Stop telling women what to wear to avoid rape

We can begin by resisting the urge to preach to women about how they shouldn’t drink “too much” or wear revealing clothes or stay out late at night. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • The point that a lot of us seem to miss is that rape is hardly ever about lust, sexual provocation or sex. Rape is about power, control and sadism.
  • Rape is an act of violence. That is why children and old women are raped – did their “sensual” dressing or “youthful voluptuousness” have anything to do with it? Or how do we explain away this type of rape?

People react to news of rape in different ways: There are the men and women who heap the blame of rape on the victim. They ask “What was she doing in his house that late? What was she wearing? Why did she go to that part of town alone?”

The other group condemns the rapist and then goes on a campaign to teach women how not to get raped. While both camps are insensitive, it is the latter group that has me most annoyed, because they actually believe they are doing women justice.

Just yesterday, a male friend was telling me that women need to take the bull by the horns and do everything they can to protect themselves against rape.

“How you dress dictates the kind of vibes you attract,” he said.

“So, a woman can attract rapists just by the way she dresses?” I asked instinctively.

“Yes,” he said with conviction, after some thought.

I was lost for words. It is wrong and unfair to place the burden of rape prevention on women. A woman will do all the right things and still be raped and when she is, she will blame herself, having taken cue from a society that blames women for rape. In the eyes of the world, she did not do everything in her power to protect herself. She did not do enough to fend off sexual violation. 

ACT OF VIOLENCE

Since statistics show that more sexual crimes are committed by men and not women, wouldn’t it be more effective to also involve men in the fight against rape?

True, it is a big bad world out there and self-defense is an invaluable skill for any woman, or man for that matter,  to have, but why should we make women feel as if it is up to them to decide whether they will be raped or not?

The point that a lot of us seem to miss is that rape is hardly ever about lust, sexual provocation or sex. Rape is about power, control and sadism. Rape is an act of violence.

That is why children and old women are raped – did their “sensual” dressing or “youthful voluptuousness” have anything to do with it? Or how do we explain away this type of rape?

The day we start seeing rape not as sex but as the violent crime it is, is the day that we will begin to make headway in the fight against it. We can begin by resisting the urge to preach to women about how they shouldn’t drink “too much” or wear revealing clothes or stay out late at night. These things have nothing to do with rape, because there are women who take all these measures and still get raped.

We can also start talking to men and boys. Start telling them that no means no and stop means stop, even if the women in question is your wife.

Tell men that a drunk woman is not in the right frame of mind to give sexual consent and that consent can be withdrawn at any point of the sexual act. Remind men that they should call out other men when they see them disrespecting and violating women.

This is the only way we will begin to make progress against rape culture.