What is victim blaming?

Question

So every victim has no responsibility. Hmm i recall people were just talking about the zimmerman case where the teenager who was obviously a victim had some form of responsibility. But how come when it comes to women they can never have any form of responsiblity.

So why is it in society some people are victims and have some responsibility and other victims don't? What could be the reason for this? Who decides that certain victims have to be responsible and certain ones do not.

Without throwing in race please, god forbid we establish racial social society differences. For the sake of argument we will stay out of that. Im strictly speaking why certain people get a pass on their behavior and certain people do not when they are victim.

Answer 1

When it comes to topics like this it's hard not to bring race into it, because whether or not people want to admit average to pretty looking white women can play victim.



The whole idea of "victim blaming" is some stupid propaganda word made up, so that people can not correct the victim. For instance there was some 15( I think that was her age) year old girl who went to a party LATE at night, got drunk, and then got raped. You know what she did? She killed herself. Now if I got up and said, "Didn't your momma tell you not to take drinks from nobody, get drunk on your own, and that nothing good is happening after 1AM ESPECIALLY if you're 15" people would say that I'm blaming the victim.

People don't understand that a lot of women tend to put themselves in certain situations. I am not saying that rape is right. Rape is never justified, but I wish that more females would stop putting themselves in harms way. It would be stupid for me to say "Im bored let me walk to south beach by myself at 2AM in the morning". It's like people don't think "What if?" . They don't think like that because they're not forced to. Look at Natalie Holloway. She got VERY drunk in another country on a school trip, and went off somewhere. Wow what else would have happened? A unicorn giving her a ride back home? Nobody ever talks about what puts these chicks in these situations. They just boo-hoo she's gone.



Look I just know this if you're a male, especially a black male you can't use any excuses. Don't even say that you have different personalities. I've never seen a black male that was able to play the victim. As for women, if you're not a pretty white female then you better be very smart about who you choose to hang out with, and what you choose to do. At 17 I can't go around saying that I got drunk at a party and let guys run a train on me because my life is just sad. I'd be considered a hoodrat with no self respect. These are unwritten rules of society..



Oh and I do think that it's sad when a black person is suffering from a mental illness and they can't get a slide, or even given consideration. My older sister(shes 26/27 and stays in georgia) suffers from severe depression, and nobody would take her seriously as a black woman if something happened to her 7 year old son. I've seen this happen to both black males and females.



Edit: Wow no one wants to question whether or not Zimmerman is lying they just took his word. Man people don't realize that this boys life has just ended. He's not coming back. He doesn't even know the neighborhood like that how could he go looking for trouble. Oh and Of course he's a thug. Oh and LOL Casey Anthony was a victim of a sad life, pfft..

Answer 2

It depends on the evidence and what happened. In the Zimmerman/Martin case, Zimmerman was found innocent on the grounds that Martin threw the first punch and he was defending himself. (I don't want to argue if this is right or not - murder vs a fist fight? - just saying that's what the courts deemed).



Another example: rape laws. If a man and a woman are drunk and have sex, the woman could be considered raped. NOT the man. If the man was sober and the woman was drunk, even if she consents while drunk, it can still be rape against the woman. These laws are definitely sexist but are based on the grounds that women are raped by men more often than the other way around.



All of this leads back to the court system. Our system is definitely VERY flawed. No court system or government is perfect, there will always be things that don't make sense sometimes.



Victim blaming all depends on the circumstances. If someone breaks into your house with the intent to steal or kill, and that person gets wounded or shot by a homeowner, it's the victim's fault for breaking and entering and possibly threatening the homeowner. It's arguable as to who the actual victim was sometimes too.



Who decides? The Supreme Court. Although sometimes the courts use obscure laws in a case, make judgments that are controversial, and are simply ridiculous in rulings. It's a large flaw, and I believe America has one of the most flawed court systems.



But there are times where a "victim" is definitely at fault. It all depends on the specifics.

