Feminist Facts About Victim Blaming

“Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality… And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women “cry rape,” that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives.”

Many argue that the victim encourages the behavior, that they are somewhat lesser of a victim. On the other hand, some excuse away the female’s actions by using their past as a reason to offend. Before addressing the double standard society needs to understand why females are viewed as less dangerous, the negative impacts that are placed on their victims, and why male victims are often viewed as responsible for the rape. Danger Level Number of Offenders The most common and most obvious reason why female offenders are considered less dangerous that male offenders are the number of women who actually commit these crimes are far less than their counterparts.

Rape is a crime in which one person forces another person with threats, physical force or deception to have sex or sexual contact. In many cases rape is often through penetration, but victims are submitted to rape under different circumstances, such as oral sex, therefore rape has many muddled definitions. The various definitions of rape is a consequence of different cultural backgrounds and stereotypes. Sexual assaults have an effect on everyone either directly or indirectly, especially when victim blaming. Rape is not biased, for it can occur to any person despite their age, gender, religion, education level, sexual orientation or ethnicity. “According to the Department of Justice the average number of rape cases reported annually is approximately 89,000, but many victims are fearful to report their case to the police, for they do not want to be blamed for their assault.” (The Offender 's) Victim blaming in rape cases is a direct correlation to stereotypes. Some stereotypes that affect victim blaming is sexual orientation, promiscuity, gender roles, and race. “These contributing factors are stemmed from the much larger problem of society 's idea of gender and race stereotypes.” (Gill)

Victim blaming allows criminals to walk free, forces the victims to have children they don't want and leaves torturous psychological damage that follows the victims for the rest of their lives. Blaming rape victims for their experience causes many negative occurrences.

There is presently much controversy regarding acquaintance rape victims and their level of culpability. Benevolent sexists promote the belief that these individuals can actually be blamed for their experiences because they adopted behaviors that were sexually immoral and that influenced the perpetrators to go through with their plans. Barbara Masser, Kate Lee, and Blake M. McKimmie's article "Bad Woman, Bad Victim? Disentangling the Effects of Victim Stereotypicality, Gender Stereotypicality and Benevolent Sexism on Acquaintance Rape Victim Blame" attempts to provide more information in regard to how particular factors might influence acquaintance rape victims.

A fair share of qualitative and quantitative research was conducted in an attempt to adequately address the specific questions that were being asked. All of the research we reviewed used primary data and chose not to utilize secondary data to conduct their experiments, however, several of the studies references secondary data sources when speaking of historical backgrounds of rape and in their discussions. The methods our group has chosen to pay particular interest to are those that were used to gather data from participants at college campuses, as this is the population we wish to further explore. Due to women of college age being at an increased risk for sexual violence, several of the studies we found pursued out this population as well. A study conducted at James Madison University gathered their findings from a participant pool at their university using the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, the Modern and Old-Fashion Sexism Scale, and rape scenarios and questions in which they evaluating participants identification with either the victim or the assailant (12p.242) This study was not alone in using the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale as measure. In fact, of the research reviewed seven other studies utilized the scale in addition to the research done at

Also, “Feminist researchers have criticised the above approaches, suggesting that examining victims’ behaviour for its role in the perpetration of a crime may constitute blaming the victim, thereby holding them responsible for their plight.” (Spalek, B 2006). Feminist would also criticize the way in which the positivist approach uses victim perception to address rape victims. They would argue that this leads to victim blaming and lack of trust within the criminal justice system, this could then results in secondary victimisation.

One way rape victims are handled improperly through the criminal justice system is by victims characteristics. This may include the victim's age, job, risky behavior such as drinking or using drugs. When a victim portrays any of these characteristics, most times it is often thought of that they provoked the offender or made the opportunity easier. This attacks the reputation of the victim, most times this determines whether chargers will be filed or not. This is an accuse for people to blame the victim for her action.

