Blaming the victim

Discussion in 'Self Defence' started by aaradia, Mar 15, 2016.

  1. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    I think part of the problem is that some of the advice prohibits entirely normal and widespread behaviour.
    Walking somewhere on your own is normal. Or should be normal.
    That's not the same thing as "don't walk into pub A because it's rough".
    Everyone on here can probably name several areas/pubs/clubs (in their home locality) they would advise people to avoid if they want to avoid violence/crime.
    But again that seems different to "don't go ANYWHERE at night".
    I think it becomes victim blaming when the outcome of an event can't be reliably foreseen from the starting conditions.
    Expecting hindsight that something bad was going to happen in a perfectly normal situation.*

    *Thinking aloud here so don't expect consistency. :)
     
  2. Moosey

    Moosey invariably, a moose Supporter

    I don't understand why people try to conflate the two concepts. A person who commits a crime is 100% responsible for their decision to commit the crime (ignoring mitigating factors for the sake of argument). We aren't animals who see temptation and are unable to overcome our desire to act on it.

    But why does it have to be a zero-sum game? If we acknowledge that people can do things to avoid being a victim of crime, that doesn't nudge some of the responsibility percentage from the criminal onto the victim.

    There's no sense of "OK, so you were walking down an unlit street alone, that means you gain 15% responsibility and reduces the criminal to 85%".

    Can't we take the criminal as a constant who maintains full responsibility and just look at what we can do as the law-abiding citizen on the other side of the equation to avoid being their latest victim?
     
  3. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    It wasn't myself trying to conflate the two concepts. I was responding to a point started by Greg:

     
  4. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Straying off-topic slightly here, but I think that there are definitely legitimate criticisms that could be made toward many people claiming to be giving people agency or tools for self-protection.

    I think that there is a huge disconnect between reality and what the vast majority of self defence instructors teach. Even many of the better ones are still stuck in a mindset that revolves around concepts of stranger attack, and their de-escalation and prevention revolves around risks that mainly affect young men. They are unable to perceive the world from a different view than their own.

    What about the young woman who is being abused by her brother? Or the mother who is being bullied by her teenage daughter? Or the elderly man who is having money taken off him by his daughter-in-law?

    These are the kinds of cases of everyday abuse and victimisation that far outweigh being attacked on a dark street by strangers, but I see virtually zero effort from the self defence industry to address these kinds of victims. Probably because they do not have any of the tools to do so, and would have to admit that learning colour codes, shouting at big guys in armoured suits and learning headlock escapes would be of little relevance to the situation.
     
  5. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Ironically every scenario I ran at my last Aftermath seminar revolved around you knowing the individual you were dealing with because it triggers a different emotional response

    Realistically there is NO difference in color coding and awareness between a stranger and a known party - it is a psychological barrier that needs to be broken down not a physical or observational one
     
  6. Chimpcheng

    Chimpcheng Yup... Giant cow head... Supporter

    Interesting topic.

    I remember being at school, and being the only Chinese for quite some time I was subject to quite a bit of bullying and some of that honest to goodness racism.

    One day, in my pre-kung fu days I was beaten silly. When presented in front of the headmistress I was asked what had happened.

    Essentially, someone had called me a chink. I took grave exception at this and called him a <expletive deleted>. That's when I was stopped and pretty much dismissed. The whole thing was "my fault". I shouldn't have said anything, I should have just accepted the abuse and got on with my day. Why did I feel the need to retaliate? Did I not know that I was fuelling this animosity?

    I was told to "keep my nose clean" and to stay out of trouble...
     
  7. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    That's very good to hear, but how many other organisations do you know of that have the first clue about breaking down any kind of psychological barrier other than that of hitting people?

    Is a self-defence instructor the most qualified person to be guiding people through engineering changes to their psyche?
     
  8. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Maybe we need to re-define what a "self defence instructor" is?
    At what point does their responsibility end? Just physical attacks? Just stranger violence? All violence?
    I mean personally I think staying a healthy weight, not smoking, driving defensively and other measures fall into the purview of "keeping me safe from harm" and are to some degree "self protection" but do I expect a "self defence instructor" to teach me such things? Maybe...maybe not?
    Maybe some things are best left to people other than "self defence instructors"? In the same way we increasingly think self defence shouldn't be taught by "martial artists"?
     
