ARRGH

Posted on by vivsterNZ (she/her) in Uncategorized

No means No!TRIGGER WARNING

So the slight irony here is that my previous post was entitled “Glad to be home”. Since then, we’ve had the entire Roastbuster’s story (see links below) and lots and lots in all sorts of popular media about rape and what it means.

Then this morning I see a link about “Anti-Rape wear”!

ARRGH

Effectively, AR Wear is trying to get indigogo funding to create ‘anti-rape’ pants! Because obviously, if the rapist can’t get into your pants, they can’t rape you. (Sarcasm added by me)

I won’t go over all the things wrong with this. Alexandra Brodsky at Feministing has already done this for me, but I will say that this is just a mere symptom of a greater problem. The problem being that it is consistently and constantly the victim’s fault that they have been raped.

They were drunk, they were drugged, they were young, they were too sexy, they were there.

I’ve had this argument more than once. Why are we not teaching our boys not to rape, why do we insist of “teaching” the girls how to “avoid rape”? (yes I know definitely that boys get raped too, but the tawdry meager stats that we do have show that the majority of the reported assaults are male assaults female, so I’m gonna use those pronouns) Someone said to me once that “just because it’s not your fault, doesn’t make it not your problem”. I do believe that. It is a problem, and it is ALL our collective faults.

It starts with the gender based marketing that I’ve already written loads about.

It starts with allowing aggressive toddler boys to get away with what aggressive toddler girls would not be allowed to get away with – Boys will be boys

It ends with the general public despairing that anything can be done about it.

I don’t know how it ends. I don’t know why I can’t feel safe running in my neighbourhood at night.

I do know that I am raising my two boys to respect people no matter who they are. That everyone is to be treated the way that you wish to be treated yourself. It is a common childhood phrase that is all too often forgotten in this day and age. If the rapist stopped to think, “Now if that was me, passed out on the couch, would I want be be raped”, then perhaps the outcome would be different.

Just perhaps.

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