Merseyside Women's Movement

A much-reported website out this week claimed that half of London’s women believe a rape victim should accept some responsibility for the crime if she goes back to a man’s house.
I’m on placement this week at a radio station and when I went out, mike in hand, to ask Liverpool’s shoppers ‘are women ever to blame for getting raped?’ the answer was usually a shocked ‘no’ followed by ‘oh, but if she dresses like a slut’ or ‘if she’s offering it on a plate.’
How many times do we have to repeat that women do not ask for rape? There should be no ‘oh, buts’ about it. Non-consensual sex is rape, no matter what the circumstances. Yes, sex can be confusing and fraught with ambiguity. In practice, consent is often implicit rather than stated outright. But in no other crime is the victim blamed. People are not suspected of lying about other crimes in the same way as women are routinely suspected to be lying about rape.
Apparently women are more suspicious than men are of rape victim’s stories. Check the figures for yourself, but I think this may come from growing up with repeated warnings about walking home alone, talking to strangers, dancing in short skirts. We are taught to fear the bogeyman, as if we could annul our chances of being raped simply by acting cautiously.
On Liverpool’s streets on Monday, it was a man who cheered me with the words ‘rape is always the perpetrator’s fault.’ I hope there are many more like him about. Survivors of rape have enough on their plate without needing to justify their allegations, least of all to other women.
This survey has left me a little disillusioned, so I’m looking forward to Germaine Greer’s talk tonight, for a good feminist pick-me-up.

Nalina Eggert