Victim blaming
Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a
Coining of the phrase
Psychologist
Moynihan had concluded that three centuries of oppression of black people, and in particular with what he calls the uniquely cruel structure of
Ryan objected that Moynihan then located the proximate cause of the plight of black Americans in the prevalence of a family structure in which the father was often sporadically, if at all, present, and the mother was often dependent on government aid to feed, clothe, and provide medical care for her children. Ryan's critique cast the Moynihan theories as attempts to divert responsibility for poverty from social structural factors to the behaviors and cultural patterns of the poor.[10][11][page needed]
History
Although Ryan popularized the phrase, other scholars had identified the phenomenon of victim blaming.[12] In 1947 Theodor W. Adorno defined what would be later called "blaming the victim," as "one of the most sinister features of the Fascist character".[13][14]
Shortly thereafter Adorno and three other professors at the University of California, Berkeley formulated their influential and highly debated F-scale (F for fascist), published in The Authoritarian Personality (1950), which included among the fascist traits of the scale the "contempt for everything discriminated against or weak."[15] A typical expression of victim blaming is the "asking for it" idiom, e.g. "she was asking for it" said of a victim of violence or sexual assault.[16]
The just-world hypothesis is proposed as one explanation for why people blame victims: rejecting the uncomfortable idea that bad things happen to people randomly and undeservedly implies that victims must have done something to deserve what happened to them. This also implies that people can avoid being victims by behaving correctly. Though an ancient idea, it became the subject of modern social psychology in the 1960s beginning with Melvin J. Lerner.[17]
Secondary victimization of sexual and other assault victims
]One example of an allegation against female victims of sexual assault is that they were wearing
Victim blaming is also exemplified when a victim of sexual assault is found at fault for performing actions which reduce their ability to resist or refuse consent, such as consuming alcohol.[29] Victim advocacy groups and medical professionals are educating young adults on the definition of consent, and the importance of refraining from victim blaming. Most institutions have adopted the concept of affirmative consent and that refraining from sexual activity while under the influence is the safest choice.[30]
In efforts to discredit alleged sexual assault victims in court, a defense attorney may delve into an accuser's personal history, a common practice that also has the purposeful effect of making the victim so uncomfortable they choose not to proceed. This attack on character, especially one pointing out promiscuity, makes the argument that women who lead "high risk" lifestyles (promiscuity, drug use) are not real victims of rape.[31] Research on the acceptance of rape myths has shown that sexism is a significant factor in the blaming of female rape victims.[32]
Ideal victim
An ideal victim is one who is afforded the status of victimhood due to unavoidable circumstances that put the individual at a disadvantage. One can apply this theory to any crime including and especially sexual assault. Nils Christie, a Norwegian criminology professor, has been theorizing about the concept of the ideal victim since the 1980s. In his research he gives two examples, one of an old woman who is attacked on her way home from visiting her family and the other of a man who is attacked at a bar by someone he knew. He describes the old woman as an ideal victim because she could not avoid being in the location that she was, she did not know her attacker, and she could not fight off her attacker. The man, however, could have avoided being at a bar, knew his attacker, and should have been able to fight off his attacker, being younger and a man.[33]
When applying the ideal victim theory to sexual assault victims, often judicial proceedings define an ideal victim as one who resists their attacker and exercises caution in risky situations, despite law reforms to extinguish these fallacious requirements.[34] When victims are not ideal they are at risk for being blamed for their attack because they are not considered real victims of rape.
