Tags
Best Rape Prevention, college, drinking, Emily Yoffe, Rape, troll, women, Wronging Rights, Yoffe
Most of my blog posts make at least some attempt at humor, and I’m never sure whether to be delighted or astonished when readers find them amusing. This isn’t going to be one of those posts.
When each of my four children left home, my husband advised them to attend all classes and visit their professors during office hours. I told them to put their clothes on hangers if they didn’t want to iron them and wear flip-flops if they were using unfamiliar showers.
I realized my parental failure after reading Emily Yoffe’s article, The Best Rape Prevention: Tell College Women to Stop Getting So Wasted. Apparently Ms. Yoffe’s approach is for the victim to either take responsibility for preventing the crime, or accept the blame for the consequences. Based on her parenting advice, I should have told my kids the following:
- You shouldn’t let anyone breathe around you. If you end up with pneumonia, you only have yourself to blame.
- Never cross the street in a marked crosswalk, on a clear day, with the light. If an ass-chippy plows you down in the convertible her daddy gave her to celebrate getting through her first semester without flunking out, it’s your own damn fault for not jumping out of her way.
- Don’t take your eyes off of the iPad that was your high school graduation present, and which held several years of your stories and drawings, because you’re just tempting someone to help themselves to it.
- Are you crazy? Why would you try to protect that girl from the drunken, knife-wielding oxygen-waster? You’re just asking for him to come after you next.
Wait… Huh?
I guess I should call my kids back and explain that not only are they personally responsible for the items 1-4 above, but this also explains why half of their preceding generation of relatives is missing. That generation’s parents should have explained that if their children insisted on being born Jews, they would have nobody but themselves to blame if they ended up on the receiving end of the holocaust.
I’m happy to say that Wronging Rights, one of the web’s more effective (and humorous) human rights blogs, disagrees with Ms. Yoffe’s theory. And I’m even happier to say that the Wronging Rights post was written by one of those kids we sent off to buy hangers and attend class. It’s a brilliant piece by my daughter Amanda, and I hope you’ll take a look.
REBLOG:
A Field Guide to the North American Responsibility Troll
I would like to thank Emily Yoffe for her article The Best Rape Prevention: Tell College Women to Stop Getting So Wasted, in which she spends more than 2,700 words explaining young women’s “responsibility” when it comes to preventing their own rapes. Not because I like it – it’s infuriating – but because it serves as a perfect example of a particularly insidious form of concern trolling. Let’s call this sub-species of troll, who criticizes women’s behavior in the guise of being concerned for their well-being, a “responsibility troll.”
The responsibility troll has a problem: he or she has a lot of thoughts about the way Women Ought to Behave, but knows that it’s socially unacceptable to insist directly on double standards for men and women. Luckily, however, our society is totally fine with restricting women’s lives if it’s for their own good (or, sometimes, for their children’s). Problem solved!… [click here for MORE]
Lilith Colbert said:
UGH!! It is SO easy to blame the victim, the whole “if you walk into a lion’s den” theory, but even lions can choose to let the gazelle pass if they’ve just had a meal, just as a human male can BE a man and choose not to prey on the weak like a scavenging jackal.
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barbtaub said:
I think the issue is not whether we will prevent women from being raped by “informing” them of the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Unless they’ve been raised in an isolation chamber, young women have pretty much been informed of those dangers in a nonstop stream from their early days. And I’m not suggesting we stop informing them of those dangers. But where it crosses a line for me is when we tell them to avoid situations because they might have dangers instead of addressing the actual (and more difficult, I admit) issue of why we are allowing behaviors in others that serve to strip young women of their freedom. For their own good, of course…
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Lilith Colbert said:
Yet by the same token, I’m seeing a lot of women who USE the whole drunk card as an excuse to accuse men/boys of committing assault when the whole thing WAS consensual and she doesn’t want to be labeled a slut.
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jennypellett said:
Phew, heavy reading for me over breakfast today, but once started, got sucked right in. Great points and positive writing from your daughter – a good job indeed. Those flip flops and hangers stood her in good stead, didn’t they?
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barbtaub said:
Not to mention the flip-flops!
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quiall said:
Excellent commentary!
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barbtaub said:
Thanks!
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Milly said:
What?!? Your daughter writes my all-time favorite blog! I had no idea. I can only hope the diva turns out as whip-smart and funny as yours. She taught me a lot about maintaining humor while working on horrible soul-killing topics (I used to do genocide research). Good on you, Mama.
And don’t get me started on that Slate article. It’s just ugh times a million, and the dialogue surrounding it is even worse. Maybe you’d appreciate Roxane Gay’s essay in Salon about it, though.
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barbtaub said:
“Nachus” is a great word I learned from Great-Uncle Herbie and Great-Aunt-Fannie (along with two pieces of life advice — never give your partner a present with a handle, and don’t eat in restaurants with lots of plants). Nachus refers to the feelings of pride and happiness you get from the accomplishments of others (for Jewish mothers, it obviously refers to their children). So getting a blog comment like yours is like a complete nachus fix. I’m so proud of Amanda and all that she’s achieved, and of course I’m thrilled that you admire the blog too.
Your field was genocide research? I admire you for that. As Amanda and her writing partner Kate tell us, it’s a tough, demanding vocation where the pay, hours, and success rate sucks — but they’re making new work so fast that at least there’s plenty of job security!
Oh, and I had seen Roxane Gay’s piece as well and have to admit that she makes some nicely-balanced points.
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Beth Caldwell said:
HOLY COW, this is a powerful post. Especially the paragraph about the Holocaust. Logic is such a powerful tool for smashing the patriarchy!
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