Advertisement
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Aug
15
Victims Do Not “Contribute” To Their Own Rapes
Filed Under assholes, courts, media, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | Posted by Cara |
I’m a little bit late on this, but can’t help but write about it. News has emerged that female rape victims in Britain were having their monetary rewards reduced in cases where they had been drinking at the time of the rape. Their alcohol consumption was considered to be a “contributing factor” in the crime. The “good” news is that one of these cases has now been overturned:
A rape victim who was told her compensation would be cut because she had been drinking before the attack has had the decision overturned.
The 25-year-old, who was raped after a night out, had been told the standard £11,000 award would be cut by 25%.
But her lawyer successfully argued it was wrong to regard alcohol consumption as a contributing factor in rape cases.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority acknowledged its rules had been applied wrongly in 14 other cases.
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was raped five years ago on a night out in the West End of London.
The woman, whose attacker has never been caught, complained to the Metropolitan Police about the way her case was investigated.
As a result of her complaint, she received an official apology and two officers were disciplined.
But when she applied for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA), which covers England, Scotland and Wales, she was told the standard compensation would be cut in her case to £8,250.
The authority told her the reason for the reduction was that “the evidence shows that your excessive consumption of alcohol was a contributing factor in the incident”.
The BBC article explains why these rulings matter, other than the obvious fact that they further ingrain rape apologism and victim-blaming into the community mindset:
Lisa Longstaff, of Women Against Rape, said the original decision by the CICA was symptomatic of the “blame culture” experienced by rape victims.
“It used to be that they were always blamed if they were wearing a short skirt, today it’s that they were drinking,” she said.
“It’s very important for women who’ve been victims of rape to get compensation because often it’s the only acknowledgement you are going to get that you have been a victim of crime, given that the conviction rate in this country is only 6%.”
In other words, women are seeking these awards as a means of resolution, asking simply that it be recognized that what was done to them was wrong. And then they were being told by those courts that what was done to them was wrong, but not really, really wrong. In fact, they were to blame.
The Guardian quotes the rape victim in this case:
[Not reprinting even the woman's first name], a beauty therapist who has not worked since the incident, said: “When I read the CICA letter I just had no words; I could not take it in. It felt like I was being punished for having the audacity to step up and say ‘I don’t think this should have happened to me.’ It was like going back to the 70s, saying ’she was asking for it’. How else could you read the letter but as saying it’s my fault I was raped?”
The sad thing is that the victim and Lisa Longstaff, while right about virtually everything, are wrong on one count. Victim-blaming is not going back to the 70s. And blaming women who are raped when they were wearing a short skirt really isn’t so out of style. This is our world in 2008.
And that is why this story is important. That is why I’m glad that this story is getting mainstream press, but sad that it’s accompanied by proclamations that this is absurd not because it’s profoundly cruel and misogynistic, but because this sort of thing just isn’t supposed to happen nowadays. No, it’s not supposed to happen, but it does every damn day. I always hope that stories like this will lead to greater public awareness, for more women to wake up abruptly to rape culture and demand better.
Instead, as Melissa points out, what we get is more bullshit and excuses. What we get is articles like this opinion piece in the Daily Mail titled “Don’t blind-drunk women who cry rape bear ANY responsibility for what happens?” (trigger warning) The writer Roger Graef — to whom you should write letters (rogerg@filmsofrecord.com), saying that he should never, ever write another single word about women, or even talk to one — first takes proud responsibility for advancements that have been made in the treatment of rape survivors, but at the same time indicates over and over again that this rapist-blaming culture has gone too far.
Don’t women who get plastered beyond control have any responsibility for what happens to them?
Many women insist they have the right to wear and do whatever they like.
They say rape is a man’s problem - and that’s an end to it.
Thank goodness attitudes to rape have changed dramatically since 1982, when I made my film, A Complaint Of Rape, in a series about the Thames Valley Police.
It showed three policemen aggressively interviewing a woman who claimed she had been gang-raped, and revealed perhaps for the first time that the system was heavily weighted against the victim.
Police in those days were taught that ‘60 per cent of all rape claims are false’, and trained to give women the kind of hard time they could expect in court.
The film made a huge impact and I am proud to say that it actually changed the way police treated rape victims for the better.
Please ladies, get down on your knees and kiss the ground that Mr. Graef walks on, because he once made a movie about how women are people. But cut all of that “women can wear whatever they want” crap, would you? Geez, if he knew it would go that far . . .
But how do you decide what is consent?
When I was a young man, flirtatious women often said no, while sending strong physical signals to the contrary.