A victim who is not considered an ideal, or real victim, is one who leads a "high risk" lifestyle, partaking in drugs or alcohol, or is perceived as promiscuous. A victim who intimately knows their attacker is also not considered an ideal victim. An example of a sexual assault victim who is not ideal is a prostitute because they lead a high risk lifestyle. The perception is that these behaviors discount the credibility of a sexual assault victim's claim or that the behaviors and associations create the mistaken assumption of consent. Some of or all of the blame of the assault is then placed on these victims, and so they are not worthy of having their case presented in court. These perceptions persist in court rulings despite a shift in laws favoring affirmative consent – meaning that the participants in a sexual activity give a verbal affirmation rather than one participant who neither answers negatively nor positively. In other words, affirmative consent is yes means yes, no means no and no verbal answer also means no.[31]
In addition to an ideal victim, there must be an ideal perpetrator for a crime to be considered ideal. The ideal attacker does not know their victim and is a completely non-sympathetic figure- one who is considered sub-human, an individual lacking morals. An attacker that knows their victim is not considered an ideal attacker, nor is someone who seems morally ordinary.[33] Cases of intimate partner violence are not considered ideal because the victim knows their attacker. Husbands and wives are not ideal victims or perpetrators because they are intimately familiar with each other.[31]
Global situation
Many different cultures across the globe have formulated different degrees of victim blaming for different scenarios such as rape, hate crimes, and domestic abuse. Victim blaming is common around the world, especially in cultures where it is socially acceptable and advised to treat certain groups of people as lesser. For example, in Somalia victims of sexual abuse consistently endure social ostracization and harassment.[citation needed] One specific example is the kidnapping and rape of 14-year old Fatima: when the police arrived, both Fatima and her rapist were arrested. While they did not detain the offender for long, the officers held Fatima captive for a month and a prison guard continually raped her during that time.[35]
In February 2016, the organisations International Alert and UNICEF published a study revealing that girls and women released from captivity by Nigeria's insurgency group Boko Haram often face rejection by their communities and families. Their children born of sexual violence faced even more discrimination.[36]
Acid attacks on South Asian women, when people throw acid on women in an attempt to punish them for their perceived wrongdoings, are another example of victim-blaming. For instance, in New Delhi in 2005, a group of men threw acid on a 16-year-old girl because they believed she provoked the advances of a man.[37] In Chinese culture, victim blaming is often associated with the crime of rape, as women are expected to resist rape using physical force. Thus, if rape occurs, it is considered to be at least partly the woman's fault and her virtue is inevitably called into question.[38]
In Western culture victim blaming has been largely recognized as a problematic way to view a situation, however this does not exempt Westerners from being guilty of the action. A recent example of Western victim blaming would be a civil trial held in 2013 where the Los Angeles School District blamed a 14-year-old girl for the sexual abuse she endured from her middle school teacher. The District's lawyer argued that the minor was responsible for the prevention of the abuse, putting the entire fault on the victim and exempting the perpetrator of any responsibility. Despite his efforts to convince the court that the victim must be blamed, the ruling stated that no minor student that has been sexually assaulted by his or her teacher is responsible for the prevention of that sexual assault.[39]
Opposing views
Roy Baumeister, a social and personality psychologist, argued that blaming the victim is not necessarily always fallacious. He argued that showing the victim's possible role in an altercation may be contrary to typical explanations of violence and cruelty, which incorporate the trope of the innocent victim. According to Baumeister, in the classic telling of "the myth of pure evil," the innocent, well-meaning victims are going about their business when they are suddenly assaulted by wicked, malicious evildoers. Baumeister describes the situation as a possible distortion by both the perpetrator and the victim; the perpetrator may minimize the offense while the victim maximizes it, and so accounts of the incident should not be immediately taken as objective truths.
