Human Nature is not Always Politically Correct
I like reading college newspapers to get a feel for the culture on campus. Today, I was reading The Stanford Daily and an article on the front page caught my eye. The article, “Groups react to sexual batteries” under “crime and safety” reminded me of how advice from politically correct women’s groups can actually be harmful to women. Unfortunately, I could not find the article online but I will summarize it for you.
A male suspect has been groping and attempting to sexually assault women — two of whom were in public places and another who was on a foot path. The police believe the same man may have perpetrated these three incidents and recommended that pedestrians be more aware of their surroundings and “women jog in pairs or small groups whenever possible.”
Good advice, right? “No” according to the Stanford Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse (SARA) office: “To suggest that someone can employ certain tactics to ward off an offender–particularly when caught off guard during blitz attacks such as these–can be victim-blaming.”
This office goes on to encourage students to do whatever makes them feel “safe and empowered in public spaces and behind closed doors, but prefer not to give advice on self-defense.” The director of the Women’s Community Center at Stanford stated “We don’t advocate using self-defense as a prevention measure for a sexual assault or rape or relationship abuse because it’s not prevention.”
Huh? The woman attacked on a secluded foot path struggled out of a bear-hug by a perpetrator. Is that too much self-defense for these damsels of political correctness? They would rather a woman not use or learn self-defense to protect herself because to do so would somehow be victim-blaming? Do they really think the perp doing this is going to stop himself and say “no, this is wrong?” Perhaps if these sanctimonious women would come out of their cocoon long enough to join us in the real world, they would realize that the police officers’ advice is sound. There will always be people in the world, both men and women, out to harm others. You cannot wish that away, no matter how much you may wish to do so.
I think the idea behind it is that if someone means to do you harm, they will, regardless of how much you may defend yourself, and ideas such as ‘she was attacked because she was running alone’ are right up there with ‘she was raped because she was dressed like a slut”.
Should you keep your guard up because you’re running alone or or can you let your guard down because you’re running with a friend? Neither one guarantees you won’t be attacked. That’s the point.
no she was raped bc she chose to put her self in stupid places, increasing her exposure to the risk. sometimes you are the 1% even though the one percent is a low likelyhood.
some ppl are blameless in their tragedy, others invite it by being stupid. we need to start differentiating, and doing so is not “blaming the victim”, its prudent societal response.
let alone all “rape” is not Ted bundy style rape in our legal framework, feminists did themselves harm by so diluting the term. true shame for women.
That is not what those quoted responses say.
First, given the general attitudes that surround such incidents, the statement “To suggest that someone can employ certain tactics to ward off an offender–particularly when caught off guard during blitz attacks such as these–can be victim-blaming.” is absolutely correct.
By saying there is something that can be done, it suggests that if you are attacked it is because you failed to follow such “easily available” advice.
“Travel in a small group and you won’t be raped” is just as much placing the responsibility on the victim as saying “Travel in a burqa and you won’t be raped.”
Now certainly the advice to travel in small groups while a predator is active is sound, but when you’ve created an environment where failing to prevent yourself from being a victim is considered a sign of weakness, then you are going to wind up with “counter-advice” like that.
“. . . safe and empowered in public spaces and behind closed doors, but prefer not to give advice on self-defense.”
Is very reasonable – if you are not trained in self-defense yourself, doubly so if you have not had a chance to train the person you are giving the advice to.
Just imagine if they gave someone generic medical advice without being doctors and without examining the person. Do you really expect them to be less likely to get sued for lousy self-defense advice?
“We don’t advocate using self-defense as a prevention measure for a sexual assault or rape or relationship abuse because it’s not prevention.”
And that’s quite true, especially for relationship abuse. It occupies a completely separate category of legal justification, with some considerable variation depending on the State you are in.
Does California allow for the maiming or killing of sexual assailants? If not, recommending self-defense is a great way to get the victim sent to prison.
More critically, does California acknowledge maiming or killing a sexual assailant when they have “just” groped, and haven’t “actually” violated the person? One DA looking to make a career on keeping people from “taking the law into their own hands” and you’ve just sent another batch of women to prison.