It was very confusing even when sober.
One had to tread very carefully to be certain what was going on.
As ladette culture has spread across UK towns and cities and abroad, more and more women have gone out on the town - drinking to excess and behaving ever more raucously, sending blunt signals to young men also on the prowl.
Subtle it’s not.
But ambiguous it certainly is - if the women don’t mean it.
Is it just me, or is Graef actually admitting to “having sex” with women who said “no” because he was just so convinced that they didn’t mean it? Or is he only indicating that it is not he, but guys he knew, who were the rapists?
DEAR ROGER GRAEF AND THE REST OF THE WORLD: if a woman says “no,” it doesn’t matter whether or not she “meant” it. If by some odd chance she didn’t mean it (as I’ve noted before, I strongly believe that this supposedly wide-spread phenomenon is a myth), then she will just have to learn to not do that anymore. Because it is your job to stop when she says no, you rapist fuck, rather than trying to read those “mixed signals.” It is your responsibility to stop rather than make decisions about another person’s body. It is your duty as a human being to put avoiding any possibility whatsoever that you might rape another person above your desire to get laid that night.
Graef is the kind of guy who is so very helpful to rape victims that he perpetuates the myth that what is and is not rape is somehow confusing. Yeah, helpful like Cosmo Magazine. Here’s a question: did she say yes? Enthusiastically, without coercing or cajoling on your part? If not, you have not satisfied the requirements of obtaining consent, and it’s possible that you’re raping another person. Don’t want to rape another person? Then do the above.
You see, it’s very simple. But the goal of Graef and the millions of other men who whine about how you can’t know when a woman is consenting, is not to make sure that they’re not raping a woman. It’s to find out just how very far they can go without being a “rapist.” It’s about learning to rape in a way that is considered socially acceptable.
After going on and on about how women drinking causes rape — really, this article made me want to break down sobbing — Graef then tries to do the nice guy backpedal about how women are not to blame, only to close with “but not really.”
I certainly defend women’s right to enjoy themselves and, in all cultures, men must always take responsibility for their behaviour.
There is never an excuse.
But so must women - and brewers and publicans who ply them with cheap drink.
Women always retain the right to say no whatever condition they are in.
But if they have been drinking, they may not be able to make that clear to someone stronger than them who doesn’t wish to hear it.
Shorter Graef: women always have a right to say no, but not to be taken seriously when they do.
Yet another hint, asshole: if the man doesn’t want to hear it, it doesn’t matter how “clear” you are.
Clearly this woman in question (or her lawyer) was quite right to use the argument that the reduced compensation was a result of gender bias. As Ashley at SAFER notes, this is about women’s bodies being seen as public property. Graef exemplifies this point of view. The rule is that our bodies belong to everyone until proven otherwise. Fail to prove otherwise by not drinking, or dressing conservatively enough to match each and every person’s arbitrary standards, or making the mistake of looking at and maybe conversing with men, and you’re to blame. Men, on the other hand, never. Obviously, this is a game that women can’t win. (For more on this, see tigtog, and the absolutely brilliant Marcella.)
Meanwhile, the CICA is refusing to automatically review the cases of those 14 other women who experienced treatment similar to the victim here. And the window within to do so manually is almost certainly closed for all of them. In the eyes of the government, those women are therefore still officially to blame. Just like in the eyes of the public.
Thanks to Elizabeth for the link.
Comments
30 Comments so far
Subscribe to The Curvature
“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
Thanks for digging up more details and tying it all together, Cara. I’d had the impression from the other articles I read that those other cases were going to be automatically reviewed – I’m aghast that they are not.
It seems like the judge who ruled on this woman’s case “called on” (I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound like the same as “ordered”) the CICA to review those other cases, and the CICA has flat-out refused to do so. So it definitely was the indication given by the other articles, until the CICA actually responded officially.
Hi Cara,
Thanks for posting about this.
The link to write letters to Roger Graef is resulting in a 404 error, at least for me (using Safari 3.0).
This appears to be his address at Films of Record, though:
Roger Graef rogerg@filmsofrecord.com
Thanks Kira, you were right. I just updated it with his email in parenthesis instead.
Reading the comments following Roger Graef’s article is excruciating. I have never seen so many variations on:
“Rape is never the victim’s fault. However…”
“Rape is never the victim’s fault. However…”
This phenomenon strikes me as a cousin of the “I’m not racist/homophobic/sexist, but . . .” arguments. People seem to think that if you put that single statement in front of whatever you say, it doesn’t matter how much hate and ignorance is contained in the remarks that follow it.