In context, Baumeister refers to the common behavior of the aggressor seeing themselves as more of the "victim" than the abused, justifying a horrific act by way of their "moral complexity". This usually stems from an "excessive sensitivity" to insults, which he finds as a consistent pattern in abusive husbands. Essentially, the abuse the perpetrator administers is generally excessive, in comparison to the act/acts that they claim as to have provoked them.[40]
Scientific studies on victim blaming
A 2017 review by Lennon et al. found that women who wear immodest or sexual clothing self-objectify themselves, which causes anxiety, unhappiness, body-dissatisfaction, and body shame.[41] They found that "[o]bservers link wearing sexy dress to violence including sexual coercion, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and unwelcome groping, touching, and grabbing."[41] However, only two studies under their review directly investigated dress and real experience of sexual assault; neither study found a connection. Lennon et al. noted that few researchers had studied the influence of actual sexual behavior on potential relationships between sexual violence and dress. One exception was a 2007 study of flashing at college homecoming events, in which Annette Lynch found that "a dress style which might be considered not provocative becomes provocative when the behavior of the woman wearing it becomes suggestive (i.e., when she flashes)" and women who attended homecoming matches were often groped and coerced into exposing themselves.[41][42]
Horseshoe theory and nonpolarized views
Some scholars make the argument that some of the attitudes that are described as victim blaming and the victimologies that are said to counteract them are both extreme and similar to each other, an example of the
Other analysts of victim blaming discourse who neither support most of the phenomena that are described as victim blaming nor most of the measures that are marketed as countermeasures against such point at the existence of other ways of discovering and punishing crimes with victims besides the victim reporting the crime. Not only are there police patrols and possible eyewitnesses, but these analysts also argue that neighbors can overhear and report crimes that take place within the house such as domestic violence. For that reason along with the possibility of many witnesses turning up over time if the crime is ongoing long term as domestic abuse is generally said to be which would make some of the witnesses likely to be considered believable, analysts of this camp of thought argue that the main problem that prevent crimes from being successfully prosecuted is offender profiling that disbelieve the capacity and/or probability of many criminals to commit the crime, rather than disbelief or blaming of victim reports. These analysts cite international comparisons that show that the percentage of male on female cases in the statistics of successfully prosecuted domestic violence is not higher in countries that apply gender feminist theories about patriarchal structures than in countries that apply supposedly antifeminist evolutionary psychology profiling of sex differences in aggressiveness, impulse control and empathy, arguing that the criminal justice system prioritizing cases in which they believe the suspect most likely to be guilty makes evolutionary psychology at least as responsible as gender feminism for leaving domestic violence cases with female offenders undiscovered no matter if the victim is male or female. The analysts argue that many problems that are often attributed to victim blaming are instead due to offender profiling, and suggest randomized investigations instead of psychological profiling of suspected offenders.[45][46]
Examples
A myth holds that Jews went passively "
In recent years,[when?] the issue of victim blaming has gained notoriety and become widely recognized in the media, particularly in the context of feminism, as women have often been blamed for behaving in ways that are claimed to encourage harassment.[citation needed]
Australia
Former Australian Senator Fraser Anning was sharply criticised for his comments about the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, in which 51 Muslim worshippers were killed. He claimed that immigration of "Muslim fanatics" led to the attacks, and that "while Muslims may have been victims today, usually they are the perpetrators".[50] Anning also stated that the massacre "highlights...the growing fear within our community...of the increasing Muslim presence". The comments received international attention and were overwhelmingly criticised as being insensitive and racist, and sympathetic to the views of the perpetrator.[51][52]
In some
Germany
In 2016, in the wake of
Italy
Coverage of the 2016 Murder of Ashley Ann Olsen, an American murdered in Italy during a sexual encounter with a Senegalese immigrant, focused on the victim blaming in cross-cultural encounters.[59][60]
India
In a case that attracted worldwide coverage, when
In August 2017, the hashtag #AintNoCinderella trended on social media India, in response to a high-profile instance of victim-blaming. After Varnika Kundu was stalked and harassed by two men on her way home late at night, Bharatiya Janata Party Vice President Ramveer Bhatti addressed the incident with a claim that Kundu was somehow at fault for being out late by herself. Social media users took to Twitter and Instagram to challenge the claim that women should not be out late at night, and if they are, they are somehow "asking for it". Hundreds of women shared photos of themselves staying out past midnight, dressing boldly, and behaving in (harmless) ways that tend to be condemned in old-fashioned, anti-feminist ideology.[62]
United States
In 1938 the
Urban planning and road safety
As the majority of traffic accident victims are
See also
- Abusive power and control
- Backlash (sociology)
- Battered woman syndrome
- Blame
- Bullying
- Contributory negligence
- Crime
- Crime of passion
- Demonization
- Denial
- Divine retribution
- Gaslighting
- Gray rape
- Guilt trip
- Hybristophilia
- Injustice
- Just world fallacy
- Labeling theory
- Mind games
- Mitigating factor
- Negativity bias
- Post-assault treatment of sexual assault victims
- Presumption of guilt
- Provocation (legal)
- Psychological projection
- Rape shield law
- Rationalization (psychology)
- Scapegoating
- Schadenfreude
- Self-serving bias
- Victimology
- Victim mentality
- Victim playing
- Victimisation
- Volenti non fit injuria
Notes
- ^ "Victim Blaming" (PDF). Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
- S2CID 206561769.