The penal code in CA does have justifiable homicide provisions. Crimes in which a felony is committed upon another person, murder can be considered justifiable if that person was in fear of death or great bodily injury. In my eyes, i’d find it pretty.tough to convict any person who killed or severely injured a sexual assailant. I think it would be tough to find a DA who would press charges against a rape victim who killed her attacker.
Trouble is, to fight back against a larger more powerful attacker, you need an equalizer. And California has some of the more restrictive concealed carry laws. So, the law states you can defend yourself, but prohibits you from having the means to do so…
Actually concealed carry is a lot easier then you think here in CA. In essance about 48 of the 58 counties are shall issue with their CCW policies. It’s taken pressure and law suits but with the ordered early release of 1000′s of felons and LEO layoffs and reduction of services many sherrifs are issuing CCW permits with a minimum of hassle.
This has been a purely grass roots movement and using basic common sense with donations we are winning.
Except of course if she fights back she isn’t actually a rape victim, is she?
And does rape qualify as “great bodily injury”, or is it “just, you know, “rape”"?
See, the law in New York actually includes forcible rape and forcible criminal sexual acts, as well as kidnapping, robbery, and burglary, along with the usual deadly physical force. Of course that doesn’t stop DAs from prosecuting, or at least having to contemplate prosecuting, people who defend themselves, particularly in NYC. Are you sure California’s law is that “victim” friendly?
Are rape, robbery, kidnapping, and burglery felonies? Would a reasonable person be in fear for their lives when having one of these crimes committed against them?
The catch 22 with CA law is while you maybe in the clear with the criminal courts. You could be taken to the cleaners in civil court , even when acting purely in self defense. That is what we need to change.
Well there is the thing, would they “excite the fears” of a reasonable person?
And do the circumstances qualify, another requirement of the California law.
Is the particular DA running for higher office likely to be all that reasonable?
The key is that this involves giving advice, with or without actual instruction, to use potentially lethal force against another person in uncertain circumstances. When you can be sued by a criminal for not “protecting” him from falling and breaking his leg while burglarizing your home, a reasonable person takes a great deal of caution before giving such advice.
Sam:
Would it make you happy if the Womyns Centre told the poor dears to actually go out and take self-defence classes? Perhaps, the W.C. could do a little, oh, research, and recommend some different approaches.
Or would that be too much, too?
The “Womyn’s Centre”?
No, I doubt they would be able to recognize a competent instructor and suitable program.
The police?
If they could get over “civilians” actually protecting themselves, absolutely.
Doubly so if certain State lawmakers and various DAs could also deal with people defending themselves, and get rid of some of the ridiculous restrictions.
I would especially like it if they did it in NYC, as I could use the extra work.
I absolutely think people should train to defend themselves, both armed and unarmed.
I also understand that people giving such advice have to be cautious about the legal implications, and that some groups have social issues that affect the advice they give.
Not only are the two in no ways incompatible, but as the second reflects understanding possible adversaries, they are actually complementary.
The entire argument that you shouldn’t advice people to take common sense precautions because that’d be seen as blaming the victim is absurd. Nothing is 100% effective but some simple precautions can lower your risks of being attacked. Do you advise people not to wash their hands because if they get sick, people would blame the victim?
Self-defense starts with awareness of your surroundings. Learning about possible dangers and avoiding them isn’t 100% effective at preventing attacks but it helps. Some things are just stupid. Would you walk through a dangerous neighborhood with a lot of cash visible on your person? I sincerely hope not. That would be stupid. Likewise, failing to take simple precautions – even if they aren’t 100% effective – is stupid. The fault of the crime is always on the criminal but that doesn’t mean we should stupidly go through life oblivious to potentially dangerous situations because we might feel bad if attacked. It’s better to know that you did everything possible to avoid the situation in the first place and, if attacked, you did your best to defend yourself. Violent assault is a crime. Rape is a terrible crime. Being murdered after being raped is even worse. Criminals sometimes eliminate witnesses.
??????Wow….Just bloody, frigging Wow!?!
At what point did our culture become so effete that the concept of taking steps to protect yourself is rejected out of hand on the theory that it would be blaming the victim? Like the criminal gives a tinker’s dam about anything other than accompishing their goal with minimal effort and risk.
