Nothing.

THIS.

Jaw gaping here. Way to miss the entire point of the post.

No.

Funny how no one ever blames eleven-year-old boy scouts, football campers, or altar boys for what they were wearing, isn’t it?

You attached to a specific image in my analogy, one that was an optional possibility. I was more so providing an analogy of a specific type of person being harassed due to the way they dress. I was also providing the usual behaviors associated with the way one dressed, as perceived by those who want to assoctiate stereotypes to modes of dress.

As an African-American male in America, I greatly understand how I can be in a suit and still get harassed. Or be wearing baggy jeans and get harassed. And I understand you can switch those two situations, in a way, and I would not be harassed if wearing a suit, but I would be if wearing somewhat baggy jeans.

And I understand if a woman dresses a particular way, and then acts a particular way associated with the way she is dressed, she will usually get treated by the same and opposite gender in a certain list of ways. Whether or not any of this is socially acceptable, whether or not people are right to make these assumptions, is a different discussion.

@EROSE – “Frankly, reactions like the “she should know what message she sends” stuff are the only reason that girl’s clothes might be an issue for even a second. Because a predator hears from respectable society what he hears inside his own head to justify what he does.”

People need to know what messages they send in terms of body language and yes, the clothes they wear. No matter if they are male or female. It just makes sense in the larger picture of living in the global village.

And: “ecause a predator hears from respectable society what he hears inside his own head to justify what he does.”

A predator will justify whatever is in their head, no matter what ANYONE says. You can say the opposite, and if they want, they will twist whatever it is they are twisting. Let’s make this NOT about the people who attack others, what is in their heads, and more about the individual.

But the woman’s original comment regarding what the girl may have been wearing is a valid subject when regarding young children and the way their perceive, and respond to, the society around them. And having the discussion of what one wears, or how one acts, has an affect on how they are perceived in public. Any notions of a woman getting raped “because she was wearing what she was wearing” is projected onto this discussion, as it is an outgrowth of the original discussion.

It is possible to split these two related lines of thinking into a discussion of how we do know how to talk to young people, but we need to be having these real discussions and not misognystically (both ways, men and women people) biased talks.

The thing is there, you’re assuming that if she goes out wearing a coat rather than ‘sexy’ clothing, she’s less likely to be raped. That’s a common assumption, but I’m not sure it’s actually true. I’m inclined to think the kind of person who would sexually assault a young girl would be likely to do so anyway whatever she was wearing. But I’m not a rapist myself, so I wouldn’t know. I do know that it’s entirely possible for a woman to dress ‘modestly’ and still get raped.

I entirely understand the reasons for giving such advice: you want your friends and family to be safe, and if there’s anything they can do to be safer, you want them to do that. And you want to be safe yourself, and to think that you have some measure of control over your safety, so you can say ‘well, I did everything I could’. But if such advice isn’t actually of any use, then it’s not helpful.

Such advice encourages an environment of victim blaming, where rape victims were dressed ‘sexily’, on the assumption they somehow ‘brought it on themselves’ or ‘could have prevented it’; and perhaps victim disbelief, where they weren’t (‘how could she have been raped, she was wearing a coat?’). And worse, it may cause women to mistakenly think themselves safe when they actually aren’t.

Look, I’m a man and not at great risk of being raped myself, so to an extent my comments aren’t that relevant here; since women are the ones mainly at risk, they have the right to do or say whatever they think they have to do to reduce that risk. But personally, I’m with the original poster here: I think talking about what a woman or girl is wearing, in the context of rape, is missing the point entirely.