- ISBN 9780394417264.
- ^ Cole 2007, pp. 111, 149, 213.
- ^ Downs 1998, p. 24.
- ^ a b Katsiaficas, Kirkpatrick & Emery 1987, p. 219.
- ^ Kent 2003.
- ^ "(1965) The Moynihan Report: The Negro Family, the Case for National Action • BlackPast". 21 January 2007. Archived from the original on 18 March 2017.
- S2CID 144608099.
- ^ Illinois state U. archives Archived 4 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine.
- ISBN 978-0-394-72226-9.
- ^ Robinson 2002, p. 141.
- JSTOR 4332830.
- ISBN 978-0-7914-3270-9.
- ISBN 978-0-415-28913-9.
- ISBN 978-0-203-94221-5.[page needed]
- ISBN 978-1-4419-3306-5.
- S2CID 32496184.
- ^ National Center for Victims of Crime (2001). "Factsheets: Trauma of Victimization § Secondary injuries". The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault. Archived from the original on 28 November 2010.
- PMID 6767437.
- S2CID 145137650.
- ISBN 9781317675440.
- S2CID 206561276.
- ^ Rine, Abigail (8 July 2013). "No Rape Victim, Male or Female, Deserves to Be Blamed". The Atlantic. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
A man who fails to physically overcome his attacker is likewise seen as contributing to his own victimization; he must have secretly wanted it.
- ^ S2CID 22077514.
- ISBN 978-1-59385-061-6.[page needed]
- ^ Moor, Avigail (2010). "She Dresses to Attract, He Perceives Seduction: A Gender Gap in Attribution of Intent to Women's Revealing Style of Dress and its Relation to Blaming the Victims of Sexual Violence". Journal of International Women's Studies. 11 (4): 115–127.
- .
- ^ Whitaker, Matthew (6 November 2013). "Don't blame women's drinking for rape". CNN Opinion. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ "Myths and Facts About Sexual Assault and Consent". Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
- ^ SSRN 1742077.
- S2CID 30657255.
- ^ a b Christie, Nils (1986). The Ideal Victim. London: Macmillan Press. pp. 17–30.
- ^ Gotell, Lise (29 June 2015). "Rethinking Affirmative Consent in Canadian Sexual Assault Law: Neoliberal Sexual Subjects and Risky Women". Akron Law Review. 41 (4).
- ^ "Rape victims are still being blamed for sexual violence in Somalia". The Independent. 6 May 2015. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
- ^ Ford, Liz (16 February 2016). "Women freed from Boko Haram rejected for bringing 'bad blood' back home". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
- ^ Laxmi. "Laxmi's Story". Acid Survivors Foundation India. Archived from the original on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
- S2CID 28391226.
- ^ "JUDGE: School district 'wrong' to blame student for having sex with teacher EAGnews.org". eagnews.org. 17 September 2015. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-7165-8.[page needed]
- ^ S2CID 41901055.
- S2CID 145703585.
- ISBN 9781412904872.[page needed]
- ISBN 9781315264868.[page needed]
- ISBN 9781315246086.
- hdl:10829/6873.
- ISBN 9780813225890.
- ^ Weinthal, Benjamin (31 August 2014). "Non-Islamic anti-Semitism in Europe". Jewish Policy Center. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-09-183708-2.
- ^ Young, Matt; Molloy, Shannon; Smith, Rohan (15 March 2019). "Egg Boy speaks out on Fraser Anning: 'Tackled by bogans'". News.com.au.
- ^ "Fury as Australian senator blames Christchurch attack on Muslim immigration". The Guardian. 16 March 2019.
