I ran across this in my own fandom a little while ago, wherein Sherlock Holmes is at the scene of an attempted rape and the author states (paraphrazed)
'Sherlock hoped that she (the victim) would realize that she brought this attack on by what she was wearing and she would change her ways in future.'I commented to the author on HOW EVIL this was, not just that it's out of character for Sherlock, (who would realize that sexual assaults are crimes of opportunity, having nothing to do with sexual attraction but power) but that is how insidious this assumption is, that if a woman dresses a certain way, she
invites attack.
Here are excerpts from the speech by Jacklyn Friedman
Recently, a Toronto cop told a group of law students at York University that the best way to avoid getting raped was to not dress like a slut, the people of Toronto took to the streets. And so have the people of Dallas, TX, and of London, England, and of Orlando, FL. So too are thousands and thousands of people planning to take to the streets in the months to come, from New Zealand to Amsterdam to Honolulu and beyond. All of us are coming together to say: enough. Enough. You cannot blame us for the crimes you commit against us anymore, no matter what we wear, what we say, or what we do.
In Manitoba this year, a judge refused to sentence a convicted rapist to a single day of jailtime because his victim had worn a tank top and high heels and acted “inviting.” When an 11-year old was gang-raped in Texas by 18 grown men, the New York Times found it relevant to report on how much makeup she wore.
There’s a word for all of this. And that word is bullshit. But there’s also a phrase for it: social license to operate. What that means is this: we know that a huge majority of rapes are perpetrated by a small minority of guys who do it again and again. You know why they’re able to rape an average of 6 times each? Because they have social license to operate. In other words: because we let them. Because as a society, we say “oh well, what did she expect would happen if she went back to his room? What did she expect would happen walking around by herself in that neighborhood? What did she expect would happen dressed like a slut?”
I just want to point out how ridiculous it all sounds when you spell out the meaning of “she was asking for it.” Because the rapists are not confused. Those tiny percentage of guys doing most of the raping? They’ve told researchers that they know full well they don’t have consent. It’s the rest of us that seem confused. We’re the ones that let them off with a little “boys will be boys” shrug and focus our venom on “sluts” instead, leaving those boys free to rape again and again. That’s right: every time we blame a slut for her own violation, we’re not only hurting her, we’re creating a world with more rapists in it for all of us to live in.
"More of the speech here:
http://browngirl.livejournal.com/1580084.html?#cutid1What can you do? If you can't take part in the walk, then call this prejudice out wherever you find it, if you hear this coming out of someone's mouth, or blogged about, if you find this related in fanfictions, MAKE A STATEMENT, educate people, because when we take away the social license to rape, everyone will be safer.
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