Example 1:
A young girl was beaten up & raped last night. Sources stated that she was walking back from work in an isolated street when the attacker showed up. Young girls are advised to not walk alone at night in dark places to prevent such cases.
Example 2:
Children abduction has rises in number in the Z area over the past few months. It is suspected that there are 2 people involved, where one of them will distract the parent by asking about time, road to some places, etc, while the other one will take the children away from the parent. Parents are advised to keep their eyes on their children at all times in a public setting to prevent such cases.
I believe you have read those 2 example of cases. And I also believed that what I have written is the very very very simplest form of the newspaper articles.
Now, let me ask you. Who's to blame here?
The victim or the offender?
We may say that the victims can do something to prevent the cases, but ultimately it is the offender's fault, right?
But why it doesn't feel that way though? Every time crimes are being reported in the news, ultimately they point out where the victims 'went wrong', and make them victims.
Even when the victims had already implemented maximum security, when the offenders did achieve in breaking them, news reporters will always ask the victims
"You already took precaution, so what went wrong?"
instead of
"How to stop this frickin offender, since he's so smart he could pass that level of security?"
And ultimately, when the news find out that nothing 'went wrong', the victims are asked to be patient, sugarcoated with things like
"It's a test from God" "Karma will hit the offender in the nuts" "Every cloud has a silver lining"
This, ladies and gentlemen, is
victim-blaming.
When you blame the victim more than the offender.
In very linear logic, this is illogical, right?
Why would we put blame on the victims more than we put the blame onto the offender?
Why does this happen?
I believe it is due to the
absent-audience effect, (Yes, I made up the word)
where you want to deliver something to a target audience, but it's not there, so you end up altering your delivery (not the content) and delivering it to the existing audience.
Example:
Imagine the last day of school. You can guess for sure that those problematic kids won't come to school on that day. The remaining kids are the ones that we may consider as the good kids.
Now imagine the teacher is walking into the class. She can see that there are many empty seats.
What she wants to say initially to the absent kids was:
"Eventhough this is last day of school, you should come to class. This will show your responsibility as a student. Moreover, school is not over yet. Does it hurt you to just come for just one more day? Do you think I want to come on this last day? It would be better if this day is holiday for me too! But I came anyway. So why can't you?"
But of course she can't say it, because the absent kids are not there to begin with!
But she wanted to say it anyway. So she said to the remaining obedient kids:
"Eventhough this is last day of school, you should come to class, like you do now. This will show your responsibility as a student. Moreover, school is not over yet, right? Does it hurt you to just come for just one more day? No, right? Do you think I want to come on this last day? It would be better if this day is holiday for me too! But I came anyway, just like you."
The intention is good. But unfortunately this will cause
paradoxical reinforcement, (Yes, I made up a word again)
where the
present audience will become obedient, while the
absent audience is not affected. At all. Independently, the absent audience may worsen in condition, due to them not listening to the information or reminder or warning.
In regards to this example, the obedient kids will become more obedient, because they hear the reminder, but the absent kids are not affected at all, because they didn't hear it in the first place! They will just continue to be as they are, or if introduced to some trigger, will behave worse.
So, in real-life setting,
we want to condemn the offenders.
But we cannot interact directly with them, so we move our attention to the ones who we can communicate directly with; the victims.
Instead of telling the offenders how wrong the actions were, how miserable the consequences will be, how much jailtime they would face, etc,
we tell the victims to be patient, increase security, make sure to educate others, etc.
Again, I'm telling you, the intention is good. But this will make the victims worry more, while the real offenders are not affected at all!
So, needless to say this now, victim-blaming needs to stop.
Why?
1. The offender is the one who is guilty.
I don't know how else to explain this. This is as crystal clear as it is.
Well, let me put it this way.
Did the victims 'went wrong' in some aspects?
Maybe they did. But on some occasions, not at all actually.
Should the victims take more precautions?
Maybe. Yes if you can still add them up. But if the victims have already taken maximum precaution, what's more to add?
More importantly,
whether the victims take precaution or not, the offender is ultimately guilty.
Yes, maybe girls should take more precaution by not walking alone at night.
But, whether they do it or not, raping & beating girls is never right.
Yes, maybe parents should increase their guards onto their children in public, busy places.
But whether they do it or not, taking away the children is never right.
What happen to us, is our responsibility.
If things go wrong, we'll take responsibility for that.
But whoever is causing the wrong thing is ultimately the guilty one.
2. Stop a tree growing by cutting its roots, not its branch.
Otherwise, it would just find its way to continue to grow.
If girls no longer walk alone at night, the offender would change his strategy by aiming girls walking alone in the day. Rape & beating up would still occur.
If parents increase their guards onto their children in public, the offenders would change their strategies by aiming children playing without their parents at the playground. Children being taking away would still occur.
Offenders would always find way to do crime. Only by stopping the offender, the crime would stop. Victim-blaming is only making the victims more worried and the offenders smarter.