- ^ "Australian senator Fraser Anning punches teen after being egged". The Guardian. 16 March 2019.
- S2CID 142871847.
- ^ "Mayor of Cologne says women should have code of conduct to prevent future assault". Archived from the original on 17 August 2022. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
- ^ "Twitter storm as Cologne mayor suggests women stay at 'arm's length' from strangers". Retrieved 5 January 2016.
- ^ "Stoning victim 'begged for mercy'". BBC News. 4 November 2008. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
- ^ "A 'new dimension' of sexual assault in Cologne". Retrieved 5 January 2016.
- ^ "Cologne sex attacks: Merkel disgust at New Year gang assaults". BBC News. 5 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
- ^ Grisafi, Patricia (25 March 2016). "The myth of the good victim: As an American facing street harassment abroad, I wondered what it meant to be a "good victim"". Salon.com. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
- ^ Nadeau, Barbie Latza (15 January 2016). "Ashley Olsen Didn't Deserve to Die, No Matter How Hard She Partied". Daily Beast. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^ "Amid rape fiasco, India's leaders keep up insensitive remarks". The Washington Post. 4 January 2013. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ^ Pandey, Geeta (9 August 2017). "#AintNoCinderella: Why Indian women are posting midnight photos". BBC News.
- ^ a b Written at Oakland, California. "Mother Blames Her Daughter Equally With Man For Murder". Madera Tribune. Vol. LXXIII, no. 32. Madera, California. 9 December 1938. p. 1. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
What a mother did not know about her own daughter softened today Mrs. Leonard Vlught's resentment against the boy who killed her. She wondered if she had given the girl too much freedom. She learned, too late, that her own child drank, went on a petting party when she was supposed to be spending the night with girl friends, and kept company with a youth whose crime career began when he was 12. Burdened with grief as she prepared to bury her daughter, the mother judged her for what had happened, and held her equally to blame.
- ^ a b c Adams, Sam (29 November 2012). "Cleveland, Texas rape case: Defense attorney calls pre-teen victim a spider, but that's his job". Slate. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ^ "NY Times Defends Victim Blaming Coverage of Child Rape Case". Mediabistro.com. 10 March 2011. Archived from the original on 13 September 2011. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ^ a b RCqC (24 May 2022). "Si se quiere, la propia calle puede educar y proteger a la ciudadanía". Ciudades que Caminan (in Spanish).
- ^ a b Triana, Daniela (30 March 2020). "Ciclismo urbano: "La culpa la tiene la víctima"". biciclub.com (in Spanish).
References
- ISBN 9780804754613.
- Downs, Donald Alexander (1998). More Than Victims: Battered Women, the Syndrome Society, and the Law. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226161600.
- Kent, George (2003). "Blaming the Victim, Globally". UN Chronicle Online. XL (3). United Nations Department of Public Information. Archived from the original on 24 December 2003.
- Katsiaficas, George N.; Kirkpatrick, Robert George; Emery, Mary Lou (1987). Introduction to Critical Sociology. Ardent Media. ISBN 9780829015959.
- JSTOR j.ctt7s3sm.
Further reading
- S2CID 141709189.
- Janoffbulman, R (1985). "Cognitive biases in blaming the victim". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 21 (2): 161–177. .
- Maes, JüRgen (1994). "Blaming the victim: Belief in control or belief in justice?". Social Justice Research. 7: 69–90. S2CID 144089886.
- McCaul, Kevin D.; Veltum, Lois G.; Boyechko, Vivian; Crawford, Jacqueline J. (1990). "Understanding Attributions of Victim Blame for Rape: Sex, Violence, and Foreseeability". Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 20: 1–26. .
- Summers, Gertrude; Feldman, Nina S. (1984). "Blaming the Victim Versus Blaming the Perpetrator: An Attributional Analysis of Spouse Abuse". Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 2 (4): 339–47. .
External links
- Information on victim blaming at the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton (SACE)
- Information on victim blaming at the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime
- Victim Blame and Sexual Assault
- "Dr Jessica Taylor (PhD, FRSA) explains the reason why women are blamed for everything".