Yes All Women

When you look 20 or 30 years into the future, what do you envision?  Flying cars?  People living on other planets?  Teleportation?  Well if you look back at the movies of a few decades ago, this is the kind of thing that they expected us to be doing.

Next year we will hit the year that Marty McFly travelled to in Back to the Future 2.  I don't see many hover boards floating around but they are a few things that they were pretty spot on about; like video calling.

In essence, when you look towards the future, you see progression, things that are better than the way they are now.  

29 years ago "The Breakfast Club" was released.  Here is a quote from the movie when talking about women and sex:

Wow, you think, what backward thinking I'm so happy times have changed!  Oh wait......  Actually that thought process is still as much in play today as it was then.  

Girls are sent home from prom because their outfits are "causing young men to have impure thoughts".  In rape cases victim blaming is rife not only in the media and on the social network sites but also in Court (this is only one example of many out there).  Songs like Blurred Lines become bestsellers.   People like David Starkie get to go on Question Time saying things like "Violence, not consent, should be the classification of rape."

We still live in a society where when you get unwanted attention from a man "I have a boyfriend" works better than "No".  

The hashtag on Twitter #yesallwomen which has followed after the killing spree of Elliot Rodgers has done much to highlight what attitudes women face on a daily basis.  

My own experience is of men thinking that because I have large breasts, I am automatically "up for it" or I'm "easy".  I have been grabbed in bars more times than I can count but the thing that scares me the most is the perception of others that this is somehow acceptable because "well they are so big".  It is NOT alright to touch me without my permission.  It isn't okay; it's a sex crime and I shouldn't be told I am overreacting if I label it as such.

It doesn't matter how far we have progressed in other aspects of our lives, like with the technological example.  A woman may be able to give testimony in a rape trial by way of video link, but until what she was wearing or how much she had to drink is no longer relevant; we are still living in the stone age.

An 18th Century View

In today's society you can change laws, but changing views takes far longer.

We see ourselves today as a progressive society.  Our 21st century views in many cases would seem foreign, and unheard of back and in some cases scandalous in the 18th and 19th century, and yet some prejudices still remain to this day.

 

Daybreak this morning asked the question "Can women who are drunk or flirty ever be blamed for being attacked?"

 

How can it be that this question is still being asked, let alone why anyone would ever say yes as an answer. 

 

      If a house is burgled, is it the fault of the home owner for having a nice house?

      If a drunk man with his top off walks in front of a group of gay men, is he "Asking for it"?
 

      If someone steals money from their employer, is it the fault of the employer for having a lot of
      money?
 

      If a man is robbed in the street, is the first question "But had you been drinking sir?"

 

These questions are never asked, purely because a) They are nonsensical and b) The answer is either no, or "Why are you asking irrelevant questions?".

No will always be no.  Let's treat victim blaming as what it is.  An archaic view that has no place in society.