Is "Victim Blaming" always wrong?

[mjr]

I get it. We need to worry about who committed the crime. But why is it wrong to increase your chances that the crime doesn't happen to you?

Well, I'm not necessarily even talking about sexual assault, or sleeping around.

Let's take the "classic" example of someone getting hit by a bus.

Now, getting hit by a bus, I'm sure we can all agree, is a terrible thing. And honestly, I have no idea how often it actually happens.

But if someone has their nose in their mobile device (playing a game, texting, or whatever) with earbuds in (being somewhat oblivious to their surroundings at this point), and they step out in front of a bus and get hit, whose fault is it? The bus driver? The mobile device maker? The pedestrian?

In a case like that, you could very well "blame the victim", because if they were paying attention to their surroundings, they'd realize that there's a bus coming, and that they're about to step in front of it.

And "victim blaming" doesn't mean that you can't have sympathy/empathy for the victim.

[TheHuckster]

When most people talk about victim blaming, they're almost always talking about people who are raped, assaulted, mugged, or murdered and state that they didn't take the "necessary precautions" to avoid the event.

I've never heard of anyone using the term to describe someone who was truly careless like in your bus example. At least not in any serious discussion. It's about the fact that someone wearing revealing clothing or accepting a drink from someone without being paranoid about roofies shouldn't be considered careless, yet some people seriously believe that the victim is at least partly to blame for what happened to them if they did that. This is where victim blaming in the vast majority of such discussions comes in.

[Rageaholic]

When most people talk about victim blaming, they're almost always talking about people who are raped, assaulted, mugged, or murdered and state that they didn't take the "necessary precautions" to avoid the event.

I've never heard of anyone using the term to describe someone who was truly careless like in your bus example. At least not in any serious discussion. It's about the fact that someone wearing revealing clothing or accepting a drink from someone without being paranoid about roofies shouldn't be considered careless, yet some people seriously believe that the victim is at least partly to blame for what happened to them if they did that. This is where victim blaming in the vast majority of such discussions comes in.

In those cases I'd say that victim blaming is wrong. Though there is a difference between chastising a victim for being "careless" and offering advice on how to protect oneself from predators. For example, making nail polish that detects date rape drugs would be an idea you'd think would be well received, but nope. There are IDIOTS who think that the mere existence of a product would suggest that rape victims could have prevented it. So by that logic, offering victims anything that can protect themselves would be victim blaming? The hell?

[TheHuckster]

In those cases I'd say that victim blaming is wrong. Though there is a difference between chastising a victim for being "careless" and offering advice on how to protect oneself from predators. For example, making nail polish that detects date rape drugs would be an idea you'd think would be well received, but nope. There are IDIOTS who think that the mere existence of a product would suggest that rape victims could have prevented it. So by that logic, offering victims anything that can protect themselves would be victim blaming? The hell?

I agree. That's an instance where it shouldn't even be in the same discussion as victim blaming. That said, there is still a line between offering it to people who wish to have extra protection and stating that anyone who doesn't use said protection shouldn't be upset if they are attacked.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

I think the major difference between helping those to help themselves and victim blaming is very easy to show.

"You can do X, Y, and Zed."

"Why didn't you do X, Y, and Zed?"

When the event has already happened, it is not appropriate to immediately push the information on how to protect themselves into their face - especially if the case is still open. Especially with the context of "You should have done this before!" Instead it should be helping the victim to heal and then "You can do this and this, it will help you feel more confident and in control, with more options on how to handle a possible situation in the future."

[Shangri-laschild]

There are IDIOTS who think that the mere existence of a product would suggest that rape victims could have prevented it. So by that logic, offering victims anything that can protect themselves would be victim blaming? The hell?

The fact that women still get asked "what were you wearing" fairly well shows that there is a mentality that women are expected to prevent their own sexual assault. Yeah, having something like this to be able to feel safer sounds awesome. Sadly though, we do live in a society that expects women to prevent their own sexual assault and then blames them when they fail. I'm not sure how this nail polish would be somehow exempt from this mentality. In a perfect world, women should be able to walk down a dark alley alone at night while drunk and not have someone assault them but we have to consider the world we live in and that's always going to be a risk even if it's lowered. Just like how women having more ways to protect themselves is awesome but we have to consider the world we live in and things like this get used against women as a method to blame them. No, the people who created it aren't victim blaming but sadly the reality of the world means that some people will always look for reasons why it was the victim's fault.

[TheHuckster]

The fact that women still get asked "what were you wearing" fairly well shows that there is a mentality that women are expected to prevent their own sexual assault. Yeah, having something like this to be able to feel safer sounds awesome. Sadly though, we do live in a society that expects women to prevent their own sexual assault and then blames them when they fail. I'm not sure how this nail polish would be somehow exempt from this mentality. In a perfect world, women should be able to walk down a dark alley alone at night while drunk and not have someone assault them but we have to consider the world we live in and that's always going to be a risk even if it's lowered. Just like how women having more ways to protect themselves is awesome but we have to consider the world we live in and things like this get used against women as a method to blame them. No, the people who created it aren't victim blaming but sadly the reality of the world means that some people will always look for reasons why it was the victim's fault.

Okay, but that still doesn't detract from Rageoholic's original point: That if someone makes something that protects someone else from a very real risk, it doesn't in and of itself encourage the mentality you describe. Even if this mentality didn't exist, there would still be bad apples who commit horrible crimes, and some people might find comfort in having something like this just to protect themselves from rapists, especially if they're in an unfamiliar place.