Why does victim blaming exist? It's as rampant as ever, but when you stop and think about it, it's hopelessly illogical. And yet it swirls around the murky comment sections of almost every online debate regarding sexual harassment or rape.
For those unfamiliar with the term, "victim blaming" is exactly what it sounds like - blaming the victim in any instance of a crime or violation. "If you didn't want to get mugged, you shouldn't have walked down that alley" is a good example. Currently, the term is almost synonymous with instances of rape and sexual assault. "She was asking for it wearing that skirt" or "if she didn't want to have sex she shouldn't have been so flirty" are tame versions of some of the comments you might hear when such cases crop up, with the worst going so far as something like "she secretly wanted it because everyone knows she's a slut."
All of these are horrible, but why do they exist? What constructive purpose does victim blaming serve? Are there really so many awful people willing to condemn someone who has just undergone something traumatic? Personally I don't think so, so I would like to propose a possible explanation that is far less nefarious.
I believe it's simple. I think it all boils down to fear.
I think people are scared. I think people are afraid to admit that something like rape happens on a horrifyingly regular basis, because admitting it would be admitting that the world by extension can be a rather horrible and scary place. That's something a lot of people frankly aren't ready to accept just yet (if ever) because it would be admitting that they themselves might not be safe.
There's a wonderful speech at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (correct me if I'm wrong on this, I sometimes get the movies confused) where Dumbledore is talking to Harry in his dorm room just after a climactic battle with Voldemort. Dumbledore says to Harry, "There will soon come a time where people will have to decide between what is right . . . and what is easy." In the case of victim blaming in rape cases, what is right is admitting that sometimes terrible things happen to good people and that the world isn't always safe, especially if you're a girl; what is easy is to deny that the world can be terrible and scary by denying such things happen, and the easiest way to deny an accusation is to discredit the accuser.
When I was in elementary school, we had a presentation about the dangers of drunk driving. We watched a video that had interviews with a woman who had been hit by a drunk driver. The resulting accident trapped her in her car, which caught fire. At the risk of sounding insensitive, the physical damage as a result of her burns was horrifying. It left me deeply disturbed, and my mind's initial reaction was to say that such things weren't possible. I tried to convince myself it was all a show, that it was all makeup and special effects for the sake of making a very effective PSA, but that was just my mind playing mental gymnastics for one purpose: I didn't want to admit that something so horrible could happen to someone.
It goes beyond simply admitting that bad things happen, unfortunately, especially when further implications arise. The startlingly high statistics of rape and harassment towards women are symptoms of a predominantly patriarchal society with misogynistic tendencies, but a lot of people are very comfortable with current society, and would therefore fear anything that threatens established norms (one only needs to look at the GamerGate incident to see this in microcosm). Admitting that things are bad also means admitting that things should change, which I would say the majority of people are very adverse to, especially if it requires any degree of work on their part. The easy solution therefore becomes to deny such problems exist, and by extension, deny any evidence of a problem.
As Dumbledore indicates to young Harry, it's easier for people to deny that evil exists (exemplified by the fact that Voldemort for the first half of the series is referred to as "He Who Must Not Be Named") because admitting it also means recognition that it must be subsequently fought, which is a frightening prospect. Likewise, it is especially difficult to admit that celebrities or people in positions of power are guilty of crimes (be it sexual assault or otherwise) because it means acknowledging that a figure that some might have idolized was not the beacon of light once thought. It was easier to deny Bill Cosby was a rapist (until the evidence became too overwhelming) because otherwise we would be destroying a fixture of American pop culture that many people grew up with, in the same way it's difficult to admit that John Lennon was an abusive man because it would taint the legacy of his music.
We build mental templates for ourselves to make us feel safe, and these templates have very rigid specifications that must be met before many of us are willing to recognize something for what it is. We have an idea of what an abusive relationship is so that if the one we're in becomes abusive or unhealthy, we can compare it to our template and say "it might not be great, but at least it's not that." We do the same for words. The word "rape" conjures up so many negative things - feelings of betrayal, violence, devastation, trauma - that unless something fits with the exact criteria we design in our heads, we just deny it. Most people think of rape as something that happens in a dark alley at knife-point, not something that happens in a dorm room after a girl has drank too much to properly say "no." People don't want to admit that something that we associate such horrible things with could happen easily and often. Even worse, no one wants to think that they could be a criminal, and so the boy in the dorm room makes excuses, saying "she wanted it" or "why would she drink so much if she didn't know what could happen?" because the fear of admitting they are a rapist is too terrifying.
