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Comments
"If you're afraid, here are some proactive steps you can take to help manage your fear."
And of course, the "tips" to rapists to try not to rape people is funny and all, but you know it's not serious. Rapists aren't going to stop simply because they're asked, as you know perfectly well.
Yes, the culture needs to change. I completely agree. But in the meantime, I think it's nice to provide advice to people who want it.
I mean, seriously, if there is an active predator out on the streets, does talking about the cultural reasons the guy may be self-justified in being a predator help protect the next victim? No.
When I worked closing shifts at a movie theater, men and women got treated with THE EXACT SAME ADVICE. Keep your heads up, walk confidently, leave in pairs, have your car keys in hand, be ready to mace a motherfucker if you have to. It was because other theaters have had their employees be mugged since the employees don't leave until well after the last movie gets out.
Is sexual assault the same as mugging? No. It's far worse.
Do most of us take sexual assault as a given, much like mugging? Probably. We know there are assholes out there. We can shun them all we want, but predators will still exist.
And at least when they say to wear appropriate clothing, they're not slut-shaming.
So you don't want drones or webcams which could possibly scare off the pervs, but you do want to complain about the crimes they might prevent. Which is it SLOG...my head is spinning.
Well, not women or rape in general. But given the specific predator's MO, such measures could very well prevent a rape, which certainly would help that specific woman. I'd think you'd be behind that.
Or you could just stand by doing nothing as a few more women are sexually assaulted as sacrificial lambs in the name of fighting rape culture. I'm sure they'll understand.
And he's praying on a particular set of people. Yes, women should be free to jog alone, wear anything they want, etc. But until this criminal is caught, a little behavior modification isn't the patriarchal norms holding women down. It's prudence. Try not to be exactly the person this criminal is looking for. Gasp, horror, demeaning!
If there was a rash of muggings targeting middle aged slightly overweight men alone at night I would probably wouldn't walk up to Prost by myself at night until they catch him.
@10 The issue is not that women don't want to be safe, it is assuming they do not already know this shit.
Every women I have ever known knows about rape and all these 'tips' on how to prevent it. None of them need to be told this shit as though it something novel and a number of them are completely ridiculous things that essentially require a woman to base her life around the threat of rape.
So,like with everything else in life, there comes a point where people just decide to live their fucking lives instead of obsessing about safety all the time. But then, of course, when something happens people now feel entitled to judge the victims behavior because unlike men, women don't get admiration for taking risk, but condemnation and blame.
FYI - These tips do not protect anyone. At all. You run, they will catch you.
On another note, ah the liberal dilemma. We are pro feminism and pro woman power. Yet we hate guns. But they can certainly stop a rape in the hands of a trained woman, who is aware of her surroundings and ready and able to use the gun the moment the attack starts.
As a guy, if I'm walking around, say, the southern end of downtown at 9pm on a Monday night, my earbuds are out, I'm paying attention to people around me and my surroundings, I'm walking with purpose, yadda yadda. This is different from how I would act if I was walking down Broadway a noon on Saturday.
I don't think advice that tells ANYBODY how to comport themselves when walking around potentially unsafe parts of a city amounts to "culture of fear" stuff or "blaming the victim".
But please, continue with your bluster.
I'm pretty sure you want to brandish the gun before the attack starts, before the attacker is within several feet of you.
But I do fail to see how posting these tips on a website hurts anyone or makes anything worse. While one would not know it reading these comments, course that teach things like this and self-defense measures are among the courses most requested and taken by women, according to several rape prevention groups. So it appears most women do not feel the tips are worthless or harmful.
Granted, if this was the only thing society or police did to stop rape, it would be another story.
Exactly. Seattle, which is basically a giant suburb or college town, is laughable as a "big city" though. People here are so sheltered.
"I mean this is basically asking women to assume a combat readiness whenever they are out for a stroll or jog in their neighborhood. Running errands shouldn't require the same preparedness as a foot patrol in Falluja. How maddening is that?"
Seconded.
Alrightee then.
A gun is a tool and one that requires a fair bit of training and skill to use correctly especially in a stressful and scary situation. It requires that you always be aware of where it is and who has access to it. It means that you better be damn sure the person you are about to shoot is really a threat, but at the same time that you have no hesitation about pulling the trigger when you need to.
I have zero problem with women or anyone carrying a gun, I just want them well trained.
Well seems she was pretty aware of her surroundings.
So she knew the street and block and had comfortable shoes to jog in.
Seems she was probably not texting, or listening to music or had her eyes averted. He left her alone because she punched and kicked, which is not being offered as a protip.
So how are the SPD tips teaching a woman to protect herself?
