Profiling a rapable woman (How the Idiot Society stereotypes a rape victim)

A couple of nights ago, I was watching TV in our small sari-sari store. I was tuned in to a news program, and the report was about a twenty year old girl who was raped by an actor turned politician. According to the report, Ms. Twenty was hanging out in a condo where she and her friends are having a drinking spree. Mr Actor-Turned-Politician arrived at around 1AM. Miss Twenty eventually got drunk and fell asleep. Some time later, she woke up and found herself naked, with Mr. A-T-P on top of her, equally naked. She screamed for help and was rescued by her friends.

A woman had come into the store and had taken a can of sardine. She had paused to watch the report, her face contorted to what I mistakenly interpreted as feelings of disgust at what happened to Ms. Twenty.

I was wrong.

“Iinum-inum ka tapos ngayon, gaganyan-ganyan ka,” she spat.

Translation: “You drink, then you act that way.”

The English translation barely scratches the surface of what these words mean. The woman is insinuating that Ms. Twenty had it coming to her because she was drinking.

Needless to say, I wanted to smash the fish de lata to her face… but as always, boys and girls, violence is never the answer for any person’s shortcomings. Idiocy is never cured by a broken jaw. Besides, the woman was customer. And she’s not the only one who thinks that way. I can’t just go whacking people with sardines, right?

In a lot of cultures, society has “dumbed” the people into adapting the Victim-Blaming attitude. This attitude implies that the rape victim is partially, if not fully, responsible for the rape.

Studies show that there are stereotypical characteristics of the victim, and the rape, that increases the perceived fault factor of a rape victim.

1. The victim is classified as provocatively dressed

Apparently, women who are inappropriately clad tend to seduce men into committing rape. For many centuries, a person’s clothing has been related to his or her personality. This stigma still exists in today’s society, If a person is deemed “inappropriately provocative”, (by whoever thinks that he has the right to classify one’s wardrobe as such), then, that person is deemed as inappropriately provocative.

2. The victim is seen as a party-goer
Booze, drugs, and sex: the trilogy of a hard-core party girl. The problem is, narrow-minded people adamantly believe that if a person is doing one, then he or she must be doing all. This mindset compromises the integrity of the victim. There are no gray areas, only black and white.

3. The victim is a known flirt.

So a girl has a lot of guy friends. She links to hang out with them, and to peck at their brains because she finds them interesting. Not everyone sees it this way. A lot of people would happily put malice into an innocent friendly chat, possibly to add color to their perpetually dull lives.

4. The rapist is known to the victim.

If a girl dates a boy, she is probably interested in him. If a girl dates a boy, and the boy rapes t he girl, it’s probably because the girl is interested in him. She probably wanted it to happen. If the perpetrator is a relative, the harlot probably seduced him to his limits. It’s the rape victim’s fault. This is how the Narrow-Minded Society thinks. Do you agree?

The moral is this: Victim-Blaming attitude stems from a bunch of stereotypical characteristics which is cultivated by prejudice and gossips. Unfortunately, these are very powerful things. Fortunately some people do recognize the idiocy in this mindset, the idiocy of discrimination, and possibly, of the contagious generalization. They recognize its effect to the justice process, as many rape victims opt to remain silent about their ordeals, rather than face the sharp, flippant tongues of the Narrow-Minded Society.They recognize its disastrous effect on the victim’s psyche, the escalation of the degree of worthlessness and self-disgust that rape leaves in its wake.

The truth is this: The mentality that the rape victim was “asking for it” is total bullshit. There are reasons why rape is committed. There may be triggers and provocations. But no matter what anyone else says, there is absolutely no excuse for it.


A/N: There is no such words as rapable and dumbed. They are coined by the author, like J.K. Rowling coined the word Muggle.