Elisha Lianne F.

Almo English 10 – Einstein

Why Rape Victims Shouldn’t Be Blamed?

Rape is something that many women fear, and from a young age they are
socialized to adjust their actions to reduce their risk of rape, and to learn that society
is at threat of victim-blaming. As such, victim-blaming is a form of rape culture wherein
the victims of sexual assault are held fully or partly responsible for the crime committed
against them, which then induces feelings of powerlessness, shame, and guilt.
First of all, we cannot calculate someone's willingness to engage in sex on the grounds
of "how he/she looked at you" or "how they were dressed." The blaming directly
addresses that, in order to avoid being harassed or raped, women should dress and
behave in a certain way, and also be careful where they go. They are socially
scrutinized for the way they dress or behave. Second, if that were the case, children
and even toddlers would not have fallen into the scope of victims of sexual violence
and molestation. Sexual abuse can also occur in marriages, romantic relationships,
and families. A lot may denounce it and argue that it was not actually rape. But unless
all parties concerned gave their consent to partake in any sexual interaction and not
one is being forced against their own will, it is still called rape.
Victim-blaming is more prominent in rape than other offences –pointed out by Beatriz
Torre, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman Department
of Psychology, in an online talk hosted by Thomson Reuters. “This is attributed to
dominant sexual narratives; males as sexual aggressors and females as sexual
gatekeepers,”. These highlights the mentality of the patriarchal society we live in.
Whereas women have always been objectified and sexualized. These narratives,
which are predominantly concerned on sex, validate acts of sexual assault, because
“men are naturally regarded as aggressive” and that “they are not supposed to be
restricted”.
I believe that if the victims of rape, sexual harassment, and other types of sexual
violence are not immediately criticized, then the world we live will be much safer from
violence and the victims would be more open to report their abusers. Not to mention,
the following generation would be more likely to value people and their rights as human
beings and would have a lesser risk of committing illegal acts. Victims should not be
blamed and subjected to this kind of treatment when it was the lack of another person’s
self-control, basic decency and empathy that has caused this tragic ordeal.
Some argued that the criminal justice system ought to persecute survivors of abuse
because women frequently lie about abuse. However, statistics suggest that only
between two and eight percent of the allegations of rape are fraudulent, which is
actually the same amount of false reporting as other significant crime reports. Data
gathered by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) from the Philippine National Police
(PNP) as of February 2020 indicated that there were 2,162 cases of rape reported to
the police in 2019, 30.6 percent higher than the 1,656 cases reported in 2018.
However, Women's rights advocates lament that official rape case reports are not a
true reflection of the real occurrence of rape in a world where rape cultures continues
to exist, and discrimination remains pervasive.
Early research on this issue centered primarily on the characterological and behavioral
features of the survivor, which make outsiders more likely to see the victims as being
held responsible for their own misfortunes, and this contributes to negative rape
arraignments.
Now, let us discuss the reasons on why people have a tendency to victim-blame. A
psychological occurrence that leads to this propensity to accuse the victim is known
as fundamental attribution error; this involves attributing actions of other individuals to
internal and personal characteristics while dismissing external influences and variables
that might also have contributed. The fundamental attribution error exists because of
the way people hold their own perspective of the world. While one may at least have
an idea of their personality, incentives, and situational factors which affects their daily
lives, they barely have an idea about anything that is happening with someone else.
Another factor that leads to the inclination to blame the victim is the hindsight bias;
whereas, if we look at an incident that has occurred in the past, we tend to assume
that we should have been able to see the signs and foresee the results. This hindsight
gives the impression that victims of a crime, accident, or other form of tragedy should
have been able to anticipate and eliminate any complications that might have occurred.
And it is not just something that occurs when we look at incidents like rape or sexual
assault. If someone is sick, people sometimes tend to criticize a person's present state
of health for previous habits. Such instances of accountability tend to indicate that
victims should have anticipated or predicted such things to happen because of their
actions, when in fact there was no way to predict the outcome.
The inclination to accuse the victim also derives partially from the desire to think that
we live in a just and fair world. If a terrible situation happens to someone else, a
conclusion that they have done something to deserve such a fate will arise. This
pattern is referred to as the Just-World Phenomenon or Belief in a Just World (BJW).
This type of belief or mentality gives people a sense that such tragedies will never
befall them, because if we believe that the world is not just, then it becomes more
evident that anyone could be the target of a disaster. No matter how vigilant and
cautious one might be, bad things can and will happen to good people. But by insisting
that the world is just, by insisting that people deserve what has happened to them, and
by accusing the victim, people are able to maintain their delusions that such horrible
things would never happen to them.
Yet bad things can and will inevitably happen to anyone at any moment in their lives.
So, the next time you find yourself questioning what someone else did to bring about
their tragedy, take a minute to consider the psychological traits and prejudices that
influence your perception. Rather than blaming the victim, try putting yourself in the
person's situation and view it from their perspective and maybe show a bit of empathy
instead.
When we encourage people to become conscious of the stigma of rape and change
the way we perceive it, it will help fight against sexual abuse. Rape victims should not
be blamed because this makes a victim have difficulty to come forward and report the
abuse done to them. It is unjustly to be held accountable for something that was forced
upon you, it is not the rape victim's fault to get into the tragedy. The aggressor should
be held accountable for the criminal actions they have committed. They should be
punished for the pain and humiliation they have inflicted on their victims, the violation
and damage they have caused is degrading as a human being. This twisted way of
thinking must not be condoned.