Today Stuff published an article about two rapists, convicted for raping a young woman and sentenced to 16 and 15 years in prison. Both rapists had previous convictions for assaulting women.
Stuff’s advice, right at the end:
TIPS ON STAYING SAFE
Travel in pairs
Make sure people know where you are, and when they are next likely to hear from you
Be aware of your environment
Do not travel with strangers
Just what I needed to finish the day.
The only thing the two young women – yep, that’s right, the young woman raped here was already following Stuffed Tip One and was walking home with a friend – the only thing the two young women could have done to be safer in this instance is to not be with rapists. Maybe those two rapists should have to carry signs showing their previous histories of hurting women?
You know what means you get raped? Being unlucky enough to be in the presence of a rapist who targets you. That’s all.
Stuffed Tip Two: Make sure people know where you are, and when they are next likely to hear from you. Bollocks. When people don’t know where you are, it’s not usually because you’re being raped. It would be more effective to suggest women with boyfriends, former boyfriends, male friends or work colleagues should set up rape alarms. We could set off permanent signals when we’re with these men, to alert people about where we are every 15 minutes perhaps, because these men rape us 84% of the time. It will catch on, I’m sure.
Stuffed Tip Three: Be aware of your environment.
Good tip. You should avoid being inside, because most people get raped inside (67% of rapes in NZ happen inside the home of the rapist or the person raped.)
You should avoid night-time, because most people are raped at night.
You should avoid being around men, because most people are raped by men (95% of perpetrators of adult sexual violence in NZ are men). That’s that one sorted.
Stuffed Tip Four: Do not travel with strangers
Mmm. This won’t actually help, because most people are raped by people they know (84% of perpetrators of adult sexual violence in NZ are known to the survivor). More like, don’t travel with boyfriends, former boyfriends, male friends or work colleagues. Wonder why they didn’t put that up?
Rape Crisis Scotland have some other ideas:
Rant over. Get busy with telling Stuff what complete and utter victim blaming creeps they are, if you feel the urge. The research is here, in case they have trouble finding it.
LudditeJourno 