And so this fear manifests as denial. We find excuses so we don't have to admit that the university we went to has a sexual harassment problem; we make excuses so we don't have to admit a high school football star is actually a criminal; we make excuses so we don't have to admit a celebrity who was a big part of our childhood was secretly a monster.
It's easier to discredit the victim, because at the end of the day, everyone is more afraid for themselves.
Welcome to Luke's Thought Bubble
Wednesday 25 February 2015
Thursday 12 February 2015
Advocacy and Anger: A Dangerous Mix
Social media is a wonderful tool for anyone with a cause to preach; no longer is someone striving for social justice relegated to an underground forum, doing their best to raise awareness through demonstrations, marches, or whatever else people did in the fifties. The world is instantly accessible, and the Internet has become one of the best tools for any advocate or social justice warrior.
There is, however, a big obstacle that advocacy soldiers need to overcome: anger.
Their own, to be precise.
I was lightly involved in advocacy work back in my more youthful days, mostly as just a volunteer. Most of my work centered around feminist campaigns, and overall it was a very eye-opening experience that I'm glad I was a part of. That's not to say it was all smiles and sunshine, however, and to say there were clashes with some of the people I was involved with would be a massive understatement (which is why I tend not to be very involved these days).
Those "clashes" tended to crop up around the more elitist of advocates that I encountered, the sort of people who would condemn me for having a private discussion with friends in which an off-color joke was uttered. Frankly, it became too off-putting to deal with. I was all for helping a cause, but when the people I was involved with started playing Thought Police to my personal Facebook page, that's when it transformed from passionate cause to stressful burden. I was fully supportive of the ideals and notions these people were advocating, but it was the people themselves that grew too difficult to deal with. And since most of the work I was involved with revolved around feminism (which is becoming quite the buzzword these days) we might as well start there.
Feminism is such a basic and primordial idea that it's even bizarre to think we live in a world where we still have to campaign for it. Feminism is simply the idea that women should be treated as equally as men in all matters of life. That's it. Ask almost anyone if they believe in this and they'll agree, but ask if they're a feminist, and good luck keeping track of the responses you get. "Feminism" is still a bit of a dirty word, and is full of negative associations (like "angry feminist" or "femi-Nazis"). But why did these associates crop up in the first place?
Well, the first thing I think we need to understand is that feminists are people too, and the thing about people is that they can be very angry and egocentric. And on the other side of the fence, people often correlate unrelated things and make unwarranted associations, which is why encountering one angry advocate could turn you off their cause, even if their cause is still a valid and worthy one.
Let me explain it better with a story . . .
Many, many months ago, I was pursuing online dating. During that time I began speaking with someone whom we'll call "Girl-X" for the sake of this article. Girl-X was a very outspoken feminist, and she was excited when I told her that I had dabbled in a bit of advocacy work in years past. We talked for a little while, and it became obvious that she was very emboldened and passionate, which I respected. Then she shared something which threw up many red flags.
You see, Girl-X was also very angry (which anyone who's dealt with misogyny has every right to be) and she'd also encountered a guy online who self-identified as a "women-hater." Girl-X concocted a plan to create a fake online profile, get close to this man, learn his identity and his secrets, then expose him. She shared this information with me because she wanted to be honest with me, and then asked if I thought she was crazy. This is when I had to have a very real talk with her . . .
I told her that because of my experience with advocacy, I understood that she was just angry. Unequal pay, cat calls, sexual objectification - these are things women have to deal with regularly, and so her anger was justified. She wanted someone to pay, and this guy seemed like a ripe target. She thought she would be doing the world a favour by outing him. That's perfectly understandable . . . to someone like me who has experience with her cause. But to anyone else who isn't familiar, like say, the general population, it would come across as certifiably bat-shit insane. I convinced her to stop with her elaborate plan based on one irrefutable fact:
Anger solves nothing. And in the case of advocacy, it hurts it.