3. We are not putting ourselves out for danger
Who voluntarily wants to get in danger for no reasons at all?
We do intend to protect ourselves. It's just that we make precautions out of our own knowledge & abilities
So sometimes, there are things that we don't know, and there are things that we cannot do.
Apart from that, when we don't do certain things due to these barriers, people around automatically points us out for being irresponsible.
This will increase negative judgements, and thus victim blaming. And more dangerously, it convinces more & more people that the victims deserve the misery happening to them, due to them at their eyes, 'not being responsible'.
"Girls walking alone at night are irresponsible for their safety, thus deserves to be raped & beaten up."
A girl may choose to walk alone at night at a certain street because that is the fastest way to her home. 5 minutes walking vs. a bus ride alone at night for 30 minutes. Which one would you choose? I bet the latter is much dangerous for her.
To those judging, have you taken your part ensuring that girls will be safe on their night trips?
"Parents not keeping their eyes on their children are irresponsible parents, thus deserves for their children to be taken away."
A parents' attention may be diverted for a bit because she has already given our her energy on the first half of the day running her business while keeping her eyes onto her children. Even writing this down makes me tired.
To those judging, have you taken your part helping parents to watch their children?
So stop victim-blaming because the victims are not purposely out there to be in danger in the first place. The offenders are the ones with the voluntary intention to harm people.
And stop judging people for being irresponsible. There are things that we don't know or we cannot do. We're humans. We even make that negative judgements in the first place because we don't know or we cannot do things for the victims in the first place. Bad things happen to them, and us, because as humans we don't know everything, and we cannot do everything.
I've written long enough. Here are a few take-away lessons:
1. We need to be smart to survive.
That is essentially what precautions are all about, being smart to survive.
Despite me go whining about how victims should be protected and offenders should be blamed, in reality things happen and you move on. It's the only way to survive, and it applies to both victims and offenders.
Because life does not favor over the good or the bad.
In order to survive and succeed, we need to be smart.
The offenders need to be smart enough to survive (not getting caught) and succeed (get what they want to get).
The victims need to be smart enough to survive (protect themselves) and succeed (not getting danger onto themselves.
If the offenders got caught, they still need to be smart enough to survive (stay alive) and succeed (escape).
If the victims got harm onto themselves, they still need to be smart enough to survive (keep their lives as usual) and succeed (make sure the offenders got caught).
2. Stop victim-blaming, by stopping paradoxical reinforcement.
My previous point was talking from the basic evolutionary perspective. I don't really want to write about it, but I found it very relevant & practical in real-life situations.
Some people keep blaming victims, so much that victims feel traumatized and are in constant worry that they are unable to move on from their lives.
Some people on the polar opposites, keep blabbing about how we should catch the offenders, and are unable to move on when the polices are unable to do so.
Regardless of that, from the psychological perspective, I cannot stress enough on how we should stop victim-blaming.
Because if we continue to normalize victim-blaming, victims will always be in constant worry like I've mentioned, and offenders will continue to terrorize victims without fear. And as more precautions being implemented, the offenders will just force their brains to become smarter to do more bad things.
Why should this happen? Who is the guilty one in the first place? Who are the ones are we intend to help & protect in the first place?
So stop victim-blaming & blame the actual offender.
Why now are we contemplating the possibilities that "They might be forced to do it" "Maybe they are so desperate" and all those stuff? Why don't we think that way towards the victims in the first place?
Regardless of their condition, what they did was wrong.
If the offenders were forced to do whatever they do, condemn what they do, then help them out from the problem.
If the offenders were really doing whatever they do voluntarily, condemn what they do & punish them accordingly.
Just condemn what they do, regardless of their condition. Aren't they wrong in the first place?
This will reduce the paradoxical reinforcement, where victims won't feel attacked anymore, and instead have courage to condemn their attacker, while the offenders, in custody or not, will feel more intimidated due to the condemn.
This will significantly help victims & potential victims to not be victims anymore, and this will reduce offenders' & potential offenders' will to do more bad things in the future.
Let's stop victim-blaming.
I hope I can see newspaper articles like this in the near future:
Example 1:
A young girl was beaten up & raped last night. Sources stated that she was walking back from work in an isolated street when the attacker showed up. Currently she is recovering from her trauma, from the help of NGOs related to violence towards females. Security around the area has been upgraded to ensure girls can walk around more safely, while strategies are being devised to catch the offender. And security officers are determined to do so to end parents worrying about their children. In addition, young girls are advised to not walk alone at night in dark places if they don't have the need to do so.
Example 2:
Children abduction has rises in number in the Z area over the past few months. It is suspected that there are 2 people involved, where 1 of them will distract the parent by asking about time, road to some places, etc, while the other 1 will take the children away from the parent. Parents involved in the cases are taking counseling to recover from their trauma. Security around the area has been upgraded, while strategies are being devised to catch the offender. And security officers are determined to do so to end parents worrying about their children. In addition, parents are advised to keep their eyes on their children in a public setting as much as possible.
consensususg.com
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