Shakesville’s Melissa McEwan emphatically sets out why victim blaming is not only offensive and dangerous, but entirely wrong-headed:

That’s the thing about rapists, you see. They rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance. The only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck.

Quite literally, the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist. Since they don’t announce themselves or wear signs or glow purple, that’s not a very reasonable expectation, is it?

She backs this conclusion up with a dozen examples of rape cases across the world from the last two days. It makes tough reading, but is worth bookmarking: next time someone tells you that ‘she really should have known better than to walk there at night/put herself on display like that/drink so much vodka’ you can direct them to the voice of reason. Same goes for those who complain that feminism is no longer relevant.

This post at Reclusive Leftist, in which the writer returns from Thanksgiving to news stories of Christian girls being brainwashed into thinking they are the property of their fathers, feminist activists whipped and imprisoned, 11 year olds blamed for being gang raped and 70% of Russian women abused by their husbands, similarly makes the case for feminism, and depressing reading.

Just what you want on a Friday night, I know. Sorry.

Posted by Laura Woodhouse on 14 December 2007, at 8:02 PM