How Is This Difficult?
Capracus said:
It’s all about proactive advice for women to minimize the risk of acquaintance rape, how could it not be classified as rape advocacy?
Well, it does depend on context; is it offered in lieu of discussing the cultural attitudes empowering the rape culture?
Mansplaining? And what kind of splaining is advoction by Tiassa?
I sometimes mansplain. However, where I seem to get a pass on that is twofold; I often note that I'm about to mansplain, and what I end up mansplaining is
men.
For instance, can you tell the difference between these two mansplanations:
(1) In a discussion of attitudes contributing to rape culture, an American male advises an Australian female about an aspect of American men that she might not be aware of or accounting for in her puzzlement about a given phenomenon.
(2) In a discussion of attitudes contributing to rape culture, a man tells a woman what she needs to do to prevent rape.
And if you really want to make a point about whether or not the pitches you listed are rape advocacy, perhaps it would help if you offered some actual content of your own, instead of just baiting.
Think of it this way. In Seattle, we had an episode last year that involved someone driving around and trying to abduct women, resulting in joggers and pedestrians being accosted.
The police department's response was to release a list of rape prevention tips: Don't use your mobile phone in public, get a better haircut, wear different shoes, wear better clothes ... and even the useful tip to not get into a car with any strange man.
So some dudes are driving around, trying to lure and eventually force women into a car, and SPD thinks women need to be reminded to not get into a car with a stranger.
Our new police chief is a woman; we'll see if any of this changes.
And by the way,
Meg Stone's article for
Ms.?
She lied to her sisters.
Most advice women get about how to reduce our risk of rape is also advice about how to reduce ourselves. It’s about places we shouldn’t go, clothes we shouldn’t wear, times we shouldn’t be alone. The message of feminist self-defense is just the opposite: Use common sense, sure, but if you have the skills to verbally and physically protect yourself, you can live your life fully and safely in a rape culture.
Self-defense is a fine idea in and of itself, but much like the simple crime prevention tips people find so useful, as if women's cars aren't broken into, or something, the problem is the
rape culture.
In the first place, self-defense is great for bar fights, muggings, and other such crimes. Sure, it helps. Neither, in those cases, are women immune from bar fights, muggings, and other such crimes. The effect, however, of IPA in lieu of unraveling the attitudes and customs empowering rape culture, is to put that burden on women specifically for rape.
Furthermore, there is the statistical reality. A nice, domestic scene:
...."Really?" he asked. "Jiu-jitsu? Cool. I hear it's good fitness."
...."Yes," she replied. "And it will help protect me against rape."
...."Well, it's not like I'm not around to protect you, too."
...."Actually," she explained patiently, suddenly wondering what she had ever seen in him, "I'm protecting myself against you."
...."What? What do you mean?"
...."You do realize that my greatest rape threat is my male intimate partner and male friends?"
Of course, that wouldn't happen, would it?
Use common sense, sure, Stone acknowledges, but there are also those who would suggest that a woman protecting herself against her husband and male friends
is not, by definition, common sense.
At any rate, the part Stone got right is that, "Most advice women get about how to reduce our risk of rape is also advice about how to reduce ourselves."
The part she got wrong, the lie she tells, is that "you can live your life fully and safely in a rape culture". That line probably wouldn't go over so well if she tried it on the female karate instructor who was raped outside her own school once upon a time, a story I still remember because it was one of the first local news items to catch my eye after I moved to Oregon.
Still, though, "you can live your life fully and safely in a rape culture" makes for a great pitch.
Think about the world you're asking for, Capracus.
Like your
Voices of Hope link. Print out that list. Live by it for six months. In fact, count up every prevention resource you've ever suggested, enumerate all the tips, and live by them all for six months.
And even though you probably won't do
that, please at least note the end of that page:
IF YOU ARE ATTACKED:
Try to stay calm so that you can gather information and make decisions. Draw attention to yourself – scream, yell “fire” or “help”. Resist as long as it is safe to do so. Claim to be sick pregnant have a venereal disease of to have AIDS. If you are assaulted, do not shower, change clothes or douche until you make a decision about reporting to the police or going to the hospital. If you think you may have been drugged, make sure the hospital knows so that they can test for the drugs. You may request a female officer. While you will be encouraged to talk to the police, you have the right to obtain medical assistance and not talk to the police.
REMEMBER: You are not trying to win, you are trying to survive. If you have been assaulted, there are resources available to help.
In other words, once a woman does all that, and is still sexually assaulted, here's what to do. And while what to do if raped isn't so problematic—they do not appear to be giving erroneous or misleading advice—it is a reminder that these "prevention" tips don't actually prevent.
Although I
do wonder about the pay phone advice. In Seattle, they tell women to not use their mobile phones in public. Frankly, I don't see how standing in one place while waiting for an unreliable pay phone to either connect or not or maybe even eat your change is that much safer than calling 911 on a mobile phone.
____________________
Notes:
Stone, Meg. "A Call for Self-Defense Against Victim-Blaming AND Against Rape". Ms. September 14, 2010. MSMagazine.com. July 8, 2014. http://msmagazine.com/blog/2010/09/14/self-defense-against-victim-blaming-against-rape/
Voices of Hope. "Reducing the Risk of Acquaintance Rape". 2014. VoicesOfHopeLincoln.org. July 8, 2014. http://voicesofhopelincoln.org/reso...sualt/reducing-the-risk-of-acquaintance-rape/
I couldn't have made any better obliquely phrasing of your perspective on the posters than the above. I'm sure the next unstated five-year-plan will be even better, as you pursue that asymptotic end of the dialectic that we all claim to see, somewhere, just over the horizon, and which justifies whatever we do. 
