An article in the Brown U paper describes a “new” study that has found that alcohol consumption increases sexual assault risk. The article is careful to say that victim-blaming is bad, which it is, but can we have a conversation about the “It’s not her fault, even if she was drinking, but she shouldn’t have been drinking because she was making herself vulnerable…” comments that abound in coverage of sexual assault? Either it is her fault or it isn’t. You can’t say, “it isn’t her fault, but ladies, let’s keep ourselves safe by watching how much we drink.” I’m having trouble clairfying this thought for myself, I just know this article triggered some frustration for me in terms of victim-blaming!
Change Happens: The SAFER Blog
because a whistle is not a prevention program
Alcohol is a major factor in campus sexual assault. Alcohol is also a major factor in vehicular manslaughter. In neither case does it excuse or lessen the crime. Victims need to know this.
Victims are also often afraid to come forward if they’ve been drinking for fear of being caught underage drinking or drinking in a residence hall. Campus sexual assault policies need to clarify that this won’t happen.
The problem, I think, for me, and I suspect many women, is the difference between what you know is fair and your desire to challenge the way the world works and your knowledge of the dangers the world holds.
It is utterly unfair that women should feel that they cannot drink as much as they want, go wherever they want, be as open to other people as they want. These are all things that many men do without thinking about it, although, of course, many men of color and many gay men feel restrictions around their public behavior too, and it is infuriating that fear of sexual assault does modify a lot of women’s behavior. Women aren’t dumb, however, and we know that women are more likely to be attacked when they have been drinking than when they haven’t and that studies have shown that many men will interpret as sexual invitations behaviors women interpret as friendly.
So the question becomes how do we behave, what do we say to our friends, and what positions do we take in terms of how we talk about sexual assault? Many of these things we have to decide for ourselves and the answers depend heavily on our own personalities.
Personally, I’ll be damned if I’ll let overblown fears about the infinitesimal chances of meeting a stranger rapist on the street keep me from going about my business, or force me to pay exorbitant taxi fees, no matter how late at night. On the other hand, I’m wary of men in bars and rarely drink much unless I’m with very close friends. So I make my own choices to try to balance risks with assertions of my right to go where I want and do what I want.
What institutions recommend is an entirely different matter. If a college or college health program wants to cut down on sexual assault, they need to be going after the assailants. If they want to cut down on drinking, they need to target men and women. There is no way that threatening women with rape if they drink too much is not victim blaming, even if they try to clarify that of course they are not doing that.
And if they really want to help women out, they should be recommending and offering real self-defense classes. Not the ridiculous list of don’ts like the health educator in the article was offering, but the kind of self defense class I took late in college where I practiced kicking the shit out a man (he was all padded, don’t worry). It’s been too many years now, and I’m really due for a refresher, but I hope that if it ever came to that, I’d remember the techniques they taught us for using his body weight to take him down, hopefully with a good injury to his groin in the process, and then bashing his head on the concrete. I’m not kidding about any of that, and those 24 hours of training remain some of the most empowering of my life. The class I took was an Impact class, http://www.impactpersonalsafety.com, but there are several different organizations that do this kind of training.
This pissed me off more than it should have. But YET AGAIN, can we all please remember that when a study actually bothers to look at rapists instead of victims, like they should, it turns out that in cases of rape where alcohol is involved, it’s most likely for BOTH parties to be drinking. And if only one party has been drinking? It’s significantly more likely that it was the rapist. But I’ll hold my breath for a “men shouldn’t drink too much or they might rape someone” article, and just keep reading the “women should stay locked inside of their houses forever” articles instead.
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