Being aware of your surroundings and people's descriptions are not "self defense". They are not going to stop anybody. If you want self defense I hope you have money to spend on martial arts/self-defense classes and/or a gun.
There should be no rapes, murders, or any other crimes. Society should address the reasons for these problems, but meanwhile I don't want to be maimed or killed now. It's not a crime victim's fault that it happened to him or her, but crimes still happen. A crime free society isn't going materialize anytime soon. I am proactive in avoiding being a victim to the best of my ability.
Oh. And while you're at it... stop being theft-ey! Man. I feel so empowered now.
This turing the word "rape" into a cutesy outrage adverb must very cleansing but it's fucking stupid. But hey! It get's you page views!
Look. This idea that we need to teach young men how to better understand consent and deal with their frustrations is an honest and good one. And I wish we taught young men better respect for women and sexuality in general at a young age - like as mandatory classes from grade six on up. All that would impact an already greatly reduced sexual assault rate for sure - since most assaults occur between people who know each other.
But the attacks in Greenlake probably have very little to do with that type of common assault.
These attacks are much rarer stranger attacks. And the rapist is clearly deranged and dangerous and has already decided humiliating and victimizing women gets him off. Eventually this guy will be caught. Clearly he is being very incautious and none too bright.
The list of precautions the police issued are boilerplate standard how to stay safer in an area blighted by any unpredictable crime. They are doing "something" which is exactly what the public demands of them. What the fuck do you want the to do?
Cienna your outrage here is terribly misplaced and hyperbolic. Basically the post is thoughless bullshit.
I was downtown once just coming out of the bus tunnel and some girl asked me for a smoke. I said I didn't have any. Then her bro started following me around saying "yeah you do motherfucker" and getting all into my "grill" and wouldn't leave me alone. Finally I get to another block and I'm like "there's a cigarette store right across the street bro. If you need one go get one." He left me alone because I was passive and yet also forceful. I didn't know whether to flee or fight. I got out of it by using my voice.
http://www.westcoastarmory.com/events/ev…
Five Large, you're a genius. Children shot? Sell some guns. Cha-CHING! Rape? Guns! Cha-CHING!
Where others see unconscionable horror, Five Large sees a market.
http://www.westcoastarmory.com/events/ev…
I also suspect that the "police are blaming victims" piece is all a clever ploy, stirring up people so they remember there is a rapist in Greenlake/Northgate, so they will act with a bit of extra caution...
I guess you prefer to have a woman overpowered and her dignity destroyed.
Call 911 before you get attacked. Really. It's ok to do that. If you have someone following you or threatening, dial 911 and tell them so and where you are. 911 operators are ok with that, and if it's nothing, then nothing will happen. You aren't taking valuable resources and distracting the police unless you're calling them to report that the drive through forgot your french fries.
How does "allow you to move" mean "loose" (and I guess, shaming?)? A business pencil skirt with no stretch doesn't really let me run, which is unfortunate, but a knit one is good enough. A full skirt is super easy to run in. Total freedom. I have super snug skinny jeans that are also stretchy enough for me to run in.
And how does "shoes that are comfortable" mean running shoes? If you really need to, you can run in oxfords, ankle boots, flat boots, ballet flats, and if you're a woman of determination, yep, heels.
If anything, this advice all comes off to me as standard advice for anyone in an area alerted for heightened violent crime, like mugging or assault.
I don't care at all for the stuff about looking fearless (I don't think it helps at all), but most of the rest is not out of line and a great improvement on old shit like "don't dress like a slut."
And yes, I ABSOLUTELY agree that FAR too much of rape prevention education focuses just on potential victims and not on potential/actual perpetrators.
But I think the most important thing is that I think a lot of this advice goes beyond prevention and beyond "how to STOP rape with your behaviour" -- there are tips on what to do if you ARE attacked (how to report to 911, how to get away, how to be able to identify your attacker later) and if you can do anything, or if you can manage to get away. Because, how does knowing an intersection STOP a rapist?
There's a definite tone here of acknowledging that sexual assault will occur, regardless of what you do.
You have my axe!
This is a good point. The descriptions of these incidents themselves demonstrate the insipidity of these protips pretty acutely. It's almost as if the protippers aren't even reading about the crimes on which they're basing their protips. Oscillating between either being too general to have any meaning whatsoever and being too specific to be useful in all situations, these protips are about as applicable in everyday circs as "be careful".
As if people are never going to listen to their iPhones or text while waiting for the bus. Or never going to walk around in high heels. Unless they perceive themselves to be in dangerous circumstances, that is. And at those times, the advice seems pretty unnecessary. At least for these women, the advice seems pretty unnecessary. They seemed to be following the rules about as closely as an average person in an average situation is likely to follow the rules. Which is why using these cases as yet another reason to restate the rules seems pretty ridiculous.
