<p>Poetgrl, you have been a source of inspiration and information for me, and I think it’s clear to many, many other posters on this thread.</p>
<p>I can’t for the life of me understand why a few people would rather get into personal and defensive point-scoring (“but you saaaiiidddd…”) rather than stick to an impartial discussion of the subject, and to you of all people, who even when I disagree with (and I have) i always know you are speaking from a position of objective thoughtfulness.</p>
<p>I wish we had more data on what we would advise our daughters, other than a bunch of truisms. I always read the one about yelling when you are about to be attacked, and I wonder when - at 50 feet, at 20 feet, or when you are in the attacker’s grip? (if it is different at different distances, can someone about to be attacked able to assess correctly? Or am I back to blaming the victim?) If an attacker is upon you, does it raise the risk of being killed? or beaten? I don’t know the answer, and I wonder what the data show. Does having a weapon in defense increase or decrease risk?</p>
<p>By all means, offer advice - that’s our job as parents. But be careful about what you advise.</p>
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<p>Emphatically agree! It is an major shift in POV. Makes such a huge difference.</p>
<p>[Steubenville</a> Rape: What About the Victim’s Recovery? | TIME.com](<a href=“http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/20/what-about-the-victim-the-steubenville-rape-victims-recovery/]Steubenville”>Steubenville Rape: What About the Victim's Recovery? | TIME.com)</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
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</p>
<p>There are even better articles linked on this thread. In fact, the one from Harvard I linked last night is also really excellent.</p>
<p>There are lots of ways to figure out why this is important.</p>
<p>(Garland, thank you. I have always appreciated the fact that when we disagree it is a conversation we are both having with each other while we think things through together.)</p>
<p>Garland, I hope you didn’t mean me. I hoped to add something positive, constructive when I entered the discussion. I tend to think in more collaborative terms than competitive with people.</p>
<p>Would like to depart peacefully, never wanted to not get along with anyone here.</p>
<p>Good point, mini. A very long time ago when I was in my twenties, self-defense classes for women were pretty popular. I took a short one, and recall the teacher advising that if a woman were being attacked she should do something disgusting, like vomit or spit. Is that still being advised?</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure of the exact sequence of events. but it didn’t seem that vomiting turned off the Steubenville rapists. </p>
<p>I always wonder whether that kind of advice is based on actual data or on someone’s supposition.</p>
<p>I have also read/heard lots of conflicting advice on what to advise to reduce the risk of rape and assault, and very little data. Yes we can and should have “situational awareness” and try not to be alone but as a practical matter, many of us are, even at night and sometimes in high crime areas. </p>
<p>It is confusing to sift thru the conflicting recommendations without data. Additionally much of the advice applies to STRANGER rape which all stats I’ve read is a much smaller % of total rapes than acquaintance rape. Advice on the latter is very limited and I found totally unhelpful. </p>
<p>The no means maybe or yes culture and idea it will just be his word vs her word so very unlikely to be punished has to be stopped. I personally don’t know how, other than supporting those brave enough to report and even more those willing to prosecute. </p>
<p>Would love suggestions of others.</p>
<p>Well, addressing rape culture and victim blaming, even subtle victim blaming, which occurs in no other crime I can think of, helps to make it more acceptable to report.</p>
<p>In the Harvard article I linked last night, the students talk about the experience of being continually asked if the “did anything wrong.” I’ve never heard of a mugging victim being asked repeatedly if they did something to bring this on. </p>
<p>It’s a bizarre perspective, imho.</p>
<p>My feeling, at this point, though we clearly need much more research, is that if it is true that the criminals are serial rapists perpetrating these crimes, that the more young women who report to local police (I wish I knew how to bold things) LOCAL POLICE, the more likely it is that the criminal’s name will show up again. If it shows up more than once, that is a case.</p>
<p>Also, frequently, the rapists then stalk and harrass the victims. These days the victims can keep the text messages and the IMs and the emails. I know when we were helping one girl get a restraining order, her meticulous keeping of every communication, coupled with the fact that she did not encourage the communication, caused even the FEDs to come in and support the restraining order. (Some of the texts were sent from other states.)</p>
<p>I think that the central case of this thread is good evidence as to how useful electronic messages are as evidence. Sadly protective orders don’t provide as much protection as one would hope, but its something. </p>
<p>You are right that our culture and media reinforce that violence and sexual violence against women is something the female victims somehow brought on to themselves, unlike mugging, robbery or other assault victims.</p>
<p>It really makes no sense to browbeat any crime victim about choices they made and just causes more trauma. As alcohol is a common beverage, why is it that having a glass or more mean that you CONSENT to being a crime victim? Makes no sense.</p>
<p>Poetgrl, victims of many crimes get blamed. If you weren’t walking home alone you wouldn’t have been mugged. if you hadn’t been talking on your cell phone he couldn’t have grabbed your pocketbook. When you go out with someone who you met online you are asking for trouble. And my personal favorite, the blame of people hit by cars who happened to be crossing streets in the dark. I think of it as a sort of talisman we give ourselves. If I don’t do this, then that won’t happen to me or my kid.
