Captain obvious paging idiocy, come in, idiocy

I was reading one of my favourite blogs – White Coat Underground – and found myself reading not one, but two long comment threads.

I don’t normally read long comment threads. Life is short. My eyeballs are old. And most comment threads just aren’t that interesting. But these ones were.

Pal MD’s post was in response to Isis the Scientist’s post and subsequent comments. She was replying to an e-mail sent to her by a female math grad student, who was creeped out by her advisor’s ogling. Isis mentioned, as part of the post, that in her student days she had been raped by a creep who she had refused to date. Horrible. I know too many women who’ve been raped.

The comments were mainly of the thanks for sharing, here’s my story, or here’s advice for the grad student form, but some were comments along the lines of hey, the advisor is complementing her, what’s the big deal, and women should take responsibility for protecting themselves.

Well, um, that’s where captain obvious hit me on the head. I’d never recognized how much of our culture focuses on the victim. I know that blame the victim is rampant in rape cases. But it extends beyond that, to blame the victim for failing to stop the attack, not just inciting it. So when the conversation steered in the direction of stating that rapists are responsible for rape, I found myself shocked that I had never thought of that. A d’uh moment indeed – of course rapists are responsible for rape.

So thank you to the commentors on those threads, who played captain obvious to my ignorance. Reducing the incidence of rape is not solely the responsibility of women. If we continue to believe and perpetuate the myth that women are even somewhat responsible for being raped, we give rapists an out, an excuse, a reason to avoid empathy and thought, an excuse for not controlling their violence or sexuality. To state that men can’t control themselves is insulting to men who can and do control their urges. And to state that women need to change, and not the culture that blames the victim and excuses the men, is not just insulting but dangerous, as it normalizes rape. Rape is an aberration.