SlutWalk, Victim Blaming, and Why We Say it Anyway.

*Trigger warning*

Great interview at Feministing with Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis, co-founders of Toronto SlutWalk, a protest against victim-blaming, which the two women organized after comments made by a Toronto police officer to students at York University.

In the interview Jarvis says,

When the story first broke about a Toronto police officer saying on a York University campus, in a safety forum to the students, that women "should avoid dressing like sluts in order not be victimized," he prefaced it by saying  “I’ve been told I shouldn’t say this” and he said it anyway.

Think such sentiments are rare in the Canadian legal system? This recent article points out,

"On February 18 in a Manitoba court, federally appointed Judge Robert Dewar gave convicted sex offender Kenneth Rhodes a lenient two year, jail-free sentence despite an established precedent for stronger rulings in rape cases. Dewar’s reasoning? Rhode’s twenty year old victim was wearing a tube top, high heels, and makeup (imagine!)... Dewar reasoned that her appearance created “misunderstood signals” that suggested “sex was in the air” and justified her rape (which Dewar chose to call “inconsiderate behaviour”)."

Those inconsiderate women, getting themselves raped. How dare they put us men in that situation.

A police officer in Saanich recently encouraged women to "Travel in groups, stick to well-lit areas, be mindful of your drink, where you leave it, and who you accept a drink from". Very similar to the approach taken by the UBC campus. And again, no similar attempt at advocacy toward people who do the raping.

A woman is raped once every seventeen minutes in this country, according to the black liberal feminazi dyke organization, Statistics Canada.

I'd like to return to the preface of the quote from the Toronto police officer, "I've been told I shouldn't say this". I think that preface is a to-the-letter-perfect example of how far feminism has taken us (especially men) in mainstream culture.

Most men acknowledge there is this thing called violence against women and it's bad. We also acknowledge there was this thing called feminism which was about bra burning (myth) and pay equity (which we still don't have) and the vote, which women have so it's over, they won, and now, in the aftermath of feminism, they nag men on sitcoms (written by white men) and in Judd Apatow films (written by white men) so in fact women aren't just equal now, they in fact have more power than us, right?

I don't mean to be flippant in invoking sitcoms and Judd Apatow. I really believe the modern view of feminism is not manufactured by actual feminism, but by a white male reaction to feminism. Flip through the channels, watch a few commercials and tv shows, and see just how common the nagging bitch trope is. These characters, almost without exception, are conceived by men in a "post-feminist" (hate that word) culture.

Most men acknowledge, on some level, the existence or at least aftermath of feminism as a quiet spectre of women's rights in the backs of our brains. And I have a batshit crazy theory about men that we acknowledge that spectre, JUST ENOUGH, to preface our Paternalism 2011, Protectiveness 2011, Sexism 2011, Victim Blaming 2011, with those magic words,

"I've been told I shouldn't say this".

From what I see in our culture, our media, and in the behaviour of men around me, THAT is how far feminism has taken men. Same sexism as in the 1950's, but with a preface; an acknowledgement that, in our privilege as men, should damned well be enough to keep the angry feminists happy.

During the 2008 US presidential election campaign I was watching MSNBC with my girlfriend at the time, and there was a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying something brutally sexist about Hillary Clinton (something to do with her shedding tears as a sign of her lack of fitness for the presidency). Limbaugh gave this "Hee, I'm about to say this" smirk just before saying what he said. My girlfriend pointed at the screen and said, to paraphrase, "See, that smirk? That's feminism in the mainstream, right there. Same sexism, but with a smirk".

I see that smirk, that "I've been told I shouldn't say this," every time I see a man make a sexist comment, or a sexist joke. Feminism is in the minds of men in 2011. The feminists of the 1870's and 1970's won, insofar as we now defiantly preface the same sexism we used in the 1860's and 1960's, and we treat that defiance as gentlemanly acknowledgement. It ain't.

Fun fact time: The term, "Feminazi" was coined by Rush Limbaugh. Pink is pigeonholed as the feminine colour thanks to Adolph Hitler. And women are nagging bitches who nag men for no reason that isn't pathological because white male sitcom writers tell us so. Funny how the richest, whitest, assholest men seem to shape our view of how womanhood plays out.

