The Blame Game: Rapists (Not Victims) Cause Rape

Laurel Carlton

“It was partially her fault for walking alone late at night.”

A Guatemalan friend made that comment in 2011, when I told him that a woman had been raped in the street just three blocks from my apartment in Zone 1. We got into a heated argument about responsibility for the assault, with him asserting: “you’re not in Canada any more, things are different here.”

While there are differences between Canada and Guatemala, the idea that a rape victim is somehow to blame for her own assault is unfortunately not one of them. Throughout the world, many continue to support the discourse that women bear fundamental responsibility for whether or not they are raped – ‘She was asking for it dressed that way,’ ‘What did she expect, out so late?’ ‘Men will be men.’

For example, in January 2011, when discussing strategies to protect themselves from rape, a Canadian police officer advised University of Toronto students: “Don’t dress like a slut.” In doing so, he implicitly excused attackers from their responsibility to act rationally and respectfully, suggesting instead that a woman’s clothing choice plays a key role in provoking assault.

Defense lawyers often use this tactic to suggest that the victims somehow invited their attackers, that their actions or clothing somehow provided unspoken consent. In India, a lawyer defending three men charged with the 2012 rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a New Delhi bus has argued that the victim should not have been taking public transit late in the evening, further stating that «I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady.» More recently, in November 2013, a New Zealand attorney suggested that his client was not guilty of rape, because were the sex not consensual, “all [the victim] would have had to do was to close her legs.”

The mainstream media, peers, friends, and even families of rape victims have also engaged in victim-blaming. For example, community members of Steubenville, Ohio, blamed a 16-year-old girl who was raped by a group of high school football players for her own attack, suggesting that she had brought disrepute to the town and the football team. Ultimately, the twisted result is that many victims end up blaming themselves, which can prove detrimental to their ability to cope with and recover from the attack.

Let’s be clear. There is only one cause of rape: rapists cause rape. Short skirts, red lipstick, drunkenness, walking alone at night, dancing, cleavage – none of these tacitly provide sexual consent, nor do they supplant a woman’s right to refuse sex, nor do they excuse a man from violating another human’s rights.

Let’s also remember that rape is about power and control, and it is based in deeply rooted misogynstic notions that women are subordinate to men. Rapists are responsible for their own choices – for choosing to disregard a woman’s most basic right to say ‘no’ – and no amount of provocative clothing, drunkenness, or late night walking should detract from that.

The emphasis on women’s behaviour, and their supposed role in their own rape, confuses the issue of who is responsible. Further, it misplaces the social stigma attached to rape, removing it from the rapist and placing it on the victim.

Discourse about preventing rape needs to place the blame squarely on the attacker, shifting from “women should stop getting themselves raped” to “men should stop raping women.” Ultimately, when we place the responsibility on women for preventing their own rape, the world is not a safer place for women – it is safer for rapists.

A former resident of Xela, Laurel Carlton is a Master’s of Public Administration candidate at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.