By Guadalupe Carmona—
In the terrible case of rape, after enduring the horror of that attack, some victims actually hear the words, “she deserved it.” This is blaming the victim and it should be stopped. The term victim blaming means that after someone is the victim of a violent crime, she is then alleged to have a certain quality that triggered the act. They deserved it.
When someone is attacked and they have no way to defend themselves there is nothing that she did to “deserve it.” If two people fight then the blame is split between them. However, if someone is attacked it is not her fault. No one does anything to deserve being attacked and raped.
A wave of victim blaming in rape cases has begun during the past few years and it seems to be spreading like wildfire being fanned by social media. Bullying and harassing many girls online after they have been the victim of a serious crime is an unfortunate phenomenon that should be ended before it gets out of control. The prevalence of social sites, and the ease in which information and misinformation can be spread through the internet, makes victim blaming very easy.
Christina Diamandopoulos, of the Rape Crisis Charity, says that victim blaming as a “myth that women are responsible for men’s sexual behavior. What a woman wears, says, where she goes, or what she does can make her responsible for the crime committed against her.” No one can be responsible for another’s behavior. This myth fuels the prevalent misconception that most victims do not know their aggressor to which Diamondopoulos states; “most rape is committed by partners, ex-partners and men who are known to the woman.”
One well known case involved the 2012 rape conviction of famous Welsh soccer player Ched Evans. He was convicted of rape because his victim was too intoxicated to give consent. Even though there is a law protecting the identity of rape victims in England, her name was leaked to twitter. She began to face angry, threatening and derogatory tweets from fans of this popular soccer player. Some of the tweets accused her of being a “gold digger,” achieving fame at the expense of the famous soccer player. The attacks became so brutal that the victim was forced to change her identity.
Some parts of society still have misconceptions about women. There is still, even in this modern world, those who are close-minded and misogynistic. Todd Akin, a Republican Senate candidate, claimed “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy, and added that the female body has ways “to shut that down”. As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat, this was a high profile story and it led to a firestorm across the nation. Holly Dustin, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, commented on the misconceptions still held against women; “While the law on rape and sexual consent is clear, some of our politicians and other leaders seem to have failed to notice the progress that’s been made.”
Women’s rights advances and the progress that has been made over the past decades are at risk from the spread of hate and misconceptions found in social media. Social media has become a weapon that facilitates hate and inappropriate jokes about domestic violence and victims of rape and desensitizes people to the seriousness of woman abuse. The pervasive nature of the internet means that people can find whatever misconception they wish to indulge. Sites like reddit profit from the degradation of women. They feature categories dedicated to “raping women” and “hot rape stories.” Women’s groups like Equality Now are fighting to show how these sites are dangerous to women. Jacqui Hunt of Equality Now, explained how; “We absorb messages from all around us every day, so what some might dismiss as harmless banter takes on a completely different quality when it forms part of a general culture of demeaning, pejorative and prejudicial reporting on women.”
Women have faced this kind of prejudice for a long time. While the women’s movement has come a long way, women still face horrible, demeaning, prejudice. It is undeserved and demoralizing.
