What do you think of this article re. rape?

What’s new about it? Drinking to excess in prima facie dangerous when done in intoxicating amounts. This article doesn’t state anything particularly new. It restates that women should be cautious about how much they drink – nothing earthshaking there.

Drinking too much doesn’t excuse men from their actions, and it shouldn’t excuse women from theirs.

It’s an expected side-effect of alcohol prohibition. Parents should sit down and teach their children what alcohol is and how to handle it. Nobody should go out drinking and not know how to drink.

Yoffe gives unrealistic and, as usual, bad advice. Girls don’t have to stop drinking, but they should be taught how to set sensible limits on their drinking.

I read the article when it first appeared on Slate and was dismayed. Despite her assertions to the contrary, Yoffe does blame the victim. Women should not have to fear constantly that they may be the prey for men.

Rape is wrong. Always. And the perpetrator should be the one to blame.

Here are Seek’s Partying Tips for Responsible Revellers

1) only drink stuff that tastes good. If you’re drinking with getting drunk as goal one, you’re going to drink too much too fast. Enjoy your booze slowly.

2) spring for top shelf. Not only will it taste better (see #1) but it will cost more, so you won’t buy as much, and you’ll drunk slower.

3) stave off hangovers by alternating alcoholic drinks with glasses of water.

4) whether or not you need a designated driver, have a control person. That is someone who you trust to keep tabs on you. I either use my hubby or another big, scary male friend. I don’t necessarily need protecting, but it’s nice to know someone has my back.

5) never drink alone where yu’re a stranger. Whenever I’m out and drinking, I’m either with a large crowd of close friends, or in my local watering hole. Someone near me would notice and correct suspicious activity immediately.

In general, avoid cheap tasteless alcohol and keep close friends nearby. You’ll have more fun and won’t end up walking in front of a car, then rotting for a week in a coroners office before they identify your drunk arse.

I didn’t think as much about this article as the predictable feminist responses to it.

This article is just a prescription for safety not a admonishment to equality. Feminists from Salon to Slate itself and even Newsweek jumped on this article as ” victim blaming. ”

The real world intrudes on feminist fantasy. Women are vulnerable, especially women who drink to extremes, what the article was talking about, ( this was misinterpreted, I think deliberately, as tell women they can not drink ) and one would not leave the keys in one’s car, leave one’s door unlocked or go into a very high crime are at night either Unless one was courting disaster. That is all this article says; be safe, not sorry. No blame, just responsible behavior.

Some of the feminist backlash said; : don’t tell women not to drink, teach men not to rape. ”

That works only to the degree that one could teach people not to steal, kill, drive drunk, rob and other assorted crimes. Teaching can make inroads into these behaviors, which are mostly men’s behaviors, but are prisons are full of those that did not take to teaching in anything very well

This is a very subtle version of ‘blaming the victim’. Men/boys/athletes should have enough respect for girls/women to NOT rape them. Unless they become “Serial Rapists” ... our society usually allows men/boys/athletes to get away with rape (it is a typical ‘Double Standard’). Women are blamed when rape happens to them, but the men/boys/athletes are not blamed.

Yep, while the pointers may be good advice, still smacks of blaming the victim.

Ignore rape for a second.

The advise is good for a bunch of reasons. It’s nice to get home, instead of lost on the subway. We recently lost a friend who had a few drinks, and tripped on the sidewalk, splitting his head open on the curb. 26 years old, dead.

If you’re going to choose to drink, you should do so in such a way as to minimize any risk you reasonably can. I don’t think anyone should drink alone, regardless of sex or gender.

Without any victim blaming, it is idiotic to suggest that anyone, male of female, doesn’t put themselves at risk by becoming falling down drunk in public. Men are not immune. Not only can they fall in front of oncoming trains or walk into traffic, they may get raped, or they may commit a rape without even realizing what they are doing is wrong till they sober up.