Answer 3

I think somewhere between common sense and logic, there are times when you have to use you best judgement about putting your own life on the line, so to speak, with what is going on. For example, you don't walk out in front of a car, and expect that it is the other guy's fault, if you get hit. They say pedistrians have the right of way, however, is it really the driver's fault, at 40 mph., if a person decides to walk out in the street? Would you consider it an accident? This type of thing. Personally, I think the person walking out into the middle of the street has some responsibility to look before leaping.

Answer 4

No sane person says NO victim has EVER had any responsibility. That said, what SANE people realize is that whether a person is responsible for something bad, depends on whether they actually did anything they should not have done to bring it about.



No SANE person thinks Martin is responsible for Zimmerman murdering him. He was walking home, doing nothing wrong.



It's a lie that anyone says no woman ever has any form of responsibility (quite the opposite -- people hold women responsible for much more than they should be -- such as ALL child-rearing, even if women have to choose between being with their kids, and everyone starving, or working; women being blamed for being victims of rape -- to give two examples).



What SANE people realize is that people should be held responsible for what they actually DO, that they could have avoided. YOU may not be able to reason clearly about such things; that doesn't mean NO ONE is capable of moral reasoning.



What are "racial social socity differences"? It's unclear what, if anything, you are babbling about.



It's impossible to describe, for EVERY situation what constitutes being responsible, since all events aren't identical to each other.



What do you mean "go looking for trouble"? Do you mean women should never leave their homes? That women have to be covered head-to-toe? SANE people disagree with you.



Women have the right to leave their homes, do errands, work, and have fun. Women should be able to wear what they want (within reason -- there are general rules for, say, not running around naked).



Even a naked woman, however, has NOT consented to being raped, if that's what you mean.



A woman has consented to sex ONLY when she has actually consented to have sex with that man, in that place, at that time. Otherwise, she has NOT consented to have sex.



YOU GUESS that no one goes looking to be brutally and viciously attacked or destroyed? Uh, yeah, no one ever has.



Their underwear on? YOUR disapproval of fashion, or someone's choice of clothing, is NOT an excuse to rape them. Rape is STILL a crime.



Even if a scantily-clad woman flirts, and says she's looking to go home with a random guy, she has still NOT consented to have sex, until she has consented to have sex with a particular man, in a particular circumstance.



No, those women are NOT asking be be raped or murdered.



Right. Stalking someone with the intention of murdering them because they're African-American is NOT self-defense.



Yes, if whoever you're talking about was raped or murdered, then it is the fault of the CRIMINAL who raped or murdered her.



??? On what PLANET were you living that you didn't hear EVERYONE say those guys who went into a TIGER cage were morons? Everyone agrees they were morons. Tigers are not HUMANS, thus, you can't expect morality from tigers. We DO expect it from HUMANS.



No, the tigers weren't morally responsible. Everyone with a brain agrees that animals aren't capable of moral reasoning. Everyone with any brain agrees those guys were morons.



???? Any person on whom a crime is committed is a victim. Any person who commits a crime is a criminal.



Perhaps if you had a brain transplanted into your cranium you could reason, and explain your reasoning. This incoherent babbling isn't reason or communication.

Answer 5

It turns out the person thought to be the victim was just a perp who got shot in self defense...according to the jury.



Not a victim...just a dead perp.



That's how it goes when you attack someone who just happens to have a concealed carry gun.



Edit:

To answer your original question. Victim blaming is when you blame the victim for their own victimization instead of putting all the blame on the person who victimized them. Sort of how so many people have been blaming Zimmerman for being attacked by Martin and telling him he didn't have a right to defend himself while Martin was bashing his head against the sidewalk. That's victim blaming.



Edit:

I never said anything about "looking for trouble." Anyone who is attacking a person in such a way that they could cause death (i.e. bashing their head against the concrete) is no longer participating in a "street fight," they are now attempting murder and the victim should have every right to shoot them dead. Which is exactly what happened.



There is also no evidence or precidence for even saying it was a "street fight" since evidence points to it being a one-sided physical attack: Martin attacking Zimmerman.



