Alcohol - helping rapists get away with it since…always
It’s the old thing that we’re all sick of hearing - women get drunk and somehow that makes them get raped, because rapists all lurk in dark corners somewhere around midnight waiting for scantily clad women to stumble past them in a state of vodka-addled stupor.
Or that’s the message that the Home Office seem to be giving out anyway. It’s on the radio and it’s in this poster. 1 in 3 rapes occur while the victim is under the influence of alcohol. Probably true, and yet 2 out of 3 rapes occur while the victim is sober so clearly rape is not a problem of drunk women, it is a problem of all women, but more so it is a problem of all RAPISTS. This advert doesn’t address that though.
January 20, 2008 at 12:53 pm
And 3 out of 3 rapes occur when the woman is in the company of a rapist.
Yep, the rapist is definitely the common denominator here - without him, there’s no rape. Funny how the Home Office don’t seem to have cottoned on to that yet.
Thanks for posting about this, I hadn’t seen that poster before, and it has made me very very angry. I might have to do something about it on my own blog, if you don’t mind? x
January 20, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Of course not Debs, the more people who get to read about this the better.
“And 3 out of 3 rapes occur when the woman is in the company of a rapist.
Yep, the rapist is definitely the common denominator here - without him, there’s no rape”
Very excellently put. I think that should go on posters!
January 20, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Thanks Grace x
January 20, 2008 at 2:28 pm
[...] 20, 2008 at 2:28 pm (Rape, lads culture, normalisation of porn) Thanks to Grace for posting about the latest victim-blaming campaign from the Home Office and the [...]
January 20, 2008 at 10:15 pm
[...] Via Grace [...]
January 20, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Thanks Grace I’ve just stuck it on my blog grrrr
January 20, 2008 at 11:20 pm
[...] view of the flurry of posts today - HT Grace, Debs, Sparkle, all worth a read if you feel like sharing a bit of righteous anger - on a new [...]
January 21, 2008 at 12:44 pm
*cross-posted at Debs’*
Hey,
I sent a letter of complaint ages ago now to the Department of Health about this campaign, I think it’s one the government have been promoting for a few months.I’ve dug out the e-mail I received back from them and pasted it below for you to read. If anyone wants to complain again the contact is: DHMail@dh.gsi.gov.uk
The e-mail from the Dept of Health:
“Thank you for your email of 27 January to the Department of Health about the Alcohol - Know Your Limits (KYL) advertisements. Your email has been passed to me for reply.
The KYL campaign tested a number of different creative ideas, and a hard hitting approach with ’shock factor’ was found to be highly effective with the 16 to 24 aged target audience of young binge drinkers. Young men and women claim that they need graphic and compelling reasons to re-appraise their behaviour. The KYL campaign is designed to encourage young people to drink more responsibly by communicating alcohol-related harms, and this includes the risk of sexual assault.
The Department recognises that alcohol is not always involved in rape cases, but it can be a significant risk factor, with young women putting themselves at greater risk and losing control of their personal safety. The campaign in no way seeks to blame the (female) victim and the Department regrets any offence that may have been caused in the communication of our messages.
Thank you again for writing.
Yours sincerely,
Woraphan Lagkam
Customer Service Centre
Department of Health”
January 21, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Thanks Michelle. That’s a pretty infuriating response. I fail to see how being drunk increases a woman’s likelihood of being sexually assaulted. While I will admit that a small minority of rapes are committed against women who walk home alone late at night and are preyed on by creatures of the dark, it is the fact that they are alone and it is dark that makes them an easy target, not their likelihood of being drunk.
When they come out with a study that says ‘rapists are more likely to prey on intoxicated women than sober women’ I will concede that the campaign is at all useful. But they won’t do that because those men who have sex with/force sex on drunk women usually get away with it because of the ‘grey area’ of drunken consent and so do not come under statistics or surveys of rapist populations. So there.
January 21, 2008 at 7:07 pm
The Dept of Health is wrong - women are not putting themselves ‘at risk’ because they happen to have taken a drink. Rather it is those men who choose to rape and sexually abuse women which needs to be addressed. Where is the campaign telling men to stop drinking I ask myself? Nowhere because we mustn’t put men centre stage and tell them ‘they must restrict their alcohol intake otherwise a woman or women just might rape them! ‘
Male rapists do not just select ‘women who drink’ research shows most male rapists know their victims and most rapists are opportunists who when they see a chance seize it knowing the female victim will most likely be disbelieved. Another factor is intertwining of male sexual entitlement and domination of women.
The vast majority of male rapists are ex-boyfriends, acquaintances, work colleagues, male neighbours, male family members. In other words not MALE STRANGERS. Most male rapists plan their rapes because they believe not only are they entitled to sexual access to any woman but also sometimes male rapists use rape in order to punish the woman for some perceived slight the woman did to the rapist.
Most rapes do not occur in public places rather they occur in the woman’s home, her workplace or other private areas. All areas wherein women believe they are safer.
So, rape is both a combination of men believing they have the right of sexual access to any woman/girl and also about humilating and controlling the woman/girl. Male rapists are not deranged monsters. They are normal men who just happen to either hate women or hold women in contempt. We live in rape culture and one only has to see how rape continues to be portrayed within the media to see that ‘rape is not rape’ but just pressurising reluctant women to give in to men’s sexual demands. But there the male-dominated and male-controlled Government, health services etc. do not want to hear about reality instead they promote myth women are to blame for men’s sexual violence against women.
January 25, 2008 at 8:54 am
I totally agree with the post above me. We focus far FAR too much on stranger danger in our society. Which is dangerous for so many reasons, but mostly because it mis-leads those who haven’t been the recipient of crime into thinking they are safe with those they know or are acquainted with, AND I suspect (although of course I can’t possibly know) that people who have been abused in some manner by the people they know/love feel somewhat stupid or ignored. Like they are the odd ones out.
Maybe thats a societal thing though. Its mostly likely a lot easier to acknowledge the danger without, than to risk admitting to the danger within.
January 25, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Well said.
January 28, 2008 at 11:15 am
Got exactly the same response as the person above.
Nice to see the form response there.
February 16, 2008 at 7:17 pm
[...] patriarchy, rant, shake my head, sucky justice, that old rape myth, world gone mad Further to my previous post about the useless Know Your Limits campaign I have received some feedback from the Senior Marketing Manager of the Communication Directorate [...]