Amnesty International reports that one in three people in the UK believe that women who “behave flirtatiously” are responsible for being raped. This is just fucking terrifying.
A new ICM opinion poll commissioned by Amnesty International indicates that a third (34%) of people in the UK believe that a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner.The poll, ‘Sexual Assault Research’, published today (21 November) as part of Amnesty International’s ‘Stop Violence Against Women’ campaign, shows that similar “blame culture” attitudes exist over clothing, drinking, perceived promiscuity, personal safety and whether a woman has clearly said “no” to the man.
For instance, more than a quarter (26%) of those asked said that they thought a women was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing, and more than one in five (22%) held the same view if a woman had had many sexual partners.
Around one in 12 people (8%) believed that a woman was totally responsible for being raped if she’d had many sexual partners.
Similarly, more than a quarter of people (30%) said that a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was drunk, and more than a third (37%) held the same view if the woman had failed to clearly say “no” to the man.
And people have the nerve to ask me why I’m a feminist.
Amnesty spokesman Neil Durkin says in The Guardian, "There's pretty much a rape crisis in this country...It's up to the government to change these attitudes, and look at to what extent they permeate the criminal justice system."
The Guardian also reports that a 2002 study found that one in 20 reports of rape led to conviction, compared to one in three in 1977.
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Good point. It would be interesting to see how the results broke down by demographics, religious beliefs, etc.
also consider that "responsible" can mean several things in this context, not all of them as damning or offensive.
This is tragic, particularly given that the survey was done in an educated western country. However, I am concerned about one part of the article, which notes thats in the UK “Changes in the law relating to consent mean that an alleged rapist must show that they had taken reasonable steps to ensure that the other person had consented to sex.” What happened to innocent until proven guilty? And if two people are drunk, who was responsible for ensuring both parties gave consent?
I just posted about this over on the Cruella blog. You know if I meet someone who has this attitude that women are partly responsible for their onw rapes then I think its at least partly their own fault when I hit them in the face really hard!!
And are men wearing tight jeans and being perhaps a bit too forward responsible for being forcibly sodomized with a broomstick?
The conviction rate for rape here in the UK is something like 5%. It's fucking disgusting.
I'll second JesusJonesSuperstar's request for a breakdown on demographics. I'll bet the respondents were heavily skewed to the Left. The irrationality of these poll results is a direct rebuke to the classic liberal values that were once the core of Liberalism.
Also, the label "feminist" seems to cover a lot of territory - the feminist Norwegian professor of social anthropology, Unni Wikan, has prioritized her feminist ideology behind the need for cultural sensitivity when she remarked
The article does not appear to identify the Prof. as a feminist, nor do the remarks clearly indicate an affiliation with feminism. But given the content of the remarks I fear that the level of thought required to get a PHD is slipping. If a Norwegian woman was to travel to the middle east then logically she could be expected to try not to overly offend their customs or traditions (e.g., dress conservative, not drink). When someone immigrates to your country such as Muslims immigrating to Norway then they must understand and respect the culture they are moving to, which in this case is an open and sexually expressive culture.
This does not give the Muslim men the right to demand or expect Norwegian women to alter their behavior, or to use that behavior as an excuse to commit rape. Although at the same time Muslim women and men should not be expected to dress in a manner they find innapropriate.
Speaking as a man about other men, I find the basic idea that any man or group of men claiming to be so infantile and poorly in control of themselves that a women’s clothing (or lack there off) can make them loose control and create a situation where they must rape her to be cowardly B.S. used to justify frail egos and an unwillingness to address women as equal partners. These guys have the same options as the rest of us, cold showers, pornos etc. Heck, as they live in Norway they also have access to some of the best red light districts in the world. The men who choose to rape do so because they feel threatened and want to assert control in the only way their mind can grasp.
"The conviction rate for rape here in the UK is something like 5%. It's fucking disgusting."
That incidently affects everything.
The DfES (Education Ministry in Britain) are still financing videos advising secrecy in relation to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by teachers.
If each count is 'unsubstantiated' within its own context, a series of allegations by different victims carry little weight.
In other words it is the discredited method used by the Catholic Church.
The concept of 'abuse of trust' is also something completely alien to the British judicial mindset.
For example, I was vilified for suggesting football (the beautiful game) might just have a child abuse epidemic. I was right of course.
A rapist virtually has to self-incriminate to go to prison in the United Kingdom.