This is rape culture: Comments submitted to the site

November 14, 2014, Admin, EVB Analysis,

These are two recent comments to our site. We usually just hit the spam button, but every so often we like to make it perfectly clear what victim blaming in rape culture actually looks like:

First, we have this:

Why don’t people just keep out of what doesn’t concern them Evans is the victim we know how welsh girls behave just watch the valleys

And, then we have this charming little number:

The vile beast must be rehabilitated for sure but society needs to start taking sexual abuse serious and the sentence was pitiful. Anyone convicted of destroying a persons life, it happens to men and women, should be locked up for at least 10yrs and 10yrs of hard labour with the rest of their lives on parole and a 2nd strike is life imprisonment. The beast when they are released should be rehabilitated into society. Not by rubbing peoples noses in it and reinstating them into public life but by making them start again from the bottom of the crap heap where they belong and probably always will. Maybe if politicians wives and mothers, brothers and sons were raped they might start to take the vile act seriously. The family and friends are a poor example and probably why the idiot does what he does. Inbreeding is a crime and the perpetrators should also be punished. Just how many munster Billy Bob Cheds are there in wales!!

The breakdown:

1. Rape concerns every one. Even if we take the most hardline response: the financial consequences of rape are huge in terms of helping the survivor heal. If men stopped raping (or committing domestic violence), there would be huge savings to the policing, CJS, social care and NHS budgets. Recent statistics suggest that police spend 20% of their operational time dealing with domestic violence. Imagine the positive community work with young people that could be done if domestic violence ended today.

2. This isn't about financial concerns for us: this is about the global industry of violence against women. Women have the right to live without fear of violence.

3. The references to "Welsh girls" in both comments demonstrate an othering of bodies suggesting that Welsh girls deserve what they get for the simple fact of being born Welsh. This is prejudice and we class it as a hate crime.

4. Rapists are not "vile beasts". They are normal, average, everyday men who make the choice to rape women. Claiming they are beasts makes it easier to dismiss the daily abuse of women and girls committed by men. This is offensive, factually incorrect and erases perpetrator responsibility. After all, if rapists are just "beasts", then they can't help themselves - this is disgraceful. We know men can choose not to rape.

5. References to "wives, mothers and sisters" creates a hierarchy of "good" and "bad" victims. No one deserves to be raped. If you require mentioning your mother to understand that rape is a crime, you need to have your empathy button recalibrated.

6. Ched Evans is an adult - he is solely responsible for the choices he made. It doesn't matter if all his family are pro-rape, he made the choice to commit rape. He is the rapist.

7. This, once again, is about erasing the perpetrator's responsibility:

Inbreeding is a crime and the perpetrators should also be punished. Just how many munster Billy Bob Cheds are there in wales!!

Suggesting that rapists are the result of 'inbreeding' (much of it will be through inter-familial sexual violence), is othering. It makes rapists victims of circumstance, rather than perpetrators of a crime.

These comments come from two different perspectives: Ched as the Victim & Ched as the Perpetrator, yet both reinforce the very same rape myths. They both believe that rape is the fault of the victim and that it's a problem of specific communities of people rather than a global problem of men - regardless of class, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, or faith.

‹ More on *that* Allison Pearson rape apology piece DrinkAware? Some victim awareness too please! ›