Edit:

Your chip is showing. You told everyone to keep race out of this...but that's exactly where you took it anyway. I doubt this case would have gone to trial if this had just been one more case of a black man shooting another black man. This is about paranoia and double standards and Zimmerman is the real victim, not the guy who was trying to kill him and who just happened to have black skin.



Edit:

There was a trial. Zimmerman was found innocent because he was defending himself. Of course, why take the jury's word for it? It's not like they've seen a whole lot more evidence than all these armchair judges who want Zimmerman to be guilty.

Answer 6

(a) Victim blaming is when a person is filling the tank of his of her car, when a sniper hiding a few blocks away shoots the person in the head. "Well", say the victim blamers, "he or she should not have been filling the tank then!"



(b) Suppose a person buys a new laptop. But unfortunately it came already installed with a thing called "Microsoft Winduhs". Victim blaming is when you say "Well, it is your own fault for failing to replace it with Linux straight away".



(c) Suppose you are walking along side a city street in Nebraska when suddenly a herd of wild buffaloes stampede you during a tornado while the NSA tracks your email and phone calls. "Well", say the victim blamers, "serves you right for being in America."



(d) Suppose you live in Afghanistan and cannot vote in any elections. "Well, I guess you should not have been female and living in Afghanistan, eh?"

Answer 7

"What is victim blaming?"



Logically, "victim blaming" would refer to just that: blaming the victim for the outcome which led to their victimization. The reality is that, on some level, the actions of an individual can be a pretty significant factor in leading to the outcome in which they are victimized.



However within the realm of "gender studies," the term "victim blaming" is a construct...a type of shaming language that is meant to shift the discourse away from potentially contributory actions to certain outcomes, largely depending upon the gender of the alleged "victim" (almost exclusively female) and the alleged "perpetrator" (almost exclusively male) in a situation.



Case in point: a police officer notices, in the course of his/her career, that women who are dressed more conservatively have a lower likelihood of being victimized by sexual predators than do women who are dressed more provocatively. He/she releases this information to help women avoid becoming a victim...only to be accused of "victim blaming," even though he/she never blamed the victims or vindicated the perpetrators of sexual assault...he/she merely was offering the benefit of their experience to potentially help women avoid becoming victims!



Victim blaming as an effective form of shaming language is pretty much exclusive to feminism...I've never seen it anywhere near as effective when used by any other demographic.

Answer 8

I will give you an example:



In Noah's Ark, when god (the strong) got pissed off at his own creation (the weak), he murdered 99.99999% of the population out of frustration, yet people blame the creations for being too evil. On top of that, god is allegedly perfect and omni-benevolent, so it cannot be said that it was his only choice.

Answer 9

Here's an example, I was complaining about men who sexually harass. A man overheard said, "if you wasn't such a bimbo they'd respect you." I'm a phd and I've never met Jim and ver conservative.

Answer 10

you are right what happened with zimmerman is so wrong a good example of is when they bring up a womens sexual history in a rape case or how she dresses the sad thing is we are forgetting that they are victims sick and wrong

Answer 11

Okay. One time, I put myself in danger on an extremely cold day while I was waiting for the bus with my daughter when she was 8 months old. There was a car seat in the guy's car, so I thought maybe he was like my man and could be trusted. I was wrong. I got out at the next red light when he started to reach back and feel me up while I was holding my daughter, and told him to go f*ck himself. I was really blessed that I was able to get out of that before it progressed any further.

I should have just waited for the bus. That was MY fault that I put myself in that situation. I was thinking only that I did not want to wait with my baby out in the cold like that. I was really naive.



I think women need to stop acting like these poor helpless b*tches and own up to the possibility that they put themselves IN such a position to be violated. It is the perpetrator's fault for being perverted and sinister assfaces, and they should be held fully accountable, but women should be accountable for their part, too, but not so much as a criminal. Just freaking recognize that sometimes sh*t that happens to you is partially your fault.

Answer 12

um, Trayvon Martin isnt responsible for his death. The guy who shot him through the heart is.



"this isnt about race" - white people talking about things that are about race.



Victim blaming is blaming the victim, instead of the perp.