Depressing Irish Statistics
Thanks to feministing.com for this link from The Irish Examiner exploring why it is that Ireland has the lowest rape conviction rate in Europe and why only a fraction of rape victims decide to pursue legal action.
According to this article,
* More than 30% think a victim is some way responsible if she flirts with a man or fails to say no clearly.
* 10% of people think the victim is entirely at fault if she has had a number of sexual partners.
* 37% think a woman who flirts extensively is at least complicit, if not completely in the wrong, if she is the victim of a sex crime.
* One in three think a woman is either partly or fully to blame if she wears revealing clothes.
* 38% believe a woman must share some of the blame if she walks through a deserted area.
The results also show that defence barristers, looking to swing the deciding three members in every 12-person jury, can exploit misgivings in certain demographics about the perceived responsibility of female victims.
Dramatic differences in empathy towards victims based on age and social class are revealed. Gender, however, had little impact.
Although this is a discouraging article, at least the issue is getting some attention. The statistics are shockingly bad–but hopefully they can shock people into confronting their own misogynistic and invalid viewpoints about those who are victims of sexual assault.
Filed under: Sexual Violence, international
Dashaway
femmemeister
Bento
One of my co-authors posted about this on my blog, and it sparked a huge debate about rape and victim-blaming. Unfortunately, most of the commentors were certain that women were at least partly to blame if they were raped, and that there is no changing the men who do rape women.
It was very frustrating, but at least these people were thinking about it?
Hi Amelia,
Thanks for your comment, and for being a fellow blogger interested in these issues! Good for you! Your comment has made me think a bit more about the idea of victim-blaming, and whether or not those who are adamant about victim-blaming are willing to participate in intelligent discourse and actually think about the issue.
Dialogue is always a good thing. However, I think that the majority of those who blame survivors of sexual assault are not interested in dialogue and use their attacks on rape victims either as a means to undermine political/social views with which they do not agree or as a means to attack women in general. That is a shame, especially since ending violence should be a goal of all people, regardless of political affiliation.
One of the biggest problems with victim-blaming is that, in addition to making women less likely to come forward or to seek justice through our broken legal system, it skews the rhetoric about violence-prevention in disturbing ways, by placing all responsibility on the female population. Although self-defense classes and teaching people how to protect themselves using practical advice (don’t leave a drink unattended, walk home with a buddy, etc.) can be useful, they also reinforce the notion that women need to be frightened and scared all the time in order to be safe. Men do not need to watch their drinks, but women do. Men do not need to have a woman walk them home at night in order to be considered “intelligent,” but a woman who walks at night without a man is “stupid” or “asking for it.”
Someday, I hope that everyone will understand that sexual assault is not a “women’s problem,” but it is a violence problem, society’s problem, and a men’s problem as well. (To clarify: I don’t mean that all men are to blame, but rather that men need to think actively about this issue and participate in sexual violence prevention as well as women, otherwise nothing will change.)
Thanks for your great comment again!