A woman asks: “I was drunk, but was it my fault?
As I sat on the doorstep, sobbing, no one mentioned calling the police. Or they did, but only to say there was no point calling them as I was drunk. But by then I was stone-cold sober, and acutely aware that the consensus was that I had brought any misfortune on myself and was at least partly to blame. I must have led him on, flirted, asked for it. Even if I was comatose, as I claimed, by being drunk I had made myself de facto available – come on, I’d been lying on a bed, hadn’t I?
To focus on “fault” when it comes to attempted rape is to miss the point. There is no inherent contradiction in holding the rapist 100 percent guilty of a crime while still blaming the victim for knowingly placing herself in circumstances that rendered her victimization more likely. To do otherwise is to assume that women are children who possess no control over their own actions or circumstances.
Those who think that women cannot possibly be complicit in any way for their own victimization need to consider their opinion on other, less contentious matters. Would they agree, for example, that a homeowner is not to blame in any way for having his home burgled when he was on vacation should he leave the doors unlocked and windows open? If not, then at what point should the line of culpability be drawn?
If, on the other hand, you think it’s reasonable to require that people take some level of responsibility for themselves in recognition of the fact that some individuals refuse to respect the sanctity of life, liberty, and property rights, then it’s correct to distinguish between the victim who freely elected to place herself in harms way and the victim who did not.
In this case, the correct answer is “yes”, as getting drunk to the point of passing out in the house of a complete stranger is obviously an incredibly bad idea. For those who would argue otherwise, I suggest we turn to science for the answer: Enter a randomly selected house tonight, get drunk and pass out, then let us know the results. With luck, you won’t run into the friendly neighborhood cannibal….