I have slightly different perspective than some of you. I lost a sibling in childhood and saw how it destroyed my mother. The fear of losing my kids, borne out of my mother’s experience in my childhood is burned in my psyche. The closest I ever came was with d2 and alcohol poisoning, so In hearing of the Steubenville horror, my gut reaction is that the girl could have died and anything could be managed but that. Not that she deserved any abuse, she didnt, but thank god she is at least alive because sometimes young girls and alcohol have fatal interactions.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading a lot of this thread and something that keeps getting discussed is the sexualization of females in our culture. I am in no way about to argue that this isn’t a problem. However, I want to emphasize a difference between acknowledging a woman’s beauty and making her an object. I’m a young woman, and while some of you may not have meant your comments in this way, when you began discussing how girl’s dress I felt uncomfortable. Many of these statements regarded younger girls than I, but I feel like the same attitudes would be directed towards teenagers, and women in their early twenties. Wearing makeup, paying attention to appearance, buying clothes that compliment… these actions are looked down upon by some women. These “empowered” few think their denouncement of femininity strengthens them; it does not. Being a woman is not something to be ashamed of. Having an hourglass figure is not something to hide. </p>
<p>The idea that true strength, equality, and security results from a dissociation with feminine traits is argued by women-- this is another large problem of rape culture. When women look down upon other women for embracing their beauty then it allows these same women to blame the victim. It’s not quite the same as “She looks like a whore; she deserves it,” but it does allow: “She was always so vain, she always dressed for people to notice her. Well, they did. Is she happy now?” This type of fault also grants some women a sense of entitlement/safety. They don’t care. They can’t be hurt. We, as females, must stop all types of connections between outward appearance and behavior. I don’t like that some people feel like a girl needs to be taught to be smart instead of beautiful. What type of diluted expectation is that? Be smart AND beautiful. That is the only way we can move forward.</p>
<p>ZM</p>
<p>Alcohol is a drug. It is the most dangerous drug we have. I will agree, and I’m sure almost losing your daughter was terrifying. No doubt about it. Most of my work with rape victims comes out of my work with PTSD sufferers, and nothing more reliably produces PTSD than rape, except going to war. Many, many survivors of rape self-medicate this PTSD with alcohol, and many become addicts. This is all I will say on the subject.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is that this girl was ruffied or drugged with some sort of rape drug, like special K. GBHB seems most likely based on the paralysis.</p>
<p>But, this is not nearly as uncommon in these cases as people think.</p>
<p>Fortunately when your daughter had her mishap with alcohol, nobody saw this as an opportunity of some criminal variety, but if they had, that would have been about them and not about her. And not about you, either.</p>
<p>As we have seen from the stories on this thread, whatever vision we have of some wild night out leading to rape, this is not really the case. AND, even if it is the case, nobody should walk onto a college campus and have to worry they are not safe going to the school parties. It’s a ridiculous premise, imho.</p>
<p>All that said, all of the information we are getting right now points to the fact that administrations are not doing a good job of keeping our campuses safe from predatory criminals for our daughters, or our sons, for that matter, with the incidence of rape being higher than the general population for boys on campus, as well. (though they rarely report for fear of stigmatization.) </p>
<p>We can insist they do a better job.</p>
