I recently read an article where British lawmaker, Richard Graham, essentially blamed rape victims for what happened to them. He said, 'If you are a young woman on her own trying to walk back home through a park early in the morning in a tight, short skirt and high shoes, and there's a predator . . . if you are blind drunk wearing those clothes how are you to get away? It's not about the impact of your clothes on a potential predator in my view - it's about whether the clothes you're wearing make it harder to get away from a predator.' (Dailymail.co.uk) He later goes on to say that he didn't mean women were "asking for it" but still, that comment was totally unnecessary. Trustee of Rape Crisis England and Wales, Jo Wood, agrees that Graham was blaming the victim rather than the predator and says, "These comments have set us back about 100 years. It doesn't matter if you are off your face and lying naked on a beach - that man takes it upon himself to rape you. This should be about putting the blame back on perpetrators."
Graham makes it sound as if most rapes occur by strangers in dark alleys whereas, after doing research, that only counts for 9% of the rapes that happen, most rapists are actually well known by the victims. There never is nor ever will be an excuse for taking advantage of someone, especially in such a demeaning and awful way. I simply can't wrap my mind around how someone can be in the mindset that rape is basically fine and dandy and the rapist isn't to blame.
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