Kylie Gillette
Women and Pop Culture
20 March, 2015
Victim Blaming
Trigger warning for drugs, and attempted assault.
This week, we discussed the idea of victim blaming. From celebrities to the general public, women are constantly being blamed for their abuses by society. Being born female might as well come with a big stamp to the forehead that reads "guilty."
We mostly discussed how black women are often blamed for their abuses because of the "bad bitch" persona they often portray. This especially applied to the incident in which Chris Brown beat Rihanna. The media tried desperately to justify his actions by claiming she passed STD's to Brown, or that she had enjoyed/wanted the abuse because of her BDSM-loving-bad-girl personality.
Although blaming women victims is incredibly pertinent in Black and Latino communities, every woman has experienced being blamed for the actions of men firsthand.
For example, a few years ago, I made the stupid mistake to attend a frat party. There, I was unknowingly drugged. I felt foggy, and tired, and I was hallucinating. Before I realized that something had been put in my drink, three men circled around me, cutting me off from the exit. They pushed me towards one of the bedrooms and tried to get me to enter. I remember hearing them talk about getting me in and locking me in with the man who I suspected drugged me.
Fortunately, I managed to leave the party (with the friends I went with) and we made it safely back to my friend's dorm room. I was terrified and crying all night, blaming myself.
I shouldn't have gone to a frat party.
I shouldn't have been drinking.
I shouldn't have worn that short dress,
I shouldn't have talked to the guy in the first place.
It took me a few days to get over the initial shock of what could have happened before I realized what I had been doing. I was blaming myself for the actions of grown men. It saddened me that I felt guilty for what had happened.
As a society, we blame women for the actions of men, as a way of silencing women from speaking against abuse. Men are too often forgiven for they actions, and this is something that needs to be changed. The culture we, as a society, have created is incredibly dangerous to women, and especially young girls.
Think of the Steubenville High School rape case. Several guys sexually assaulted and abused their unconscious classmate, video taping the whole thing, and posting said video to social media. When this reached national news, millions of people stood behind the young men, claiming that they were just being stupid kids, and they should be forgiven because they felt horrible and embarrassed for their actions. However, those very people overlooked the embarrassment and blame the victim received after having her sexual assault posted all over the internet. It was one thing that she didn't get the privacy she deserved, but the nation didn't stand up in her defense, but rather the defense of her rapists.
This rape culture we have created puts women's lives in danger every day, and it time that that changes.
You saying women should be stamped with the word guilty on their head I think is a really important statement, we have seen so many incidents such as Chris Brown beating Rihanna where she gets blamed for the beating, women always get blamed for what men do to them, we're just seen as this object and are used and abused because of it. Society backs the male up because they are seen as dominant and powerful so to society they can do no wrong when in reality society isn't looking at the women that is being punished, they're just blaming her for what has been done. Even in your incident, you just wanted to go to a party and you dressed up, automatically the male sees this and looks at you as an object and uses his power he thinks he has and targets you. That is an awful thing to happen and I am glad you were able to make it out okay, it just goes to show the way we are viewed by men is so vulgar, why do we need to be punished for who we are?
ReplyDelete