I'm kind of annoyed at some of the political correctness stuff flying around this case. It's made the front page of our main news site here in Australia, and a female reporter has echoed the usual 'don't blame the victim' connotations just because people are saying why would she have chosen to run in that isolated area.
What I don't understand is that in any other part of life - recreation, work, social, parenting - it is okay to discuss risk minimisation strategies, yet when it comes to women's safety, it is not. And if anyone dare suggest that there may be ways that women should protect themselves and reduce their risk, they are either jumped on as 'blaming the victim' or feel obliged to precede it with 'I'm not blaming the victim but...'. Why? Is it not sensible for any person (male or female) to reduce risk in their lives? It has nothing to do with blaming Karina when people say she probably shouldn't have gone running where she did alone. It's about knowing that the police CANNOT stop all the offenders in the community - this is a reality - so people need to make their choices based on this information. It's not about blame, it's about maybe encouraging others to make choices that might result in one less victim's name appearing in this forum or on the news.
I don't know, it just frustrates me that people can't talk openly about ways women (and men) can reduce their risk everyday without feeling shouted down by the media and other people.
Hi strangeworld. I understand where you're coming from and the points you made. But let me counter, just for the sake of some interesting discussion if nothing else.
IMO--Risk minimization is usually considered PC to talk about in the examples you provided (work, recreation, parenting...) because those are things we choose that, while having inherent risks, do not cause harm to us because of the criminal actions of others. The harms received from those examples would not make us victims. But I see what your gettig at--perhaps using seatbelts or drug use as an example might be more analogous? For example--my dad taught me early on in regards to drivig that you have to watch out for other drivers. Be aware, look twice, always be on the lookout for impaired drivers and stay a safe distance from them, don't enrage other drivers, etc...
And drug use--maybe this is less useful--but harm reduction is a big thing here with the heroin epidemic. Needle exchanges, places to use safely. Id say that applies less just because the very act you're engaging in is illegal and therefore the risk is in the behavior and not a result of others actions. Sorry if I'm rambling incoherently--I'm only half way through my first cup of coffee!
Anyway. I don't think it is so much that harm reduction/risk minimization campaigns are a bad thing. But they don't address the perpetrator's actions as what needs to change. I think it has to do with bigger, more systemic issues related to patriarchy and women being to blame for, well, everything. Even though I know most people don't believe it's a woman's fault if she's raped--you often hear things regarding her dress, where she was at what time, why didn't she have someone to protect her? I think people just get fed up with others trying to explain the unexplainable by looking at what the victim did wrong rather than what the perp and society has done wrong. We put the burden of not "gettig ourselves raped" on the woman, as opposed to addressing the individual and cultural aspects that make rape so prevalent.
Just for a thought experiment--
Do we ask similar questions of a well-dressed man who is robbed/mugged? Is the burden on him to not wear his fancy watch in the wrong area after midnight?
Personally, I practice risk reduction all the time. And I don't think anyone would argue against practically doing so. I think the issue is more sociological--we shouldn't HAVE to. But we do because we are all aware of the world in which we live.
Not sure if you're following the Sierra Joughin case out of N Ohio, but she was a 20 year old female out riding her bike with her boyfriend along a rural country road well before dark when she was abducted and murdered by a man that lived just down the road from her. It's one thing to recommend not running down an isolated bike path or not to be walking alone at night in dangerous areas--but it's to the point that a woman can't take a bike ride alone on a summers evening in the tiny town where she was born and raised. Risk reduction seems to be heading towards saying just never go out, especially alone, if you're a woman. We don't feel safe doi anything anymore. And when the solution that society routinely gives is to change our own behavior and limit our own freedoms--it gets frustrating.