Cara I just have to say that I consistently admire your ability to write about women’s rights so eloquently yet without losing any of the rage and anger that is needed to get the point across and express the idiocy of rape apologists and others. You manage to make a coherent and moving statement everytime you cover a situation like this yet you never forget the big picture and raw emotions that this topic deserve!
I wasn’t exactly stone cold sober every time I made out (… etc.) with guys (before I met my husband), yet THOSE guys certainly didn’t seem confused about the meaning of “no.” If my former acquaintances “got” it, then other guys can too, and if not, then there’s a word for that: rape.
What do you think are some concrete steps we can take to change the language of this “debate” (not that it SHOULD be one), and emphasize that a rapist is a RAPIST, not some confused guy out for a good time getting lured off the righteous path by a Circe-like partner who *poof* suddenly changes the rules and leaves him flailing around with *oh, drat* NO idea what to DO?! [say in melodramatic Vaudeville voice.]
OH MY GOD. I just clicked over to the Graef article, and, THAT PICTURE? THAT is what his editor thinks will illustrate the theory that sometimes drunk women mean no/yes??? If this guy or his editor seriously think that a woman splayed out on a sidewalk could CONSENT?
I kind of wish the cops had a camera following him (and his editor) from adolescence. They could probably nail him on multiple counts of rape. Jeeeez.
And also? The second picture? SHE HAS TWO DRINKS. TWO. I.e., NOT BLACKOUT DRUNK. omg. Sorry to post so many comments. Just. So. Mad.
Ugh. That guy is a walking advertisement for sterilization. I feel so bad for any daughters or sisters he might have. I don’t want to imagine him with a female significant other. Imagine being the Rape Apologist’s Girlfriend. Fail, CICA. Fail, Daily Mail. Epic fail, Graef.
You know, I’d say that article made me want to kick a puppy, but then I realised that it’d be much more satisfying to kick the dick that WROTE the article. I’ll visualise doing that instead. While feeding the puppy sausages.
I’m sorry, but I don’t find this article as outrageously terrible as many of you seem to see it. I read it in its entirety, and I really don’t think he’s doing a crazy amount of victim blaming. He states again and again that rape is always the rapist’s fault, and that being drunk is not an invitation to be raped. He also states that women who are drunk when raped should not receive smaller settlements because of their inebriated state. He merely states that drunkenness can blur the line of consent, make victim testimony a bit more hazy, and make it more difficult for the rapist to be convicted. While his article tiptoes close to many of the victim-blaming arguments, and the title is DEFINITELY inflammatory and awful, the article itself is not fully anti-victim.
Thanks MzBitca. I really do appreciate that.
Ali, to answer your “first” question, I’m not sure at the moment. But I will ponder that and welcome any other responses to it.
Foxglove, I’m extremely wary of approving your comment at all, so tread carefully. But any time a person argues that X “can blur the line of consent,” they’re victim-blaming. The end. A yes is a yes, a no is a no, a lack of no is not a yes, a person who is aware of their surroundings and of sound mind appears that way, and a person who is out of it and incoherent acts as though they don’t really know what’s going on, and if you’re unsure about ANY of this or think that ANY of this blurry, then THERE IS NOT CONSENT. None of that is confusing. All of it is quite simple. And to claim otherwise, as Graef does, is disgusting — it contributes to rapists’ rationalizations for rape, it contributes to jury, police and judge confusion about what rape really means, and it upholds a culture in which victims blame themselves and other people blame victims. It upholds a culture where “date rape” is not “real rape.” Arguments that consent is confusing actually bother me a lot more than “she was asking for it,” because to your average person seems to find the former a lot more sensible and think it carries a lot more weight.
Of course, I find many things wrong with the article, this being only one of them, but that’s only to address your argument directly.
Just last year a girl from my sorority(i’m there advisor now) was raped by a boy in my husband’s fraternity. The university ignored it and basically told the girl it was her problem since she was drunk underage and the boy received no punishment because he was “a nice guy” and even though he admitted that he knew she was too drunk to “legally consent” he was drunk too.
When I told my husband this he as enraged, one they had worked to become a SAFE house, which means a place that women could feel comfortable staying if need be, instead this guy engaged in the exact opposite behavior. As my husband put it: He had been drunk many of times in his four years as were all of his friends, and there were times when girls were also drunk. However, they got the girls home safely or allowed them to sleep on their couches or arranged for other solutions. As he said “it’s not hard to not have sex with a girl who’s drunk, even if you are drunk, all you need is to not be a selfish asshole.”