America has a proud history of being a country that has many different ethnicities and cultures living within its borders. But one of the most prevalent cultures is one that transcends race or country of origin, rape culture. The term used by modern day feminist and gender activist defines a culture which normalizes rape and sexual assaults because of the deeply rooted societal attitudes towards gender and sexuality. In a rape culture the instances of rape are accepted as everyday occurrences and even as the prerogative of men, resulting in the stigmatization and blame placing of rape victims. Although the phrase “rape culture” is relatively modern, the

The stereotype of who a typical sexual assault victim is, is also detrimental to abide by as male victims of sexual assault will often fear being blamed and feel emasculated as a result of their victimisation. The continuation of stereotypic types of victims when considering a certain crime can often distort the seriousness of sexual

For most individuals, the thought of blaming the victim of a tragic experience for their own pain and suffering, seems preposterous. However, ascribing at least some of the blame to the victim is not uncommon (Niemi & Young, 2014). Victim blaming refers to individuals finding reasons to hold the victim of an incident responsible for the crime that took place (Hayes, Lorenz & Bell, 2013). For victims of sexual assault, who may already be experiencing self-blame and distrust of others, being blamed adds insult to injury (Harber, Podolski, & Williams, 2015). According to Harber et. al, victim blaming can also have long-term effects on victims, such as, increased anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In an effort to increase support and resources for survivors of sexual assault researchers must determine why individuals are prone to blaming the victims rather than the perpetrator of a crime.

This stems from the stereotypes concerning male sex roles, sexual motivation, and sexual functioning. In our society, sexual assault is a major social problem and researchers are beginning to delve more into the topic. This is because there are significant psychological problems that happen after an assault. One problem is that not much scientific research has been done that has been attentive to male victims and their needs. The researchers hypothesized that a male victim of female sexual assault would be judged as more likely to have encouraged or initiated the assault, less likely to be able to be forced to have sex, more likely to have enjoyed the interaction because of the physical reaction, and less likely to experience high stress from the event.

It has come to my attention that not many know what victim blaming is so I will start with that. Victim blaming is when a victim of sexual harassment, assault, or rape is blamed for being attacked. Victim blaming is a serious thing that is becoming more prominent in society because it has the government's approval and certain celebrities approval. Many believe that people are raped or abused because of what they are wearing, because they drank to much, or because they do not fight back. Although, rape and sexual assault are not the victim's fault many have the audacity to say that people deserve to be raped or they should have worn something longer. If two females are raped and one is 5 and wearing a nightgown and the other is 17 and wearing a short dress; therefore, there is no difference, they were both raped and it did not matter what they were wearing. Victim blaming needs to be forgotten because no matter what a person is wearing, doing, or drinking, it is not their fault and they should not be blamed.

One reason people blame a victim is to distance themselves from a disturbing occurrence and thereby confirm their own invulnerability to the risk. Risk of rape shouldn 't be used as an excuse to control women 's movements and restrict their rights and freedom. The rape of one woman is a reduction, fear, and obstruction to all women. Rape is much much traumatizing when it goes “viral” in social media.Most women and girls restraint their behavior due to the existence of rape. An example of victim blaming attitude is “She must have provoked him into perversion. They both need to change.” which concludes that the victim is to blame for part of abuse while as the abuser is the one with the whole part of blame which contributes to the abusers feeling of power and/or entitlement. It is also NOT the victims responsibility to fix the situation. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do not. Rape culture is maintained through 2chauvinistic language, the substantiation of women’s bodies, and the enhancation of sexual/domestic violence, thereby creating a society that neglects women’s rights and safety. This course of fear is the endowment of Rape Culture.

In the United States rape completely toxic and it’s a dangerous myth. On college campuses where drinking is prevalent, most victims don’t report their assault to the police because of the fear of being blamed for the incident. “A recent National Crime Victimization report showed that only 55% of sexual assaults reported in their survey were reported to the police” (Hayes, Abbott, Cook 2016). Hayes goes on to explain that rape myths are defined as “attitudes and false belief held