<p>People can easily have bad reactions, especially to large amounts of alcohol. When you toss medications in as well (especially with unaware victim), results can easily be fatal. It was very good that victim was able to vomit up some of the poison in her body without choking or this could have easily turned from rape to homicide.</p>
<p>Acelia, there is a vast difference between the sexualization of a ten year old and a grown woman. Also, beautiful and sexual are not synonymous. Sexuality is a personal and intimate thing that is fully understood and embraced by grown women, not children.</p>
<p>Acelia, thank you for posting on the thread.</p>
<p>I agree that nobody is to blame for their own rape. Nobody. And, yes, by all means, be beautiful and be smart. That’s what I want for my daughters, certainly.</p>
<p>Well, I also want them to be strong and independent and to be full of self respect and compassion and empathy, and to be happy and …</p>
<p>Well, you get the picture. Be beautiful and be smart and be strong.</p>
<p>I understand that most of what I said does not apply to young girls. I meant to imply that; I’m sorry it wasn’t clear. </p>
<p>“Sexuality is a personal and intimate thing that is fully understood and embraced by grown women…”</p>
<p>It’s not though. By many women it’s looked down upon. Have you not heard snide comments about someone’s dress? Or read “feminist” articles that degrade women who do not revoke traditional ideas of beauty? I know women of all ages who feel this way. One young woman speaks out against makeup because it “weakens” all of us. “Pretty” women lose respect in some circles because others feel that’s all they have to offer. Especially in my community, if a woman were to get a boob job, the town would whisper about her, because obviously she doesn’t respect herself. She must need more validating looks from men to be happy and secure. Sexuality and self-confidence are huge proponents in this whole matter. One result of the attitudes in our media is a rift in females. Some women are now uncomfortable with their own sexuality. This leads to judgement that hinders societal advancement.</p>
<p>Acelia, I think we’ve been really wrestling with that one for a long time, now, actually. Even going back to Naomi Woolf.</p>
<p>The issue probably boils down to the fact that much of what is beautiful is cultural and imposed from the outside. In other places, other times, different things have been considered beautiful. So, it becomes an argument of who is defining you?</p>
<p>I have to say that I don’t think it’s easy to grapple with, and I don’t, also, think it ought to be the work of young women to intentionally not be attractive to the opposite sex. If they are hetereo, or even if they are not hetero. I think the important point, and the one you probably need to know and argue, as a beautiful young woman, is that rape isn’t about sex, it is about power and humiliation.</p>
<p>So, beauty has nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>ETA: actually, sexuality has nothing to do with it, either.</p>
<p>great posts Acelia.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism (9781403966865): Linda M. Scott: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Lipstick-Redressing-Fashion-Feminism/dp/1403966869]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Lipstick-Redressing-Fashion-Feminism/dp/1403966869)</p>
<p>[Fresh</a> Lipstick](<a href=“http://www.freshlipstick.com/]Fresh”>http://www.freshlipstick.com/)</p>
<p>Garland, you captured my observation as well on this thread. </p>
<p>GFG, in one of your recent posts, I really think I heard your fear coming through, and I understand, fear is a big motivator for trying to control bad things from happening. I’d like to believe you are grappling with this fear and that’s a good thing. Stay open…</p>
<p>Acelia, I find your perspective refreshing and important. Women should not have to hide their femaleness, beauty even their sexuality. I think this must be particularly challenging for young women as you are becoming adult women, and exploring relationships, your self image etc. We need to permit our daughters and all women to embrace their femaleness, in whatever way they choose to, which naturally includes their sexuality.</p>