I was reading an article on the internet the other day. It was about a young girl in Towson who had been raped while she was walking back home. I scrolled down to the comments and there had been a few comments that had stood out to me. One comment stated “Not trying to be rude, but why was this girl out walking alone 1 in the morning?” this comment was followed by a reply basically agreeing with the comment above saying that if you’re going to be walking alone at 1 am, you’re asking for problems.”
Why is it, that a woman can’t be safe while she is walking home. Why can’t a woman be as independent and as free as she chooses. Why as a woman should we be forced with a curfew as to when we can and cannot walk to places? As a woman we have so many societal restrictions and hazards we face every day. We are always looking over our shoulders making sure we are not in harms way. Is this a new norm in society where we can’t trust the people walking around us? If so that is is a ridiculous social norm that really needs to be changed. As women we should be able to do what ever it is that we want to do even if it is a simple as walking home at 1 in the morning. As for our male counterparts, you need to learn that when a woman is walking down the street at one in the morning please don’t rape her. If you have some sick sexual desire please seek some help for it, do not take it out on the woman walking to her home
I feel that in our society, we as women are expected to feel as though we will be raped if we are alone with a man. We have to protect ourselves. I think this also has to with how women in media are perceived. People want to see women as victims of men and want to see her as the prize for the hero of movies. This kind of treatment of women in cinema is fueling how females are treated in reality. Can a woman feel safe? Does she always have to “stay alert”? Im not trying to say that the media is to blame or anything like that, it is also up to the viewer to decide what they believe in.
The thing is, if you reverse the situation and a man had been raped walking home at 1am, nobody would say “Why was a man walking home alone at 1am?” To our society, it’s acceptable for men to walk alone at night. Why? I think because men are supposed to be able to defend themselves. I also believe if a man had been raped, people would blame him for it instead of the attacker. Then this begs the question; why do we see women as needing to be taken care of by men, and men who are victims as weak people who should “man up”?
I think what a lot of men don’t realize is that when they themselves blame the woman for “asking for it” they also cast themselves as these sex-driven, barbarians that have no way of controlling their own urges. I absolutely love this article when I’m having a spirited debate with someone about rape culture/blaming the victim: http://www.beautyredefined.net/guys-guide-to-seeing-women-not-objects/