To me, she was just an angry girl. To someone else, she might be a "crazy feminist" and therefore justification to ignore the entire cause. There's a very important rule when it comes to advocacy that I think some advocates ignore: advocacy supports an idea, usually in an attempt to fix a problem . . . but the average person doesn't realize there's even a problem in the first place (or in the worst cases, don't want to admit there's a problem). Feminism is particularly hard fought because unless you've dealt with misogyny first hand, you're probably not going to believe it's an issue worth fighting over, and because most men never have to deal with it, that means that female feminists have to convince the very people responsible for the problem that there is one. This certainly explains why there's such opposition to feminist crusaders (take a look at what happened to poor Anita Sarkeesian) because no one wants to believe that they're secretly responsible for having done something bad.
It thus becomes a heavy burden for advocates because they have to not only attempt to fix a problem, but they need to justify and explain why there's a need to fix it in the first place. The only way you can do this is through education, but when you're so angry at having suffered under a problem (patriarchy, misogyny . . . take your pick) then patience and understanding can go out the window, and suddenly you're just this person that to the general population is attempting to fix a problem no one knew existed.
A perfect analogy is bullying. If you go to a high school and ask someone from a popular crowd if bullying is a problem at their school, they'll probably say no because they've never experienced it personally; it's not a part of their life and therefore they have no reason to believe it's an issue. But if you ask someone who gets the shit beaten out of them daily, the answer will be much different. If you show evidence to the popular person that there's indeed someone getting bullied and thus it is in fact a problem, then you've properly educated them. If, however, you simply run up to them and start saying they need to fix a problem that they don't know exists, you're going to get a lukewarm response. And if you get angry when they fail to accept your campaign because of their ignorance, you've effectively scared them away forever.
You could also say the same about racism. A white person isn't going to have much experience dealing with that sort of prejudice, so if an advocate starts condemning them and preaching about white privilege, then nothing gets solved, and all that's been accomplished is you've deterred a potential supporter away from your cause.
It can be difficult to accept that change is a slow process and that people are often resistant to it. We're a culture obsessed with quick fixes, so our instinct is to push and pull and scream until we accomplish something or get our way; we did it when we were kids, and it's a go-to tactic when we're angry and frustrated. In the grand scheme, however, this only sets us back as a society. It's easy to make associations where they shouldn't be, so if the most vocal member of a cause or movement comes across as angry or furious, then the bridge to the average person just got a whole lot scarier for them to cross.
It's a shitty situation, make no doubt about it. It puts all the pressure for change on the shoulders of victims and people that have suffered enough; you're telling someone seeking justice that they need to be patient and understanding with people who are ignorant and blissfully unaware of the injustices they've faced.
So to all those passionate advocates out there, I implore you to keep your hearts open and accept that fear and ignorance don't equal opposition. And to everyone else, I encourage you to keep your ears and minds open to the experiences of those who have lived a life outside of your own.
There is, however, a big obstacle that advocacy soldiers need to overcome: anger.
Their own, to be precise.
I was lightly involved in advocacy work back in my more youthful days, mostly as just a volunteer. Most of my work centered around feminist campaigns, and overall it was a very eye-opening experience that I'm glad I was a part of. That's not to say it was all smiles and sunshine, however, and to say there were clashes with some of the people I was involved with would be a massive understatement (which is why I tend not to be very involved these days).
Those "clashes" tended to crop up around the more elitist of advocates that I encountered, the sort of people who would condemn me for having a private discussion with friends in which an off-color joke was uttered. Frankly, it became too off-putting to deal with. I was all for helping a cause, but when the people I was involved with started playing Thought Police to my personal Facebook page, that's when it transformed from passionate cause to stressful burden. I was fully supportive of the ideals and notions these people were advocating, but it was the people themselves that grew too difficult to deal with. And since most of the work I was involved with revolved around feminism (which is becoming quite the buzzword these days) we might as well start there.
Feminism is such a basic and primordial idea that it's even bizarre to think we live in a world where we still have to campaign for it. Feminism is simply the idea that women should be treated as equally as men in all matters of life. That's it. Ask almost anyone if they believe in this and they'll agree, but ask if they're a feminist, and good luck keeping track of the responses you get. "Feminism" is still a bit of a dirty word, and is full of negative associations (like "angry feminist" or "femi-Nazis"). But why did these associates crop up in the first place?
Well, the first thing I think we need to understand is that feminists are people too, and the thing about people is that they can be very angry and egocentric. And on the other side of the fence, people often correlate unrelated things and make unwarranted associations, which is why encountering one angry advocate could turn you off their cause, even if their cause is still a valid and worthy one.
