It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing
There are two types of people:
- People who strongly believe that when a woman gets sexually assaulted or raped, she contributed to it in some way, by wearing (or doing) something.
- People who think this is completely wrong and can’t understand why anybody would think like that.
Unfortunately, there are way more people in the first group and if you happen to fall in this category, this article is my attempt at explaining why it’s wrong and dangerous to think this way.
It’s also important to note that nothing I intend to say here is new. Women have been providing these (counter) arguments to that school of thought for as long as I can remember.
1. Women are raped a lot even when they’re completely covered up.
Nuns are assaulted & raped. Even the pope admits it. There are many, many instances of this happening. All you need to do is google.
Women in hijabs and burkas are raped too. A lot.
You know who else gets raped too? Babies and children.
2. When men get raped…
“His jeans were too tight.”
“He shouldn’t have been walking around shirtless.”
These are things you NEVER hear. Ever. Why is that? Why is it that when men are sexually assaulted, we don’t blame their clothing (or anything else they do)?
3. Would you leave your door unlocked?
There’s this common analogy people use to justify blaming women’s clothing for their own assault. It goes something like this:
“If you wouldn’t leave your door unlocked for robbers to get into your house, then why would you dress in a scantily clad manner…”
Locking the doors & gates of your home actually physically prevents robbers from gaining access. If there’s a large, extremely secure gate blocking the entrance to your home, then there’s not much a potential interloper can do.
Clothes on the other hand, don’t physically prevent rape; unlike gates, doors & security systems, they’re easily torn/removed.
It’s very likely that a robber could get to your gate, realise it’d electrocute him, and give up the mission. I find it hard to believe that someone with every intention of raping would abort mission because of some clothes. Clothes simply aren’t a barrier of any sort.
It’s a bit silly to equate something that actually physically prevents robbery to clothes that prevent nothing both physically & mentally (because, like I said in point 1, women are still raped no matter how well covered they are.)
One may say that the argument isn’t that clothes physically prevent rape, but the lack of covering might invite rape in the same way that a thief will be tempted to rob an unlocked car.
The premise is that, the more scantily clad a woman is, the more sexually aroused her (potential) attacker will be.
Let us assume that you, the reader, are not a thief. Would you steal a car merely because it’s unlocked? Would you rob a restaurant because you’re hungry and can smell food from it’s kitchen? If you’re not already a thief (deep within your heart), I can’t imagine that you would.
If you won’t steal from a rich person, wearing a flashy expensive watch just because they’re alone in a room with you, then it makes no sense to justify rape because a woman was alone with a man wearing a short skirt.
Following this train of thought, it’s clear that rape, which is very much a robbery of the victim’s autonomy and humanity, has nothing to do with their clothing or actions.
The person that makes rape happen is the rapist. No one else. The same way the only person that makes a robbery happen is the thief. That’s why all the critique, punishment and behaviour changing should be focused on the rapist.
This brings me to a much broader point.
Stop telling women how to avoid being raped.
“Don’t go out at night” , “Don’t hang out with men you don’t know” — despite the fact that most rapes happen within a woman’s home. Most rapists are husbands, uncles, brothers & close friends. The men that we like to believe are the protectors.
“Don’t dress like you want it” — Like there’s any situation in which a woman would want to be raped. Despite the fact that men rape women no matter what they wear. Despite the fact that men rape other men, little girls and babies who aren’t wearing “sexy clothing”.
And so and so forth.
For one, women already operate with a lot of caution. Talk to the women around you, ask them about the many calculations and preventive measures they take just to walk on the street. Ask them how afraid they are to be in a bus with just men.
Secondly, all this “advice” doesn’t actually stop rape from happening. It didn’t save nuns from being raped. It didn’t save the woman who never goes out at night. It didn’t save the secondary school girl. Or male victims. Or the two year old child.
What it does however is make life easier for the rapists. In the process of focusing our efforts on telling the victims what they should have done, we’re further emboldening the transgressor — for he now thinks that it’s her fault for getting raped.
So let’s stop victim blaming. Let’s focus our energies where they should be; shaming & punishing men for rape.
Let us raise a generation of men (and women) that don’t give victims a hard time, while essentially enabling actual rapists.
