Friday, February 01, 2013

A Good Cartoon (Content Warning Atttached)

Content Warning:  Rape Avoidance


This one.

It makes you think about the way we frame issues and it makes an important point.  Courses on how to avoid getting raped do not decrease rape; they just make someone else the victim and put all the onus on the shoulders of those who are prey. 

But I also get why courses on how not to rape are unlikely to be run.  The assumption is that everybody already knows that rape is wrong, that hardened rapists wouldn't change from such courses and that those who would never want to rape anyone would be insulted by having to take such a course.  Though of course there's something insulting in being regarded as the natural prey of rapists, too.

Courses on "rape cultures" might work, however.  They could probe common ideas and misconceptions about what constitutes rape and what consent means and they could be taught simultaneously to men and women (or not, as one decides what is best), with the self-care measures included.

This could all be wrong.  The topic is a tricky one to write about and I haven't spent a long time thinking about this.