That doesn’t forgive men who take advantage of a drunken woman or man. No question we have a male self-control problem today, and victim blaming is just a symptom of that, an attempt by the guilty to deflect blame from where it belongs. But even if we are able to get all young males to behave responsibly, getting falling-down drunk in public without a trusted partner to keep you safe is courting disaster.

This rebuttal to Yoffe is appropriate.

“But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them.”

Yeah right. Ever since my childhood, before I even knew what sex was, there’s been one message after another about how to protect myself from predatory men. From the get-go, girls are surrounded by concerned adults who tell us to watch out. It starts with “never talk to strangers,” which is sensible safety advice given to any child. As you get older, the advice gets more gendered and more specific. Something that was originally gender-neutral, like “don’t talk to strangers,” weighs differently for girls. It’s the first of many pieces of advice like this, until avoiding threats from men just becomes background noise. Boys grow out of these safety issues; girls don’t. Taking precautions against sexual violence is a mundane part of my everyday life. Usually, I don’t consciously think about it.

My friends and I learned to travel in groups, watch for people following us, and to dress conservatively unless we wanted male attention. Later, it’s stuff like “never leave your drink unattended at a party,” having your keys in hand when you walk to your car, traveling through well-lit and well-populated areas, or making sure someone knows your travel plans, if you are traveling alone.

Yeahhh, she’s so concerned, and this is valuable new infomation that will save many women from being raped.

When’s the last time you saw a preachy article like this, directed at young men? Or heard of a parent teaching their son how to grow up and not rape somebody? (Remember: girls are taught how to avoid rape long before we have any clue what that is, or what sex is.)

The now-deleted reddit rape thread was full of anonymous stories from the POV of the rapist. A few quotes still exist in this article, and they’re telling.

The common thread in these is how little the perpetrator reflects on what happened.

The people writing these can explain what they did, and it stops there. When it comes to “why,” they rationalize everything in a way that absolves them of responsibility. They seem to feel guilty afterward, but in the moment they failed to have the empathy that would keep them from raping. And they make excuses for their actions.

It’s a lot harder to teach someone respect, empathy, and responsibility than it is to teach basic safety maneuvers. And society has been policing women’s sexuality for time out of memory. There’s a mountain of preachy advice to women, about keeping ourselves safe and not acting slutty. The problem is; that still doesn’t guarantee your safety.

I’ve almost never seen equivalent advice to men about not being a shitty person. Again, girls are taught to avoid rape long before we know what we are avoiding, and it becomes part of a lifetime of safety precautions. I can’t imagine anything like that for boys, that would give them a foundation from childhood. The goal should be the same for both, avoiding rape. Nobody teaches young men how not to become a rapist.

@Hawaii_Jake Great article; thanks for posting.

@Hawaii_Jake

No it isn’t.

It’s title tells me that it confuses a prescription for caution with an admonishment of blame.

” And so begins Yoffe’s entreaty that women stop drinking alcohol so that men will stop raping them. ”

This is as far as I needed to go into this ” rebuttal. ” Yoffe said no such thing and this type of misinterpretation ( dare I say outright lie? ) just shows ideologues will go to any length to defend the ideology. They can not be convinced either way by the evidence.

@Haleth

” I’ve almost never seen equivalent advice to men about not being a shitty person ”

It is all over the place but not all men are listening, nor are all men ( and some women ) listening to admonishments about stealing, murdering, thieving, cheating and all the other problems we have in the real world.

For ideological reasons you would have us not warn vulnerable people? Make no mistake about it, women are vulnerable to evil men and that is the fact ideology tries to cover up. Women are the more vulnerable sex and it is right that we give them more precautionary training. In the meantime we try to get men not to do as men sometimes will do, but we realize only so much can be done here just as so much can be done for other male transgressions.

You should _not teach your children to do all the prudent things because if any one victimizes them it is the fault of the victimizer not theirs_ They will be taklen to court and they might end up getting penalized for it, or not. Anyone who says this article is blaming the victim is saying that in other words.

