Well. This is hugely depressing.

[Trigger warning.]

Shaker Maria sent along this article from the BBC about a small-scale online survey in Britain which found that "a majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened."

Almost three quarters of the women who believed this said if a victim got into bed with the assailant before an attack they should accept some responsibility.

One-third blamed victims who had dressed provocatively or gone back to the attacker's house for a drink.

The survey of more than 1,000 people in London marked the 10th anniversary of the Haven service for rape victims.

More than half of those of both sexes questioned said there were some circumstances when a rape victim should accept responsibility for an attack.

The study found that women were less forgiving of the victim than men.

Of the women who believed some victims should take responsibility, 71% thought a person should accept responsibility when getting into bed with someone, compared with 57% of men.

Although this was hardly a scientific survey, an Amnesty International report completed five years ago on British attitudes toward rape reported similar conclusions.

These results feel sensational, because ZOMG even women blame victims! But the reality is that when people disproportionately targeted by sexual target victim-blame, it is frequently, among women who have not been raped, an attempt to disassociate from the ugly reality that there's no magic strategy to insulate oneself from all possibility of sexual assault. Or, among victim-blaming survivors, a reflection of guilt and shame—a misplaced feeling of responsibility for one's own rape.

That doesn't make the victim-blaming any more justified (or less depressing), but it does provide a context that most media coverage will lack.

Also absent will be accountability: The British media engages in huge amounts of public victim-blaming especially surrounding (female) drinking.

Britain continues to have one of the lowest rape conviction rates in the industrialized world. That is not unrelated to endemic attitudes, narratives, and publicly-endorsed victim-blaming.