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The "victim" came to their superior to complain that their work had been sabotaged. After talking about it, her superior came to the conclusion that the most li

by zellyn 10y ago

The "victim" came to their superior to complain that their work had been sabotaged. After talking about it, her superior came to the conclusion that the most likely person to "blame" was the "victim". Hence, the straightforward use of the term "victim-blaming". Since my wife has done a lot of work with abused children, I was thinking most directly of that - when someone alleges abuse in a school or church community, it's quite common for people to bend over backwards to find ways to disbelieve or blame the victim. In the case of child abuse, almost nobody blames them "because they should have protected themselves better (or have hidden their vulnerability better, etc.)". They generally find ways to disbelieve them, or (quite commonly), say things like "you know how children lie about these things" (spoiler: they generally don't). The parallel I drew between two different (and vastly different in terms of personal damage done) types of blaming the victim was positing that it's the impulse to preserve the ideal, imagined just world that would drive people to go to such lengths to discount the straightforward path. Your last paragraph is a muddle. I think you're claiming that using the term "victim blaming" is an appeal to emotionally-loaded terms in a heretofore "rational" discussion, and claiming I'm jumping the discussion from the (presumably usually "rational" hackernews norm - hah!) to some kind of mindless emotional appeal. I think that's my cue to exit…

somestag 10y ago
I think the issue here is that the term victim blaming is not a simple sum of the meanings of victim and blaming. It's become something of an idiom. As the parent said, when someone cites "victim blaming" they're nearly always talking about situations where there's a clear victim and clear perpetrator (even if the perpetrator hasn't been identified), yet people claim the victim is largely at fault because they should have better protected themselves. I don't often hear the term used in cases of child abuse; or, when I do, it's a response to people claiming that the child shouldn't have been so annoying or provocative. I think most people would agree that discrediting or ignoring child abuse complaints is a separate issue that's not what people mean when they say victim blaming. In the case of the cancer lab, I would say this is a third type of scenario where people suspect the victim. In fact no one actually blamed the victim--merely suspected them--and everyone went forward with the investigation and eventually arrived at the truth. (Saying it's blaming because they're thought to be to blame is a conflation of idioms, in my opinion.) Once again, this definitely isn't what most people mean when they say victim blaming, not just because the victim was never blamed but because of the specific meaning we already talked about. It's totally okay to use the words for their definitions instead of going with what most people think the terms mean--that's your right. Just know that if you use the term like that, you're probably going to confuse people. Because victim blaming is a hot-button issue right now, it might start some pointless arguments that could be avoided by using different semantics. For what it's worth, I think it's okay to doubt, so long as you still follow through with the investigation. I'd say even in the cases of child abuse the issue is that no one bothers to find out the truth--not that they initially doubt the children. Clearly the victim could be lying or they could be telling the truth, and your personal estimation of those probabilities are based on all kinds of things. What matters is that you come to the correct conclusion in the end. Unfortunately, people often don't bother to investigate at all because it's messy and inconvenient.

by zellyn 10y ago

somestag 10y ago

I think the issue here is that the term victim blaming is not a simple sum of the meanings of victim and blaming. It's become something of an idiom. As the parent said, when someone cites "victim blaming" they're nearly always talking about situations where there's a clear victim and clear perpetrator (even if the perpetrator hasn't been identified), yet people claim the victim is largely at fault because they should have better protected themselves. I don't often hear the term used in cases of child abuse; or, when I do, it's a response to people claiming that the child shouldn't have been so annoying or provocative. I think most people would agree that discrediting or ignoring child abuse complaints is a separate issue that's not what people mean when they say victim blaming. In the case of the cancer lab, I would say this is a third type of scenario where people suspect the victim. In fact no one actually blamed the victim--merely suspected them--and everyone went forward with the investigation and eventually arrived at the truth. (Saying it's blaming because they're thought to be to blame is a conflation of idioms, in my opinion.) Once again, this definitely isn't what most people mean when they say victim blaming, not just because the victim was never blamed but because of the specific meaning we already talked about. It's totally okay to use the words for their definitions instead of going with what most people think the terms mean--that's your right. Just know that if you use the term like that, you're probably going to confuse people. Because victim blaming is a hot-button issue right now, it might start some pointless arguments that could be avoided by using different semantics. For what it's worth, I think it's okay to doubt, so long as you still follow through with the investigation. I'd say even in the cases of child abuse the issue is that no one bothers to find out the truth--not that they initially doubt the children. Clearly the victim could be lying or they could be telling the truth, and your personal estimation of those probabilities are based on all kinds of things. What matters is that you come to the correct conclusion in the end. Unfortunately, people often don't bother to investigate at all because it's messy and inconvenient.