….“The problem is; that still doesn’t guarantee your safety.” from @Haleth
No one is talking about guarantees, nothing is ever guaranteed in life, this is about cutting down the odds by a ton.

Third paragraph from the article:
”Let’s be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them. Young women are getting a distorted message that their right to match men drink for drink is a feminist issue.”

Here
is her response to her critics by the way.

@Neodarwinian “For ideological reasons you would have us not warn vulnerable people?”

It seems like you understood the actual words I wrote, but purposely missed the boat on the meaning. My argument is that women live in a world where there is an over-abundance of warnings, to the point that in a rape, the victim’s behavior is called into question. And that hardly any attention is given to preventing rape from the male perspective- that is the real, tragic problem and the gist of my argument.

Women are taught all about rape. Over a lifetime, I’ve gotten so many precautionary lessons about keeping myself safe from men, that it has become an unthinking part of my everyday life. Women act to keep themselves safe every day, and constantly weigh their safety risks. I highly doubt that thinking about rape prevention is a part of men’s everyday lives. It’s seen as a female problem, even though almost all of the perpetrators are men. Rape is just as much of a men’s problem.

If men were taught equivalent lessons about respecting women from an early age, there wouldn’t be so much rape. The lack of focus on men in rape prevention is just totally baffling. It’s as if there were a huge, society-wide problem of pedestrians constantly getting hit by cars. And instead of teaching people to be better drivers and stay off the sidewalk, we teach pedestrians to constantly be on the lookout for cars, everywhere they go, and that if they get hit by a car it’s kind of their fault for not being careful enough.

My “ideological” position isn’t some fluffy feminist fantasy. I just want there to be less violence against women. That’s something that, hopefully, everyone wants. Teaching women rape prevention tactics is great, but violence against women doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Men are committing most of that violence. Without some sort of education for men- anything would be a start- it just doesn’t work.

Iwill tell anyone that it is dangerous to get drunk in public with people that may potentially hurt you.

You may get robbed, into a fight, raped, or worse. This advice should be given to men and women.

And stop blaming the victim! This article may be on the border of that.

So, for arguments sake,

Would it have been ok if the article had been addressed to both men and women?

That is, ‘Hey folks. Ease up on the binging or bring a babysitter, so you don’t rape anyone and/or get raped. Or fall down a flight of stairs. Or wake up in jail. Or fall off a subway platform.

To me, the goal of the article was pretty clearly, ‘Ladies, if you drink a lot alone, bad shit can happen to you. So be fucking smart about your partying.’

I’m not sure the fact she did not also direct the article at men automagically makes it discriminatory. It’s just an article written for women. It sounds a lot like bitching about a Playboy article not also addressing lesbians and bisexual women. It’s just not written for them. Big deal.

” My argument is that women live in a world where there is an over-abundance of warnings, to the point that in a rape, the victim’s behavior is called into question. ”

Non sequitur. It does not follow always that this is the case and more and more it is not the case.

” If men were taught equivalent lessons about respecting women from an early age, there wouldn’t be so much rape. ”

Many to most are. I was. Many to most are taught not to steal too, but look at the crime rates here. Not all get the message. Seems there is a wide disconnect in your argument here and one then sees the ideology you have been taught.

” we teach pedestrians to constantly be on the lookout for cars, ”

We do do that because cars are very heavy and pedestrians are not!! It is not their fault if they are in the right, but it is everyone’s responsibility to be smart and not insist on right one can not have in the real world; pedestrians and women. Men are very strong on average and women are not. Do you not see you ideological blindness here?

” Without some sort of education for men- anything would be a start- it just doesn’t work. ”

We have been over this and you are basically wrong. Men are educated not to transgress on the rights of women, but they are also educated not to do many other things also. Some still do and if you can not get you head out of the ideological set then we have nothing further to say to one another.

@elbanditoroso @Seek_Kolinahr @ETpro @Neodarwinian Thank goodness for your posts!