Taking steps to protect yourself is NOT the same as “victim-blaming.” If that is the case then putting locks on your domicile and vehicle or using secure passwords to protect your cyberinfo is “victim-blaming” as well. Please don’t make it public knowledge when you remove all your locks and password protections to avoid being blamed as a “victim.”
I fully agree that in an ideal world anyone should have the absolute right to freedom of movement and association without fear of being subject to either criminal activity or judgement of one’s character, but come on, in the real world it doesn’t work that way. There are bad people out there couldn’t care less about your feelings or philosophy, you are just a resource to be exploited to satisfy their wants and needs and if you are an easy mark then so much the better.
The basic premise of self defense or proactive safety measures isn’t so much to hurt, maim, or kill an assailant, but to convince them that you are not worth the risk to attack. Predators go after the weak, sick, and lame – you simply don’t want to fit into one of those categories. The police quoted in the article gave good advice to avoid being a victim. SARA gave good advice to become a victim. Crime prevention at the societal level is a separate issue from preventing a specific criminal act on the personal level. Until we have perfected humanity and achieved Utopia I suggest taking steps to protect yourself and not worry about what the politically correct think. They won’t be there to protect you.
jmarie — wait, what? There are no guarantees — like with most things, we play the odds. Do you lock your house? Put on your seatbelt? You know that’s no guarantee, right? But it decreases odds of bad things happening, or severity when they do.
The point is yes, you should go with a friend and yes you should keep your guard up because there is a predator about. It helps the odds. Sam, you think such advice will get them sued? Maiming? Neither the cops nor Dr. Smith are advocating violent self-defense to women — there are other places here in the SF Bay Area who are rather effective teaching it, and more power to them.
These are girls barely out of high school for whom even a reasonable advice like “take your headphones out, be aware of surroundings, and scream “No!” if you are attacked as loud as you can” could be a revelation and could easily prevent some nastiness. And adults specifically charged with helping these girls are, in the presence of a predator, punting to cover their own hides.
the link is http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/09/24/campus-groups-react-to-sexual-battery-incidents/
Thank you! I don’t know why it didn’t come up when I looked earlier,
I wasn’t agreeing with it so much as explaining that I understood the thinking behind it. Victims of sexual assault very often blame themselves, so the idea that victims can somehow prevent an assault can be counterproductive.
There is a form of self-defense that is non-violent?
That’s . . . an interesting assertion.
When you say “self-defense” you mean using violence, and when you use violence the only way to guarantee it will work is to cause debilitating injury to the other person, most likely permanent, and quite possibly lethal. Anything less can just as easily annoy the attacker as deter them, and get you an extra, potentially lethal, beating in the process.
Screaming “NO!” as loud as you can is not defending yourself. It is hoping someone else will come and defend you.
Of course if someone takes your advie and still gets raped anyway, do you think they might consider suing you for it? You told them it would make them safer, and they might not have taken other measures because of it.
I didn’t create that level of litigiousness, I am merely noting the effects it can have on giving advice.
Of course, Sam, there are all kinds of ways to hold one’s body and use one’s voice to make the predator move along before it gets physical. You can call these skills something else, but “self-defense” works for me. Loud “No!” not just summons people, but deters a predator even if noone comes (predator might think someone might, and, in general, moves along to a weaker prey).
I understand litiguousness concerns and someone else here addresses that at least here in Cali a woman is very unlikely to be prosecuted for harming the attacker. However your formulation of goal of self-defence would be likely to land you in jail here, I think. Apropriate self defense is to stop the attack as quickly and surely as possible. The courses that I am familiar with teach, after knocking the attacker out, to stomp next to his head to make sure it doesn’t stir, and call 911 only then. To stop, not to cause trauma.
And what you write expresses the problem completely.
Knocking someone out is a dangerous thing. You are causing sufficient trauma to make them lose consciousness. The line between that and a concussion is very thin, and a concussion IS permanent, disabling, brain damage.
Meanwhile, stomping next to an unconscious person’s head is quite safe, but stomping next to the head of someone who has merely fallen down is just putting your foot right next to him to be grabbed, followed by you being thrown to the floor, and overwhelmed by an attacker who very likely outweighs you. That might be quite legal advice, but it could also be quite lethal advice.
