Another blog entry, retweeted by skepchicks, along the lines of victim blaming and the problems facing rape victims today. But only when they are female. This really bothers me. The continual claims made that only women are victims or are victimized. I tried to comment on the blog post itself but was unable to do so and as such am making a blog postingof my own.

http://reddyforthis.blogspot.com/2011/07/female-victim-blaming-comments-on-why.html#comment-form

"The video is addressing victim blaming; a female experience. When over 90% of victims are female, it becomes such a statistical rarity (not impossibility, a rarity) that a man is victimized; male victims, who have not been brought up in a culture of being punished for their sexuality, are not within a society that shames them."

The video makes a good point of how people need to be aware of their surroundings and how some women feel about rape. But I disagree with the idea that women are afraid of being raped all the time and that men do not also take care of the situations they are in because of safety issues.

i take more issue with the blog posting itself. One of the problems about claims made like the one quoted above is that rape is not solely an issue for women, neither is the victimization of women following a rape. It may be that the author is restricting their claims to Western society, but such claims, unless qualified by statements of location, are not only misleading but they are harming individuals who badly need help. I would recommend this article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men recently linked to in an earlier post of mine (http://www.skepticrainbows.com/1/post/2011/07/women-are-not-the-only-victims-of-rape.html), about male rape in regions of the world with high levels on conflict and their subsequent victimization. 

I take issue with these types of claims for a number of reasons, even though I am female and have also been a victim. One of the issues is not only that the generalized statements seem to be from a particular cultural perspective, but also fail to take into account men in Western societies who may have been abused as children, with some claims as high as 1 in 5 male children (lower than the 1 in 3 female children, yes, but far from the 90% claim made in this blog) http://www.hccac.org/abuse/myths.html. Or does this not count?  

I am not saying that many of the issues cited in the article are not relevant to feminists. I am saying issues such as rape and sexual abuse are issues for humanity, regardless of gender, and the claims made that seem to suggest otherwise quite rightly deserve criticism.

With all this advice floating around about how guys should behave if they want to get laid, the do's and don'ts of male to female courtship, I thought I, being the fount of all knowledge and having the ability to speak for all women, everywhere (and we all know that women get to dictate to men how they SHOULD behave, after all, we are the ones holding the key to the magical gates of every female vagina and this prize is ONLY awarded to those males deemed worthy and subservient enough to female demands and or emotional perceptions at any particular moment) should grant you all the gift of my bountiful knowledge....

Ready for it?

...

OK, end sarcasm, I couldn't keep it up. :)

Guys, you are going to have to wait a long time for that of information, because in reality there is no right or wrong way to approach women (providing you respect any rejection of said approach and physical boundaries, once a women says NO you DO have to respect that). You see, we are all different. Something that all the bloggers focusing on "educating" or otherwise being condescending to the poor men who "just do not get IT" seem to forget. Different approaches work with different women just as they would with men.

http://skepchick.org/2011/07/update-plus-dating-advice/

While genders disparity and the debate about mysogyny continues, there are some concerning trends in the debate on both sides among the extremists. One of these is the perception that women are constantly in fear of being raped or being victimised and that our whole lives revolve around this and the male privalledge that cushions men against it. Except, it is not true. Women are not victims by nature of being female, not all of us live with this constant fear and men are not immune from being victims of rape or violence. There are battles to be fought for recognition in rape cases, especially with regard to the characterisation of individuals who have been raped and the influence of their sexual behaviour has on whether they can consent or not, but gender biases hurt both men and women. The first article highlights a shocking example about the conseqence of a young woman reporting her rape to the auhorities (http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/07/12/reception-of-rape-victims-silsbee-tx-edition/). This is a problem and the stigma about rape is NOT gender specific, although there may be different ways in which male and female rape is handled, as highlighted in the second artcle (this was linked to in today's Skepchicks quickies) about male rape in war and regions on conflict. It is a difficult read and a possible trigger.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men

Some of the non-graphic quotes from the male rape article that struck me follow.

"Part of the activism around women's rights is: 'Let's prove that women are as good as men.' But the other side is you should look at the fact that men can be weak and vulnerable."

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced $44m to implement this (The UN Security Council Resolution 1325) resolution. Because of its entirely exclusive focus on female victims, it seems unlikely that any of these new funds will reach the thousands of men and boys who suffer from this kind of abuse. Ignoring male rape not only neglects men, it also harms women by reinforcing a viewpoint that equates 'female' with 'victim', thus hampering our ability to see women as strong and empowered. In the same way, silence about male victims reinforces unhealthy expectations about men and their supposed invulnerability"

"As I leave Uganda, there's a detail of a story that I can't forget. Before receiving help from the RLP, one man went to see his local doctor. He told him he had been raped four times, that he was injured and depressed and his wife had threatened to leave him. The doctor gave him a Panadol."