy Dickinson posted her "advice" in a public forum in a way that could have been very damaging to the girl who originally asked the question, so she pretty much brought all this negative attention on herself. She shouldn't have any excuses. Hopefully the girl read the responses to the post and hasn't taken the blame on herself. :-)

And then it got worse:

[snowdarkred.livejournal.com]

Amy defends herself

I'm going to go throw plates at a wall now. BRB.