But back to "I've been told I shouldn't say this" as a tool for victim blaming. I think it's important to put what the Toronto police officer said in a perspective of Canada's recent judicial history as far as sexual assault is concerned, because then we will see not just how little we've progressed, but how small and how recent our timeline of progression has been.

Consent was not legally defined in this country until 1993. "She was drunk, your honour" was accepted as a LEGAL DEFENSE in sexual assault cases in this country until 1995. Medical and psychiatric files of sexual abuse victims were not legally restricted until 1999. A man could legally, LEGALLY, rape his spouse until 1983. To put it in perspective, Britain criminalized marital rape in 1960, 23 years before we did.

With our legal system only very recently waking up with regard to sexual assault, it's not much of a surprise to see current police officers and judges not yet having gotten the wake up call. You know what helps wake them up? People like Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis. Events like Toronto SlutWalk.

Canada has not only a brutal history, or a brutal recent history, but a brutal present history, of sexual assault, and the police and judicial system of this country are out of touch with where sexual assault happens and who perpetrates it. Sexual assaults rarely occur in the isolated, dark areas from which the police think they need to protect women. 67% of sexual assaults in Canada occur in the home of the victim or the perpetrator. Contrary to the police's image of a typical rapist as a random, isolated man waiting in a dark alley, in 78% of reported cases of rape, the victim knew the attacker. The miniskirt-as-invitation-to-rape is a myth that keeps us safe from the reality that in a culture that glorifies male dominance, demonizes male empathy, objectifies women's bodies, fears the sexual agency of women, and conflates power and violence with sexuality, rape is going to be inviting and frequent and even the nice guys are a "just a few more seconds, honey" from not taking in a "no" or the body lanuage of a "no". Rape happens with real people in real relationships.

98% of attackers are men, and yet some of us guys want so badly to believe the attacker ratio is closer to 50-50. False reports in Canada account for 2-3% of reported sexual assault cases in Canada, about the same percentage as for murders and burglaries, yet a lot of us guys want so badly to believe the false report to true report ratio is about 50-50. It ain't. We do the raping, and they seldom lie about it. Want to be part of the solution? March with our sisters in Vancouver SlutWalk. (Article by Jarrah from Gender Focus)

This country's judicial system makes victim blaming not just an incidence of conversational assholeism, but legal policy that gets rapists off the hook, and makes women a whole let less likely to report an act society has deemed reprehensible enough to be illegal. Let me put it this way: If you victim blame in the presence of someone you care about, you make it less likely that they will report an assault. Your privilege of blaming the victim, not having been one yourself, silences women.

If you break into a house in this country you will serve more time than if you break into a woman (EDIT: Apologies for that image, and the troublesome comparison of women to property...There's an example of the insensitivity privilege affords me). Two years is about the average sentence. We have a serial rapist here in Vancouver who has assaulted dozens upon dozens of women, mostly native. He has killed two of them. Still at large.

How much "I don't want to believe this" have you felt reading this post so far? I've done the research and if you do as well, you'll see the stories, you'll see the statistics, with other similar and corroborating statistics if you still aren't convinced.

Still feel like victim-blaming? Still think if a woman wears a miniskirt she's inviting it, just a little? If you do, you have something in common with the good people of this country who arrest and prosecute rapists.

I have a challenge to men:

Examine when you do or say something like, "I've been told I shouldn't say this". Examine who has told you that, why you have been told that, and what the effect your words or actions might have in light of your having to employ such a preface. Stop allowing yourself the privilege of such prefaces by patting yourself on the back for being a post-feminist, gentle, sensitive "90's man," because that's just another paradigm for an unattainable "ideal masculinity", and another way for us not to question our own behaviour. Examine when other people use such a preface. Examine how conversational prefaces function. If you have to say "This might offend someone," maybe there's a reason you shouldn't have thought it in the first place.

I have victim blamed, in a previous relationship. I once made the assertion that a woman wearing a miniskirt was more likely to get raped (which isn't even statistically true), and it was not easy for my girlfriend to hear. She was shocked, upset, appalled, that I, who identified as a feminist at that point, could be so ignorant. Point being, if a guy with a feminist blog who engages in feminism daily and tries to live a feminist life is capable of such sexism, then guys with and without feminist blogs, you probably are too.

So think before you victim blame. And march with me in Vancouver's SlutWalk this May. SlutWalk is getting talked about, it's inspiring young people, and it's a real tool for changing the way victim blamers think.

-Taylor