Victim Blaming & Women's Safety
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 10:13 pm
Saw this article on the BBC today and it got me thinking:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45809169
Yes - in an ideal world women should be able to walk down dark alleyways late at night and listen to music and so on because they're not doing anything wrong, so telling them to take precautions gets some people up in arms that "we should be stopping men from attacking them" but when I was reading that I was thinking I'm a fairly big bloke and I avoid walking down dark alleyways late at night and I don't listen to music through head phones when it's dark and there are few people about because I'm concerned for my own safety and am worried about being attacked
Maybe I'm not concerned about being sexually attacked but I'm still concerned about being robbed or beaten up or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I take "common sense" precautions.
(I grew up in Glasgow and have been jumped and bottled purely because I was walking near a football stadium late at night and some guys assumed I was a fan of that football club - I wasn't)
When they find out how to make everyone be nice to each other that will be a fantastic day, but in the interim I don't think that suggesting that people take "common sense" precautions is victim blaming. It just seems like common sense to me.
But maybe I'm in the wrong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45809169
Yes - in an ideal world women should be able to walk down dark alleyways late at night and listen to music and so on because they're not doing anything wrong, so telling them to take precautions gets some people up in arms that "we should be stopping men from attacking them" but when I was reading that I was thinking I'm a fairly big bloke and I avoid walking down dark alleyways late at night and I don't listen to music through head phones when it's dark and there are few people about because I'm concerned for my own safety and am worried about being attacked
Maybe I'm not concerned about being sexually attacked but I'm still concerned about being robbed or beaten up or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I take "common sense" precautions.
(I grew up in Glasgow and have been jumped and bottled purely because I was walking near a football stadium late at night and some guys assumed I was a fan of that football club - I wasn't)
When they find out how to make everyone be nice to each other that will be a fantastic day, but in the interim I don't think that suggesting that people take "common sense" precautions is victim blaming. It just seems like common sense to me.
But maybe I'm in the wrong.