MzBitca — I just wanted to let you know that SAFER is an organization dedicated to responsible university sexual violence policies and prevention programs, and they have a lot of resources on agitating for change. I bet that they could be really, really useful in helping you and others to prevent this from happening again. Your university might already have a chapter that you can get involved in, and if not you might be able to encourage the sorority (or other interested students) to start one.
I actually read a response wherein this rape apologist spew was defended.
Oh no women make it clear it is the rapist that does not want to take responsibility. In the absence of a clear affirmation that sex is desired the answer is always NO. If you are at all about respecting women that should be an easy to follow rule. Of course we give out confusing signals…yeah only if you’re intent on being a rapist and being given access to a body from which you have been clearly denied. Enough, this shit makes me sick.
It’s mendacious, this idea that refraining from rape or sexual assault is some difficult task that men can’t be expected to accomplish without help from women. Not raping is easy; all it takes is a bare minimum of conscience.
While it’s an insult to men and an unpardonable burden on women to say that men are innately sexual predators unless managed properly by women, “He’s not really like that” is the type of rape apologism that disgusts me most of all. It claims that the rapist wasn’t that type of man until something happened to him – his victim did something – to turn him into it. Frames it as something [i]she[/i] did to [i]him[/i].
The huge problem is that rape prevention is framed so that the onus of rape prevention is solely on the woman. As posters have said above, the efforts to teach men and boys that they have full responsibility when it comes to rape prevention is nothing compared to the pontificating you hear about how women should “behave respectably” if they don’t want to “ask for it.” Rape has been framed so that it is now another facet of the “just world” theory which is comforting to those who hear about these crimes in the news, but is highly dangerous, because it spreads the myth that rape only happens to those who “ask for it” and that “respectable women” would NEVER get raped. It is the same attitude and belief that drive honor killings in the Middle East when it comes to rape.
Cara,
We have a program called SAAFE on our campus, after the rape the head of it came to the sorority and basically talked to them about why they have to be careful drinking because they will not be able to control what happens to her. The poor girl was there and had to leave the room she was crying so hard.
Assholes. Well I do know that SAFER is supposed to be absolutely NOTHING like that. You should check out their blog — they have some of the best writing on sexual violence out there, and they are actually about real prevention and justice programs that don’t put the onus on the victim. Definitely sounds like you need some new anti-sexual violence leaders there.
Cara,
I completely agree, however, there’s a reason my alma mater has a 0% rape statistic and It’s not cause of the upstanding men. I believe they pressure the SAAFE house director to discourage reporting and blatanly tell women that if they are underage, drinking and get assaulted they will be arrested for drinking….but please report your assault. This girl was promised by a higher up in the University’s administration that nothing would happen to the sorority if she reported what happened, she did and two days later the sorority was suspended for having an unregistered party…and the girl was told it was her job to handle her assault situation, without help from the SAAFE office or administration. I’m still seeing red about the situation if you can’t tell.
Well you have a right to be mad. But that’s precisely my point — that many people have a history of organizing and going from a university with a situation like yours to one that’s far more responsible and supportive, and it definitley can be done.
You can also threaten them with the Clery Act, since I’m positive that if they’re reporting a 0% statistic they’re not following it, and that can get them into a whole shitload of legal trouble. I hear that often works, and I’m pretty positive that SAFER has info on that too.
Damn straight you should be.
Sorry, unlike Cara, I don’t have anything to say that’s actually helpful. But I can at least throw some agreement your way.
Thanks for the advice and the link to SAFER Cara I will talk to a couple pepole I do that are sexual assault advocates and see what we can get started.
One minor consolation: the women that lied to the girl to get her to admit to a party, I made her cry with my words when I accused her of re-victimizing the girl and sending the message to other women that if they are attacked they have noone to turn to.
That’s exactly what she did, so good. Maybe (just maybe) she actually learned something. It shouldn’t have been on the back of someone else but it’s possible that the next girl might be treated a bit better by her . . .
Melissa’s put up another post about this, in response to another Mail article (from Peter Hitchens, who seems to be even less delightful than his brother Christopher):
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/08/part-ii-geez-when-will-women-stop.html
The amount of misogyny in the article is so thick that it might be triggering to some.
A particularly bad quote:
[...] of any statement, and that will magically make it non-victim-blaming. I commented about this on this thread. It’s as though people think that simple phrase, or alternately “of course a woman is [...]
[...] the British victim compensation case [...]
[...] asking for it, wearing a skirt that short), had a drink with me (what’d she expect, drinking at a bar with a stranger?), kissed me (she danced with him, she led him on and that’s like consenting [...]