Um, no? That would just be stupid. Where do you come up with this stuff?
Maybe from the part where you said that you are against guns. You know an object that makes a weak person equal to a stronger, more powerful attacker, or attackers?
It seems you are OK with rape, just like your despicable bigot ass is also OK with tyranny and gross civil rights violations.
Imagine if your house was broken into and everything of value stolen. And people were like "well the fact you were burglarized clearly means you weren't doing enough to prevent burglary, otherwise you wouldn't have been burglarized, and by that logic you are nearly as responsible as the guy who stole from you"
That's not an accurate statement. Cities that have tailored their anti-rape campaigns to put the onus on the rapist, not the victim, have seen rape rates decline. Many rapists will opt not to rape if they think society at large won't protect them.
Tailoring anti-rape advice toward how the *victim* can avoid being attacked tells rapists that society has their backs. As does many other elements of our culture, such as the presumption that a rape victim had it coming or is a hysterical liar.
If it were phrased as a reminder instead of a news flash, and incorporated a little reality (if I have made the slutty choice to wear high heels, what then?) (and then, as noted, where the hell is there a pay phone anymore, and is my would-be rapist really going to wait patiently while I use it?), and maybe addressed the whole supposedly controversial issue of whether and how to fight back (um, let's say YES, and some stats show that if you do, the odds of getting raped are cut in half)...
And there's this little gem:
"Most likely you know your height, so use this to gauge theirs."
"Most likely," um, unless you're not a human being? Or maybe your ladybrain can't remember how tall your own body is? Or is that a joke?
Now you're just making things up, Five Large.
You know the rapeyest state is Alaska? Over 70 rapes per 100k population. Second most gun owners in the country, almost 60% of the population. South Dakota is second in rapes, and also tops in gun ownership. Other rapey sates? Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Montana. Also right up at the top in guns. And suicide. Who'd have guessed?
So we can clearly see that high rates of gun ownership do nothing to prevent rape. In fact, you'd almost suspect from the data that guns cause rape. Though I think it's more about the mentality of the gun culture that encourages rapists, somehow.
Now you go sell a gun, Five Large. Cha-CHING!
Puh-leeze. Officers aren't exactly known for tact. Take the tips for what they are. Tips. Not fool proof prevention plans. Not that they are the full effort of the police, who intend on doing nothing with any of the attacks. Just tips.
If you've heard them fin. Don't fucking be offended by them.
Second, any advice telling women how to not get raped actually means "Be sure he rapes some other woman."
men: this is YOUR problem. those tips? THEY ARE FOR YOU! drill them into your head as ive you've been socialized your whole fucking life to prevent sexual assaults. be aware of your surroundings. see something shady? a woman being followed? someone paying too much attention to a stranger? don’t fucking ignore it. im not encouraging some culture of paternalistic protection, im saying YOU are responsible for preventing sexual assault too. start here: Men Can Stop Rape -- mencanstoprape.org
And, generally men don't wear these clothes with heels of slick bottomed dress shoes...so the running shoes bit is a given.
And if anyone should be aware of the importance of tone, it's someone whose job it is to de-escalate tense situations.
Beyond which, your decision to close your comment with a command in this situation illustrates your complete lack of appreciation for and understanding of tone. Which, if you had self-awareness, would have suggested to you that you really had no room to talk.
Glad you could find today's masturbation material, hopefully it will keep you inside and not out raping people.
You want women to be disarmed so that they make easier prey.
@68
Thank you.
Fear sells, baby, fear sells. Five Large gotta get paid, am I right?
The advice is fine. It's telling women to be proactive and control the things they can, none of which are the mind or actions of rapists.
Your faux-psuedo-intellectual-feminist outrage over the advice is misguided, obnoxious and ignorant.
Asshat.
It seems silly, but I think one of the central problems in trying to fix rape culture is that the kind of men who predate on women are rarely addressed directly as subjects, but rather indirectly as a nebulous, faceless entity (this is what the SPD's tips-for-women list does). I do think rapists are horrible pieces of shit, but unless we try to culturally instruct men to think of women as human beings, they ain't gonna do it. What if there were an ad campaign patiently and compassionately teaching men about the humanity of women? If it made a few guys think twice about raping someone, wouldn't it be worth it?
Don't try to make it out into something more than what it actually is.
I do think people are arguing against the idea that advice like this, given when there is a completely known predator who victimizes random women, is completely sexist and useless because either a) they've heard it before, b) the TONE is all wrong for this kind of thing, or c) they imagine there is no culture telling men that sexual assault is bad.
