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On blame and empowerment
Just listened to this CBC story about Emily Yoffe, who drew a lot of fire for writing a Slate article suggesting that college women can reduce their likelihood of being raped by not getting blind drunk.
There's a fine line between "blaming the victim" and empowering potential victims to not be victimized. This applies not only to rape, but also to domestic abuse, addiction, obesity, depression, burglary, fraud, etc. In each of these areas there are factors the victim can control, and other factors (s)he can't. You can ignore the former and say “there's nothing you can do but hope and pray,” or ignore the latter and say “it's your own damn fault; quit whining.” Both are unproductive; if you actually want to solve the problem, you might look to the old adage “Grant me the will to change the things I can, the patience to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Of course, “accept” in this context doesn't mean “this is OK,” but rather “this is a fact I need to deal with.” Yes, there are rapists and abusers, and society needs to address that problem. But while you're waiting for society to address that problem, you may find yourself in the presence of such people, and you'll need a more effective tactic than just saying “society's to blame” while you get raped or abused.
Likewise, there are genetic and societal conditions that make addiction, obesity, and depression more likely... but while we wait for cures to those conditions, there's probably something we can do ourselves to avoid or ameliorate those problems in the short run.
And there are societal conditions that make burglary and fraud more likely, but while I wait for those conditions to be improved, I'm going to at least lock my doors and not answer phishing e-mails.
There's a fine line between "blaming the victim" and empowering potential victims to not be victimized. This applies not only to rape, but also to domestic abuse, addiction, obesity, depression, burglary, fraud, etc. In each of these areas there are factors the victim can control, and other factors (s)he can't. You can ignore the former and say “there's nothing you can do but hope and pray,” or ignore the latter and say “it's your own damn fault; quit whining.” Both are unproductive; if you actually want to solve the problem, you might look to the old adage “Grant me the will to change the things I can, the patience to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Of course, “accept” in this context doesn't mean “this is OK,” but rather “this is a fact I need to deal with.” Yes, there are rapists and abusers, and society needs to address that problem. But while you're waiting for society to address that problem, you may find yourself in the presence of such people, and you'll need a more effective tactic than just saying “society's to blame” while you get raped or abused.
Likewise, there are genetic and societal conditions that make addiction, obesity, and depression more likely... but while we wait for cures to those conditions, there's probably something we can do ourselves to avoid or ameliorate those problems in the short run.
And there are societal conditions that make burglary and fraud more likely, but while I wait for those conditions to be improved, I'm going to at least lock my doors and not answer phishing e-mails.
no subject
It's a bit long to explain, but follow this chain of logic:
1) Actually, it's not so much that getting drunk significantly increases your chances of getting raped, as it's getting drunk around men. Or even more specifically, getting drunk around young, drunk men.
After all, if young women were to constrain their binge drinking to their sorority houses with the doors locked and no boys admitted, they'd probably not have much of rape problem thereby.
So there's your factually wrong. But wait, there's more.
2) Try proposing that remedy to young women. See what happens. I'll wait.
The reason they're laughing convulsively at you is that the whole reason, the fundamental premise of binge drinking in college-age women is usually to become socially disinhibited in the presence of sexually desirable males.
3) Yoffe's proposal presupposes that young women don't know that alcohol intoxication is incapacitating, and that they need to be told. Since the attraction of binge drinking to most party-going young women is that it is incapacitating I think they're pretty clear on that. When they tell you they're drinking (or as they put it "partying") to "blow off steam", to "get wasted", to "get shit faced", they're telling you that they are drinking for that altered state of consciousness in which they are no longer responsible for their actions.
It's fascinating to me how apparently nobody has pointed out the problems with Yoffe's piece (and apparently some of the rebuttals!) from a substance abuse standpoint. Which is totally pertinent because this isn't really a piece about sexual assault, it's a piece about the dangers of Demon Rum. The rape thing is a "look! see, here's another awful thing about drinking! Er, I mean drinking-to-excess!"
And looked at from this perspective, which seems a lot truer to what she wrote than critiquing her sexual assault politics, her response is totally about abstinence, and her one concession to harm reduction is "well, okay, if you must one or two drinks."
If she were serious about telling young women how to protect themselves from the scourge of intoxicant-enabled sexual assault, she'd talk about how to do your drinking safe from sexual assault. From the aforementioned "do your binge drinking in all-female company" to "have designated walkers/chaperones" to "arrange to look out for one another" to "write the number of the school's emergency shuttle service on your arm in indelible marker for if your ride blows you off."
But Yoffe isn't concerned with actually protecting young women from rape, she's concerned about scaring them away from binge drinking.
Now, to be clear, I am entirely down with the idea that binge drinking is a problem. It's intrinsically dangerous six ways to Sunday. Being that disinhibited can lead to all sorts of accidental injuries and deaths, of oneself and others.
But at the same time, if someone is going to get blotto, I'd much rather they took a cab home than drove. And I'd much rather she do it in a rapist-free or rapist-discouraging environment.
I do think it's legit to conduct consciousness raising campaigns to help people calibrate their drinking, whether it's getting through to them that "that's too much to be behind the wheel of a car" or "after your second drink, you're in no position to fend off sexual predators."
But when your moral is "therefore don't ever drink that much".... oh, for Pete's sake.
And nothing in all this addresses why young women want to get so profoundly disinhibited and incapacitated in the presence of young sexually available men (usually also intoxicated). Which seems to me both the real heart of the problem, and completely outside Yoffe's entire paradigm of what is going on.
no subject
Your first point I think is an obvious detail that Yoffe could have emphasized more clearly, but would probably agree with.
Your second and third, if I understand them, boil down to "I'm getting drunk IN ORDER to be almost-but-not-quite raped." If this is correct, then the Yoffe piece is totally missing the point. (Whether she really is motivated primarily by moralizing about alcohol, or just can't imagine that anybody would want to intentionally incapacitate herself in order to get laid, I don't know.) And yes, it sounds like that's the real heart of the problem.
All Roads Lead to Rome....