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> Basic safety steps are not victim blaming I agree, but it's 100% called victim blaming when you apply it to women. "We shouldn't have to do anything differen

> Basic safety steps are not victim blaming I agree, but it's 100% called victim blaming when you apply it to women. "We shouldn't have to do anything differently", "teach men not to rape" etc etc. I don't think anyone here disagrees, they're pointing out the double standard.

skyyler 4y ago
But women already get that advice of meeting in public / telling friends... If this is some kind of "gotcha", I think you're doing it wrong.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Go give women that advice, see what happens. Again, it's solid advice. But you'll get torn apart if you publicly give "be safe first, be right second" advice to women.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    You don't need to give that advice to women. They've already gotten it, almost certainly from other women. Given how women are often treated by men, I totally understand why they would chafe at being given this sort of advice from a man. I would, too, if I were in their shoes. Apparently there are a lot of men who haven't received this advice from anyone, though, even though it always applied to them as well.
    - birdyrooster 4y ago
      > Given how women are often treated by other women, I totally understand why they would chafe at being given this sort of advice. I think it is ad-hominem fallacy to say that an argument's provenance changes it in any significant way whether it comes from a man or a woman.
      - kadoban 4y ago
        > I think it is ad-hominem fallacy to say that an argument's provenance changes Advice isn't an argument.
        stOneskull 4y ago
        sometimes it is
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here, because "provenance" literally means "where it came from", so by definition it changes according to who is giving the advice. I assume that you mean something more like "how good the advice is". And you're right. But that's not the point. The point is that most women are constantly being told how they should or should not be by men, usually in a way that is treating them as if they were children. So when they are unnecessarily instructed by men about how to be safer in world where it's mostly men that makes it dangerous for them, I totally understand why that might be irritating. No matter what the message is, who gives it is often the primary thing that determines how it will be received.
        birdyrooster 4y ago
        I am saying that it is ad-hominem fallacy to say that advice (aka arguments) are any less valid based on their provenance, or as you put it “where it came from” (and of course, who it came from).
        JohnFen 4y ago
        Ok, then I understood you correctly. :)
  - RajT88 4y ago
    > But you'll get torn apart if you publicly give "be safe first, be right second" advice to women. Because it's patronizing to think they don't know that.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      As if everybody knows and follows those rules?
      - RajT88 4y ago
        Trying asking around the women you know and see what the data says.
      - lazyasciiart 4y ago
        Eat your vegetables.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - filmgirlcw 4y ago
    We get that advice. We know that advice. We give that advice to one another. What “women” typically object to is when the first response from someone after reporting an assault/harassment/attempted assault is to be immediately questioned, “what were you wearing?” “Did you lead him on?” “What time of night was it?” “You were drunk, weren’t you.” That’s what pisses us off. The immediate move to blame the victim as if they asked for it (and in some parts of the world, rape is still framed that way. She asked for it.) and thus deserve this to happen. I can assure you that every woman I have ever met over the age of 21 (I don’t know any girls who are in high school now, sorry) has been told her whole life to be careful and take precautions when meeting someone, especially someone from off the internet. “Text us when you get there.” “Be sure to watch your drink.” “Meet in public first, just to be safe.” “If If you don’t text me by “X,” I’m going to blow up your phone.” “Be sure to take an Uber if you’re going home after X o’clock.” These are things we say to EACH OTHER. These are things our mother’s taught us. We don’t get mad when reminded to be safe. We get mad when the instinct is to blame us for our own assaults. (And it isn’t just men that blame women. Women can blame women too. And women can blame themselves, even when they did absolutely nothing wrong.)
