I’ve encountered the concept of victim blaming in health literature, particularly from a sociological perspective. Some scholars think that health-promotion can be a form of victim blaming or at the very least, people tend to blame themselves if they become ill. I share the positions of critics who think health education and promotion are good and necessary, regardless of how some people internalize certain messages.
Because of my forays into this discourse about victim blaming, I’m probably oversensitive about how it’s used in other contexts. Recently, Hayley Stevens changed her mind about Heather Keating’s tweet “Its always sad to see young women become victims of sexual offenses, Don’t drink too much on New Year’s Eve and regret your actions!” Stevens initially criticized Keating, writing in response that she should stop victim blaming. She now thinks that she overreacted and that there is a “certain amount of responsibility that all of us should take to keep ourselves safe.”
My first thought when I read Keating’s tweet had nothing to do with victim blaming, but the utility of this kind of advice. Putting aside for a moment whether women should change their behaviour to avoid being assaulted, do they follow this advice?
Alcohol or drugs are involved in about a third to two-thirds of sexual assaults and about half of perpetrators are under the influence of alcohol when committing an assault. So, for whatever the reason, there is a link between sexual assault and alcohol or drugs.
Testa and Livingston (2009) investigated whether reducing women’s drinking can prevent rape, while also providing a survey of research which shows that sexually victimized women tend to consume alcohol more than women without a history of victimization. This in itself is a controversial statement to some people, but the authors make it clear that women are not responsible for their own victimization:
Few would dispute that it is the perpetrator, nearly always male, who is responsible for sexual victimization and that it is imperative that prevention efforts target male perpetration. Nonetheless, without in any way blaming the victim, it is also responsible to help women to reduce their risk of sexual victimization by altering the behaviors that increase their vulnerability.
They conclude that because there is a strong relationship between women’s heavy episodic drinking and sexual victimization, existing alcohol consumption interventions should be targeted towards reducing heavy episodic drinking.
Perpetrators are solely responsible for their actions and everyone “should” have the right to go out in public without fear of harm. Additionally, coercing anyone into avoiding certain areas or limiting their mobility and normal public behaviours is of course unwarranted, but that’s not what we’re talking about here; we’re talking about verbal warnings.
Of course, we have the freedom to ignore warnings, and doing so doesn’t shift responsibility from perpetrator to victim, but the warnings are justifiable insofar as they address risk. Regarding the issue of victim blaming, Testa and Livingston seem to agree:
Advocating drinking reduction for women as a way of reducing their vulnerability to rape implies neither that women are to blame for their own victimization nor that prevention directed toward male perpetrators is unnecessary. College drinking reduction programs have most commonly been directed toward women and men, and this two-pronged approach, targeting both victim and perpetrator drinking, may prove especially effective in reducing sexual victimization.
As one would expect, the regular consumption of alcohol is related to risk taking behaviours, but Hertzog and Yeilding (2009) argue that “drug awareness is not correlated with the incorporation of risk reduction strategies.” Their study used a small sample and it was limited in the sense that it’s cross-sectional, but it appears to be consistent with other studies.
It might be argued that changing the culture might reduce the prevalence of rape myths and decrease incidents of sexual assault and violence, but it is perhaps utopian to think that drinking in public will every be a risk-free proposition. We could tell men to avoid having risky sex or putting themselves in positions where they are likely to be sexually aggressive. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not convinced that men are any more likely to implement risk reduction strategies than women.
Hertzog, J. & Yeilding, R. ( 2009). College women’s rape awareness and use of commonly advocated risk reduction strategies. College Student Journal, 43(1).
Testa, M., and Livingston, J.A. (2009). Alcohol consumption and women’s vulnerability to sexual victimization: Can reducing women’s drinking pre vent rape? Substance Use & Misuse, 44.
