It was common for my mom to get mad at me when I got hurt. By the time I was 12, I was regularly concealing injuries and accidents so I wouldnt have to deal with the uproar. I once fell off a 10-foot church roof -- onto my head and neck (no snickers, you bastards) -- and my first impulse after I was able to get up was to hide. I suppose this MIGHT be what informs my feeling today about victim blaming. If I walk out into heavy traffic and a car hits me, it seems to me that its partly my fault. If someone says What the hell were you thinking? Never walk out there like that without looking! and then someone else chirps Oh no, youre VICTIM BLAMING!! ... Im not going to see that second person as the truest friend. If something happens to you and you contributed in any way to the situation ... yes, you do need to make better decisions next time. And other people need to be told so THEY can make better decisions for the future. This does NOT mean I think drivers should have perfect freedom to run over anybody they want. It does mean I think we live in the real world, and that nobody gets a free pass on the consequences of their own contributory actions. I just cant see it as black and white. Theres a lot of discussional space between this is totally your fault and nothing is your fault, ever; its all THEIR fault. But in the atheist-feminist community, a desire for those gradations of nuance makes me a monster.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 20:59:41 +0000
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