Today in Rape Culture

[Trigger warning.]

In Bristol, Virginia, a religious group is handing out a leaflet entitled "Women & Girls" that blames women in tight-fitting or revealing clothing for men's sins and claims such clothing is why women are raped:

"You may have been given this leaflet because of the way you are dressed," it begins. "Have you thought about standing before the true and living God to be judged?"

It continues with one essential theme: The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing. [Pam Yates, whose 19-year-old daughter Keshia Canter was handed the pamphlet by a woman who told her, "Even though nothing is showing, you're being ungodly. You make men want to be sinful."] was annoyed. Then she got to a section on page two:

"Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin," the leaflet states. "By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?"

The hand-out is signed "anonymous."

Oh dear. It's the Magical, Mysterious, Mighty Power of Uncovered Meatdom argument again: Women have a supernatural and inescapable power over men, wielded primarily through their bodies—a power so irresistible and total that men cannot be held accountable for their actions, because they are rendered helpless, defenseless, morally vulnerable (yet somehow have nonetheless managed to simultaneously hold the upper hand in virtually every culture since the beginning of recorded history). Don't try to understand it! It's magical! The black magic of wicked women!

In a world where rape was properly regarded as a hate crime, and this sort of victim-blaming shit was seen for the hate speech it is, viewed as material that borders on the incitement of rape by virtue of its flagrant justification, content that has the explicit capacity to harass and trigger survivors of sexual violence, the people handing out this pamphlet would be committing a serious crime.

Anything else I could say about this truly despicable victim-blaming, I've said before: Rape is not a compliment, not only attractive women and girls are raped, women aren't to blame for their own rapes, the key component in every rape is the presence of a rapist... The truth is, anyone who genuinely believes that women are responsible for being raped based on anything they do is either unimaginably cruel or has the critical thinking skills of a gnat—and probably both.

And I'll note, once again, that although it's feminists who have the terrible reputation as man-haters, but it isn't we who consider all men to be such psychological, emotional, and ethical lightweights that they can't stop themselves raping women. The holders of those views are the foot soldiers of the Patriarchy—which itself, after all, takes a rather unpleasantly dim view of most people.

[H/T to Shaker Mark.]