    - notch898a 4y ago
      When I tell my wife about the time I get robbed when in Mexico, the first kind of questions are things like what time of night and did you go to the slums etc. If the answers are yes I'm called a dumbass and told not to do it again. [Yes I have been robbed or attempted robbed multiple times including at gunpoint and no I'm not offended by these questions] I'm not saying being robbed is anywhere near as bad as getting sexually harassed or raped but I never thought the line of questioning was really unreasonable. Even if I've heard the advice being told it again by someone I know can be helpful because even if I'm told it constantly I still need to be reminded not to be a dumbass and go out at night dressing like I'm well off or whatever because someone will rob me and I have a bad memory with that kind of stuff. Granted most people in general including women are probably less a dumbass about these things than I am.
      - throwaway290 4y ago
        > the first kind of questions are things like what time of night and did you go to the slums etc. If the answers are yes I'm called a dumbass and told not to do it again Your wife can imply you are to blame because as far as you two are concerned the robbers are force of nature. It's good for preserving personal sanity, but not when this logic is applied in public or by authorities and can influence public opinion or policy. Are they force of nature? Or perhaps something we can or even should deal with? If you want robbers to go away, normalizing them is the worst thing you could do.
vkou 4y ago
Whether a statement is victim-blaming or not depends on the purpose behind it. If the purpose behind it is to give helpful, relevant, useful advice for avoiding a bad situation, it's not victim blaming. If the purpose behind it is to downplay and deflect and ignore the other causes of the bad situation, it is. If someone isn't wearing a seatbelt, and dies in an auto accident, it's not victim blaming to remind people to wear seatbelts. It is victim blaming to use that reminder to divert attention away from the fact that the auto accident was caused by another drunk driver.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Either way, you're dead. Why is it wrong to point out things that could have been done to avoid that outcome?
  - vkou 4y ago
    For the same reason that there's a difference between giving constructive criticism, and being an asshole. Intent and tone matters. It's especially easy to misread, misspeak, or misrepresent either one on the internet.
- jfengel 4y ago
  Honestly, my purpose was neither. This is, thus far, a localized matter, and it's unlikely to affect most men. The advice is sound, but that's not really the purpose. (And it was very much not intended to blame them.) Rather, my purpose was to use the opportunity to give men perspective about women. And it's something they can use to their benefit: not to avoid being robbed, but to have more successful dates.
roarcher 4y ago
> it's 100% called victim blaming when you apply it to women Yes, but only by some people. Many, maybe most, women would consider "don't walk down dark alleys at night alone" to be common sense. I suspect the subset of people who call that "victim blaming" only seem like a majority because that view happens to be popular with media personalities and Twitter loudmouths. I'd also point out that it matters when the advice is given. There's a difference between "don't walk down any dark alleys alone tonight" and "this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't walked down that dark alley alone". In any case, getting offended by good advice just because some other people get offended by good advice doesn't make sense.
burnished 4y ago
There isnt a double standard - people say those things you quote when they are given basic safety tips as a response to being sexually assaulted, which is absurd and humiliating and very clearly puts the onus of responsibility on the victim.