Let me explain it better with a story . . .
Many, many months ago, I was pursuing online dating. During that time I began speaking with someone whom we'll call "Girl-X" for the sake of this article. Girl-X was a very outspoken feminist, and she was excited when I told her that I had dabbled in a bit of advocacy work in years past. We talked for a little while, and it became obvious that she was very emboldened and passionate, which I respected. Then she shared something which threw up many red flags.
You see, Girl-X was also very angry (which anyone who's dealt with misogyny has every right to be) and she'd also encountered a guy online who self-identified as a "women-hater." Girl-X concocted a plan to create a fake online profile, get close to this man, learn his identity and his secrets, then expose him. She shared this information with me because she wanted to be honest with me, and then asked if I thought she was crazy. This is when I had to have a very real talk with her . . .
I told her that because of my experience with advocacy, I understood that she was just angry. Unequal pay, cat calls, sexual objectification - these are things women have to deal with regularly, and so her anger was justified. She wanted someone to pay, and this guy seemed like a ripe target. She thought she would be doing the world a favour by outing him. That's perfectly understandable . . . to someone like me who has experience with her cause. But to anyone else who isn't familiar, like say, the general population, it would come across as certifiably bat-shit insane. I convinced her to stop with her elaborate plan based on one irrefutable fact:
Anger solves nothing. And in the case of advocacy, it hurts it.
To me, she was just an angry girl. To someone else, she might be a "crazy feminist" and therefore justification to ignore the entire cause. There's a very important rule when it comes to advocacy that I think some advocates ignore: advocacy supports an idea, usually in an attempt to fix a problem . . . but the average person doesn't realize there's even a problem in the first place (or in the worst cases, don't want to admit there's a problem). Feminism is particularly hard fought because unless you've dealt with misogyny first hand, you're probably not going to believe it's an issue worth fighting over, and because most men never have to deal with it, that means that female feminists have to convince the very people responsible for the problem that there is one. This certainly explains why there's such opposition to feminist crusaders (take a look at what happened to poor Anita Sarkeesian) because no one wants to believe that they're secretly responsible for having done something bad.
It thus becomes a heavy burden for advocates because they have to not only attempt to fix a problem, but they need to justify and explain why there's a need to fix it in the first place. The only way you can do this is through education, but when you're so angry at having suffered under a problem (patriarchy, misogyny . . . take your pick) then patience and understanding can go out the window, and suddenly you're just this person that to the general population is attempting to fix a problem no one knew existed.
A perfect analogy is bullying. If you go to a high school and ask someone from a popular crowd if bullying is a problem at their school, they'll probably say no because they've never experienced it personally; it's not a part of their life and therefore they have no reason to believe it's an issue. But if you ask someone who gets the shit beaten out of them daily, the answer will be much different. If you show evidence to the popular person that there's indeed someone getting bullied and thus it is in fact a problem, then you've properly educated them. If, however, you simply run up to them and start saying they need to fix a problem that they don't know exists, you're going to get a lukewarm response. And if you get angry when they fail to accept your campaign because of their ignorance, you've effectively scared them away forever.
You could also say the same about racism. A white person isn't going to have much experience dealing with that sort of prejudice, so if an advocate starts condemning them and preaching about white privilege, then nothing gets solved, and all that's been accomplished is you've deterred a potential supporter away from your cause.
It can be difficult to accept that change is a slow process and that people are often resistant to it. We're a culture obsessed with quick fixes, so our instinct is to push and pull and scream until we accomplish something or get our way; we did it when we were kids, and it's a go-to tactic when we're angry and frustrated. In the grand scheme, however, this only sets us back as a society. It's easy to make associations where they shouldn't be, so if the most vocal member of a cause or movement comes across as angry or furious, then the bridge to the average person just got a whole lot scarier for them to cross.
It's a shitty situation, make no doubt about it. It puts all the pressure for change on the shoulders of victims and people that have suffered enough; you're telling someone seeking justice that they need to be patient and understanding with people who are ignorant and blissfully unaware of the injustices they've faced.
So to all those passionate advocates out there, I implore you to keep your hearts open and accept that fear and ignorance don't equal opposition. And to everyone else, I encourage you to keep your ears and minds open to the experiences of those who have lived a life outside of your own.
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