by Ginger Voight

Created on: May 09, 2008   Last Updated: May 07, 2011

A man is walking down the street, late at night, wearing a suit and tie. From the shadows, a mugger leaps from his hiding place and attacks him. He takes his watch, his PDA, everything that this man had the audacity to wear or carry late at night when he was alone in the dangerous city.

He immediately calls the police. The cops who respond to the scene ask, "Why were you walking out so late at night?" "Did you show off your watch?" "Have you been drinking?"

The man hangs his head in shame. He had walked alone late at night knowing that he could be targeted for a crime. Maybe he should have not worn his watch. Maybe then he would not have been singled out as an easy victim.

Another man drives his Mustang to a convenience store late at night. He runs into an old friend in the store and they chat. When he leaves, his car is gone. The cops come and ask him, "Why were you driving such a popular car? Didn't you know that people might want to steal it?"

These scenarios seem unthinkable. How can we blame a victim for the crimes of another? Why can't a man own a Mustang? Does he have to instead own a cheap car to prevent himself from becoming victimized? Or can't a man walk down the street with the reasonable expectation that he shouldn't be attacked?

What message would it send to the criminal when police officers and lawyers assign any responsibility, no matter how minor, to the victim?

This is a message our society sends to rape victims and their attackers every day in every court across America.

It is a mindset that once again delegates women to second class citizens, virtual property at the disposal of men. They must play defense in how they live, what they wear, whom they date. If a rapist targets one, they must answer for every decision that they made in previous consensual relationships, as if this past history makes them vulnerable to an attack. As if they ever lose the right to say no, just because they've ever said yes.

This detracts from the attack or the attacker, and instead criminalizes the free will and choices of the victim.

The injustice of this is unthinkable.  And because of this it makes rape one of the only crimes where it is socially acceptable to assign blame onto the victim.

If an old woman is brutally raped in her home, it inspires sympathy. If a young girl is stolen from the safety of her bedroom and attacked, it inspires outrage. But if an attractive, sexually active woman goes on a date with her attacker, a person she knows, somehow,

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