skyyler 4y ago

But women already get that advice of meeting in public / telling friends... If this is some kind of "gotcha", I think you're doing it wrong.

luckylion 4y ago
Go give women that advice, see what happens. Again, it's solid advice. But you'll get torn apart if you publicly give "be safe first, be right second" advice to women.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  You don't need to give that advice to women. They've already gotten it, almost certainly from other women. Given how women are often treated by men, I totally understand why they would chafe at being given this sort of advice from a man. I would, too, if I were in their shoes. Apparently there are a lot of men who haven't received this advice from anyone, though, even though it always applied to them as well.
  - birdyrooster 4y ago
    > Given how women are often treated by other women, I totally understand why they would chafe at being given this sort of advice. I think it is ad-hominem fallacy to say that an argument's provenance changes it in any significant way whether it comes from a man or a woman.
    - kadoban 4y ago
      > I think it is ad-hominem fallacy to say that an argument's provenance changes Advice isn't an argument.
      - stOneskull 4y ago
        sometimes it is
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here, because "provenance" literally means "where it came from", so by definition it changes according to who is giving the advice. I assume that you mean something more like "how good the advice is". And you're right. But that's not the point. The point is that most women are constantly being told how they should or should not be by men, usually in a way that is treating them as if they were children. So when they are unnecessarily instructed by men about how to be safer in world where it's mostly men that makes it dangerous for them, I totally understand why that might be irritating. No matter what the message is, who gives it is often the primary thing that determines how it will be received.
      - birdyrooster 4y ago
        I am saying that it is ad-hominem fallacy to say that advice (aka arguments) are any less valid based on their provenance, or as you put it “where it came from” (and of course, who it came from).
        JohnFen 4y ago
        Ok, then I understood you correctly. :)
- RajT88 4y ago
  > But you'll get torn apart if you publicly give "be safe first, be right second" advice to women. Because it's patronizing to think they don't know that.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    As if everybody knows and follows those rules?
    - RajT88 4y ago
      Trying asking around the women you know and see what the data says.
    - lazyasciiart 4y ago
      Eat your vegetables.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  We get that advice. We know that advice. We give that advice to one another. What “women” typically object to is when the first response from someone after reporting an assault/harassment/attempted assault is to be immediately questioned, “what were you wearing?” “Did you lead him on?” “What time of night was it?” “You were drunk, weren’t you.” That’s what pisses us off. The immediate move to blame the victim as if they asked for it (and in some parts of the world, rape is still framed that way. She asked for it.) and thus deserve this to happen. I can assure you that every woman I have ever met over the age of 21 (I don’t know any girls who are in high school now, sorry) has been told her whole life to be careful and take precautions when meeting someone, especially someone from off the internet. “Text us when you get there.” “Be sure to watch your drink.” “Meet in public first, just to be safe.” “If If you don’t text me by “X,” I’m going to blow up your phone.” “Be sure to take an Uber if you’re going home after X o’clock.” These are things we say to EACH OTHER. These are things our mother’s taught us. We don’t get mad when reminded to be safe. We get mad when the instinct is to blame us for our own assaults. (And it isn’t just men that blame women. Women can blame women too. And women can blame themselves, even when they did absolutely nothing wrong.)
  - notch898a 4y ago
    When I tell my wife about the time I get robbed when in Mexico, the first kind of questions are things like what time of night and did you go to the slums etc. If the answers are yes I'm called a dumbass and told not to do it again. [Yes I have been robbed or attempted robbed multiple times including at gunpoint and no I'm not offended by these questions] I'm not saying being robbed is anywhere near as bad as getting sexually harassed or raped but I never thought the line of questioning was really unreasonable. Even if I've heard the advice being told it again by someone I know can be helpful because even if I'm told it constantly I still need to be reminded not to be a dumbass and go out at night dressing like I'm well off or whatever because someone will rob me and I have a bad memory with that kind of stuff. Granted most people in general including women are probably less a dumbass about these things than I am.
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      > the first kind of questions are things like what time of night and did you go to the slums etc. If the answers are yes I'm called a dumbass and told not to do it again Your wife can imply you are to blame because as far as you two are concerned the robbers are force of nature. It's good for preserving personal sanity, but not when this logic is applied in public or by authorities and can influence public opinion or policy. Are they force of nature? Or perhaps something we can or even should deal with? If you want robbers to go away, normalizing them is the worst thing you could do.

vkou 4y ago

Whether a statement is victim-blaming or not depends on the purpose behind it. If the purpose behind it is to give helpful, relevant, useful advice for avoiding a bad situation, it's not victim blaming. If the purpose behind it is to downplay and deflect and ignore the other causes of the bad situation, it is. If someone isn't wearing a seatbelt, and dies in an auto accident, it's not victim blaming to remind people to wear seatbelts. It is victim blaming to use that reminder to divert attention away from the fact that the auto accident was caused by another drunk driver.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Either way, you're dead. Why is it wrong to point out things that could have been done to avoid that outcome?
- vkou 4y ago
  For the same reason that there's a difference between giving constructive criticism, and being an asshole. Intent and tone matters. It's especially easy to misread, misspeak, or misrepresent either one on the internet.
jfengel 4y ago
Honestly, my purpose was neither. This is, thus far, a localized matter, and it's unlikely to affect most men. The advice is sound, but that's not really the purpose. (And it was very much not intended to blame them.) Rather, my purpose was to use the opportunity to give men perspective about women. And it's something they can use to their benefit: not to avoid being robbed, but to have more successful dates.

roarcher 4y ago

> it's 100% called victim blaming when you apply it to women Yes, but only by some people. Many, maybe most, women would consider "don't walk down dark alleys at night alone" to be common sense. I suspect the subset of people who call that "victim blaming" only seem like a majority because that view happens to be popular with media personalities and Twitter loudmouths. I'd also point out that it matters when the advice is given. There's a difference between "don't walk down any dark alleys alone tonight" and "this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't walked down that dark alley alone". In any case, getting offended by good advice just because some other people get offended by good advice doesn't make sense.

burnished 4y ago

There isnt a double standard - people say those things you quote when they are given basic safety tips as a response to being sexually assaulted, which is absurd and humiliating and very clearly puts the onus of responsibility on the victim.