Imagine this: You are the victim of a crime - let's say you are robbed on the street as you walk to your car. You are in a panic, so you call the police. The police come to the scene, find you in your anxious state and ask you to tell them what happened. You find yourself flustered, cannot think of which came first: The threat or the weapon. When you cannot recall the order of everything from start to finish, the police get annoyed and start to think you are lying. Why could you not remember what the perpetrator was driving? The license plate on the car? The color shirt he was wearing? The amount of time time the crime lasted? Instead, the police are upset because all you can describe is what kind of weapon he had, the threats he made if you did not comply and maybe the smell of the alcohol on his breath. The conclusion they make: It must have been your fault. If you were not wearing expensive clothes or driving in a nice car, nobody would be tempted to rob you. And God forbid you were drinking - then you were really asking for it.
Sound ridiculous? It should.
If you think it would be unfair to tell someone they were 'asking' to be robbed because of the clothes they were wearing or the car they were driving, good.
So why do we, as a society, look at sexual assault this way?
In the advocacy world, we call this victim-blaming. When we point the finger at the victim, rather than the perpetrator, we are putting the emphasis and responsibility on the wrong person. For the most part, people are asking the wrong questions in order to justify whatever "safeguards" may be in place to make them feel better. If you didn't wear a short skirt, he wouldn't have looked at you that way. If you weren't so drunk... If you weren't alone... You said yes before... You should walk to your car with your keys between your fingers...
Let us not forget, the victim of sexual assault is a victim of a crime and deserves the same respect and consideration as the victim of another crime. In fact, many scholars who have studied this have found sexual assault is the leading cause of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in women. So if we know a person has been traumatized by a horrific crime, should we not have some empathy, even compassion, toward them?
Because honestly, if sexual violence is directly related to what a woman is wearing, these ladies should not have stories to share about their own sexual assault experiences.
So join me in changing how we respond to sexual violence. No more "why" questions. Instead, more "you did not deserve that."