I am really embarrassed for most of the men participating in this thread. Like, CONGRATULATIONS, you probably know about A Thing!! But there is almost a 100% chance that you DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT LIVING IN CONSTANT FEAR ABOUT BEING SEXUALLY ASSAULTED. Seriously! You don't! So, instead of talking about a thing you really, REALLY have no clue about, shut up and listen? There are endless essays and articles and research, all available at your fingertips. No spoon feeding necessary!
I would love to school some of you assclowns (some of which I see in real life -- GOMEZ, HELLO!) but your heads are SO FAR UP YOUR OWN ASS, the muffling noise of your own paternalistic bloviating on what people who have an entirely different life experience than you should do would block out any reasoning on the subject, so it isn't worth my fucking time. Hope y'all are looking forward to a self-righteous middle finger the next time I see you in person, you idiot sacks of shit.
In this case: many people blamed victims of sexual assault, telling them they should have been more careful and that they shouldn't have dressed like sluts and skanks; simultaneously, reducing the sentence of the predator who was so tempted by the easy prey. This was wrong.
It led to a push against the idea that, by not following these warnings, women were making themselves the victims, and thus were somewhat to blame for their own victimization.
Which has now been warped to "don't remind us that we have to be careful! You're being sexist by telling us that we have to watch out for somebody, and giving tips on how to conduct ourselves when there is a known threat. I don't care if there is a predator. Tell that guy not to rape me. I don't care if he is sick in the head and probably won't listen." Sometimes with a touch of "Men don't get told what to do" (which is wrong, btw).
The goal of the original movement was to put the blame on the criminal. The new goal seems to be to remove all reminders of protecting one's self and self-responsibility (because they've all heard it before, or something).
Women already avoid walking alone after dark, keeping their hands clutched around their keys and wonder if maybe they should spend the money that was gonna pay their electrical bill on a cab instead, and then wonder if the cab-driver is a creep who will rape them anyway.
Bottom line, if women are saying "this doesn't help" and you want to help, you should be listening.
*rewards with a condescending pat on the head*
On second thought, maybe we should hold the slut juice and make those *virgin* margaritas.
And due to that I'm clearly some sort of misogynist that, in what I'm sure you'd libelously claim is evidenced by my inability to distinguish between individual vagina life support systems.
You find one obvious but inconsequential error and that's all you have to say without addressing one single meaningful critical thing. You realize if Stranger readers disqualified every Stranger article based on petty errors you'd have no readers left.
Look. I can appreciate the frustration of being part of a target community based upon the accident of your birth. I worked with sexual assault survivors for over a decade. And I taught women's self defense courses for over a decade. I got involved because my sister in law was brutally raped by a stranger and left for dead.
If your reading comprehension came close to your knee jerk reflexes you'd have read exactly what level of sympathy I have to altering rape culture in my middle statements. But this post has lierally nothing to do with rape culture. It's a vain attempt at outrage generation peppered with hackey cutsey language already stale when Lindy West finally wore it out.
The cops issued boiler plate anti-crime advice - and advice fairly reasonably and gender neutrally presented I might add - due to the nature of the attacks being in-public stranger attacks. Which has fuck all to do with the sort of rape culture critiques other, better, feminist theorists talk about when then they rightly refer to altering cultural approaches to dealing with sexual assaults.
This post by Anna missed the mark by a mile in both its understanding of what constitutes rape culture and what responsibility our Law Enforcement institutions have to public safety.
There was, and has been, a damned good forward momentum towards not blaming the victim and actually blaming the criminal.
I liken it to the advice I was given, repeatedly, in the late 90s (yes, even post-Matthew Shepard), which was to not dress gay (which I didn't, but whatever), not act gay in neighborhoods that you didn't know, travel in groups if you can, be aware of your surroundings, travel in well lit areas, etc etc etc.
Or, advice in the mid-90s: don't go into certain parts of Detroit, don't dress in certain colors, don't wear your hair in certain styles, walk with a purpose, be aware of your surroundings, don't go into certain parts of Detroit, travel in groups in bad neighborhoods, etc etc etc.
This advice was repeated through the mid-00s, when a male friend of mine got jumped on his way to his car after a party.
Boilerplate advice, all of it. If I took the time to be offended by the tone any of it was delivered, I'd have been constantly offended. Instead, I took it with the intent it was meant: protect yourself.
@89 I think you misunderstood my post. I don't care about sympathizing with or pitying men. I care about preventing the rape of women. Rape culture is predicated on, among other things, the pervasive disregard of the humanity of women, and that needs to be fixed. A lot of men obviously don't get these "extremely basic ideas," which is why they need to be taught. Yes, it's pathetic that this is where we're at in 2013. But I'm thinking of a compassionate approach as a strategy, as a means to an end, not something that is owed to men for their sake.