As for the general “stopping the attacker as quickly and swiftly as possible”, it would take quite a bit of space to get into all the variables that go with that, but simply and directly – you cannot stop someone without causing trauma. It simply does not exist as a concept. Even locks and throws, which take years to become adept at in non-life threatening situations, are still causing damage to the joints being manipulated, or from falling and hitting the ground, and either escalate to permanently disabling or descend to utterly useless very rapidly.
Yes, learning to carry yourself with confidence so you are not seen as a potential victim to begin with, learning to use a shout to distract and disorient your attacker and alert people that you need assistance, and any of a dozen other things are great ways to prepare to avoid having to defend yourself altogether, and I highly recommend them. Equally though, when you set out to actually defend yourself, it is just as critical to be aware that doing so means being willing to inflict severe injury on an attacker, and being willing to deal with the legal consequences of inflicting said severe injury. Hopefully the local DA is not a complete jerk. Equally hopefully you are prepared mentally for both aspects, and prepared not to confess to manslaughter while trying to over-explain you just didn’t like the way some perv smacked you on the tush. Preparing someone for that is one of the responsibilities of an instructor, and hopefully the instructor meets that responsibility.
Right, Sam, I don’t think we disagree. The Impact courses I mention elsewhere in this thread (wife, daughter, and friends took them) prepare students through a lot of full-impact fights that they are going to cause damage when they fight back (some women have a psychological block against that); the course mostly programs them to bring the attacker down and kick in the head until passed out. And yea, don’t go for that test stomp too soon….
“I just wanted to stop him” is what the law enforcement needs to hear.
I’ve always thought that if I were attacked, regardless of the outcome, fend it off or get hurt, raped, that I would recover better from the emotional trauma if I knew I had done what I could to prevent it and just as importantly, that I had put up a fight instead of spending the aftermath wondering how different things might have been if I had at least tried to help myself.
You’d probably think differently if you had been attacked. The emotional fallout is profound.
I believe though that evidence shows (sorry, no cite) that as profound as this psychological trauma is, it is less severe when the victim feels she has fought back / tried escape, or retained some level of choice and control.
Believing it doesn’t make it so. How many victims of sexual assault have you interviewed to come to this belief?
Jmarie,
For references on this I suggest you google “impact bay area” and see what data the good folks of that org have.
As part of their self defense course they (this is as of a decade or so ago; things may have changed), after weeks of training, for the students who have been victims of an assault, will reenact the assault with the opportunity for the student to fight (full contact) and win this time. Strong stuff, but seems to have therapeutic value.
And no, nothing is “guaranteed”, but I think they help a lot of women, to not only prevent and defend against assault but also to overcome trauma of past assault and abuse.
Well, I’m quite happy about this.
Now I can go on my daily prowl for some tail knowing they will go around alone and make it easier for me to attack them, and then lie back and try to enjoy it instead of resisting.
I have no idea why they insist on helping me out, must be some of this weird “wymen studies” thing they learn in college.
>>>>“Travel in a small group and you won’t be raped” is just as much placing the responsibility on the victim as saying “Travel in a burqa and you won’t be raped.” Now certainly the advice to travel in small groups while a predator is active is sound, but when you’ve created an environment where failing to prevent yourself from being a victim is considered a sign of weakness, then you are going to wind up with “counter-advice” like that.
I agree. It’s a bit like saying that “Don’t drink the water here, they’re polluted” is just as much placing responsiblity for the bad results of drinking from the fountain as saying “don’t drink the water here, it’s a white-only fountain”. Because, you know, the reactor downtown should not have had a meltdown, so asking people to not drink the water right now is not preventing it from being polluted, so it’s evil and awful to ask people to do it.
OK…. I guess I’m missing something here. It seems that some people think it is more horrible that someone might “blame” a victim for not taking reasonable steps to prevent or survive an attack than the actual attack itself? So one should not take precautions because to do so would invite some kind of speculative blame?
True enough, being attacked is a traumatic event both physically and psychologically. To me the question is: Which is more important, preventing and/or surviving an attack or worrying about the opinions of silly people who want to blame the victim and not the perpetrator?
Okay let’s compare and contrast:
Man complains that his wife constantly nags him. Internet response: he’s a wimp, he didn’t do due diligence when he married her, that if he’d just look at himself honestly then he’d see that he is responsible for at least 50% of his relationship problems, etc. etc. Time to man up, take charge, and be responsible!