  9. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Few and far between - it is one of my pet peeves about the industry

    If they are a GOOD one then it is something they can certainly provide context with....see point (a) above...but if they are VERY good they will have a series of people they can network with to help the student/client with this
     
  10. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    It is something i am increasingly tilting towards...the sheer number of Mcdojo productions I see locally promoting self defense makes my blood boil
     
  11. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    This is something essential, I think. People are only as wise as the counsel they keep.
     
  12. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    oh and +1 internet points to me for using the word "purview". Love that word.
     
  13. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    I think it depends on their experience, as well as how well they can digest the experiences of others.

    Lots of unsuitable people are generally considered the best to learn from, such as:

    Learn self defence from a bouncer; even though they must protect their establishment and cannot disengage, look weak or walk away.

    Learn travel safety from ex-military; even though when they were serving, they didn't even have to keep hold of their passport, and they were ferried door-to-door in convoys with guns.

    Context is so important, but is so often overlooked.
     
  14. greg1075

    greg1075 Valued Member

    Not what I said.
     
  15. greg1075

    greg1075 Valued Member

    I believe she's fully responsible walking home alone down a poorly lit street whilst drunk.
     
  16. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Not sure how else to interpret this:

    It is an ambiguous sentence though. Whose behaviour?
     
  17. Rebel Wado

    Rebel Wado Valued Member

    No, I don't believe the criminal is the one who maintains full responsibility. I think this confuses responsibility with guilt and control.

    There are some things to consider. The first is providing the means, if possible, for the victim and all affected to heal and move on from the crime. The second is punishment of the guilty parties so that the crime does not happen again. Then there is prevention and awareness, growth, and what we learned from all of it -- "lessons learned".

    I use the phrase "guilty parties" rather than "responsible parties" to show that responsible parties and guilty parties can be used interchangeably in a context, but this does not mean 100% responsible. Responsibility is also based on control. what I mean is what is in the control of a person and what is not.

    I think the blaming the victim argument is valid when what is said inhibits the ability to heal and move on from an incident. But rather than blaming the victim there is another way to go about it, and that is to empower people with the ability to know what is in their control and what is not.

    So when we say, the victim walked alone in a bad neighborhood, I could be taken as blaming them, but really, the whole point is does it hurt or help the victim to know that the decision to walk alone was something they could control? It depends on the emotional and otherwise mental state of the victim how they perceive the knowledge. If they are in a state where they accept that they can control that, then it can empower them to know that they aren't helpless, that they can do something. And at the same time, realize that the criminal that attacked them, they had no control over the actions of the criminal. The criminal is bad people and should be punished so that it doesn't ever happen again.

    Unless you are in the victim's shoes, there is no real way to know how the knowledge will be perceived at that time. Either as a blame the victim, or as empowering knowledge -- lessons learned.
     
  18. Giovanni

    Giovanni Well-Known Member Supporter

    i hear what you're saying in general. but i feel like you are actually borderline victim blaming when you say this:

    when i was a teenager, i took the bus the wrong way on chicago streets and ended up in a horrible neighborhood. my car has broken down in another horrible neighborhood in chicago--gangland chicago; i had to walk home. these events happened pre mobile phone. yeah, it was scary and i knew i could be in trouble.

    i've walked home from the pub late at night, intoxicated many times. past areas known to be problematic where it was publicized that people had been previously attacked. that wasn't smart, but, i walked home anyway.

    i think all i'm trying to say is a lot of time, it's not under the victim's control. a victim can't really control the circumstances of an attack. for many people in chicago, or major cities in the usa, they're living directly in the line of fire.
     
  19. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Then why do we have the concept of "diminished responsibility" in law?
     
  20. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Yup.

    When I was a teenager, I knew a few girls who felt that they were responsible for their rape or attempted rape. They did lead the guys on, because they fancied them, but they had no way of knowing that the boys in question were scum who didn't care where the girls' boundaries lay, and only wanted to use them as objects.

    Other than a life of celibacy, I'm not sure what can be learnt from their experiences that might prevent that from happening to girls in the future.
     

Share This Page