Policeman suggests women some basic precautions when he discovers a pattern of sexual assault in an area. Internet response: that’s blaming the victim, you could get in legal trouble if you defend yourself, you’d think differently if you knew the emotional fallout people experience, etc. etc.
So basically… if something bad happens to a man, it’s completely his responsibility… and if he chooses to complain about it he needs to shut up and pull himself up by his bootstraps because he’s a wuss if he thinks anyone should ever do anything to help in any way. But if something bad happens to a woman… if something bad can *possibly* happen to a woman, we’re not even going to ask her to do anything to prevent it because it might make her feel uncomfortable…?
Am I getting this?
I guess only men have the autonomy and wherewithal to make choices and take responsibility, but women require every aspect of society to be completely adapted to their frailties…?
No, Jeff, you’re not getting this. You’re comparing men who CHOOSE to marry and women who cannot CHOOSE whether or not someone else assaults them.
The examples are not as different you can imply:
But the women can CHOOSE to respond to the (potential) situation in such a way as to lower their chances of getting assaulted.
Just like a man can CHOOSE which woman to marry (based on the odds of her turning out to be a shrew later given her profile).
The responsible person does what he/she can to avoid a bad outcome… but in the event of a bad outcome, he/she must do what they can to minimize and contain the damage.
You must be joking. Have you ever been sexually assaulted? If you had you’d realize how insulting your argument is.
And people wonder why I believe the concept of progress is a polite fiction. When, in 1931, my grandfather abandoned my grandmother and her two young children, the next logical step was for her brother to provide her with a .38 pistol for her to carry. She, an educated and refined Southern lady, had been trained to shoot as a girl. She carried that pistol in her handbag for the rest of her life.
And to think, we have “progressed” from that standard to one of passivity in the face of violent assault in only 71 years. Ah, what fresh wonders await us in the years ahead?
Telling someone to be careful in a potentially dangerous situation is wrong and debatable? Do what you wish girls and take the consequences. Me, I’ll take precautions.
I wonder if they might just be trying to avoid getting sued for giving self defense advice. You know how these things work – Stanford puts out self defense training material, girl gets attacked, uses self defense, knocks attacker on his back and he gets injured. Attacker then gets himself an abulance chaser lawyer who goes after the deep pockets of Stanford and sues, hoping for a nice fat settlement to make the case go away quickly.
I would point the finger more at the ease of filing a lawsuit than at political correctness.
I recall a similar situation at a religious college I taught at: the first rape was due to the victim being so shocked at being attacked in that environment that the rapist had an easy victim. After that, potential victims resisted, screamed, disobeyed, and suffered nothing more than a bad fright. The advice of the police was generally unhelpful and unrealistic.
Still, the fact that the rapist was still loose caused a lot of consternation among the Coeds, who finally delivered a lysistrata-like ultimatum to the males on campus: no dates until the rapist was caught.
The solution was to “persuade” one of the most “wussy-looking” guy in the dorm to dress in drag and act like bait walking in the haunts that the rapist seemed to favor. I put “wussy-looking” in quotes, since the man had been so fed up with being picked upon that he had taken up the martial arts and had decked several people off campus before he got “respect”. He donned the requisite garbe and on the second night, was attacked and duly dispatched the offender…
…who happened to have been a member of the local police force.
I later dated a girl who later turned out to be badly messed up in the head, and her claim was that she had been raped by that member of the police force while his partner watched from the patrol car.
There are soooo many things wrong in situation.
For instance, the advice to not resist.
I forget where I saw it, but statistically those women who resist rapists have a FAR higher chance of NOT being raped, and a much higher chance as well of not being murdered! The standard advice to not resist was debunked years ago.
Then there is the advice to not take any precautions. Is this same “Stanford Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse (SARA) office” likewise advising students to not lock their windows and doors at night and leave their cars unlocked with the windows rolled down and the keys in the ignition?
Makes about as much sense.
Then there is the fact these idjits are in charge of cultivating young impressionable minds at a critical time in the development of how these young people view the world.
They are certainly doing some serious brainwashing as they advise the students to consciously toss out the most basic and very first fundamental natural right of all mankind – the right to self preservation.
Is it any wonder we have generations now that are so screwed up?