Dear Misogynistic Bastards (AKA: The CICA)

[gnimaerd]

I would just like to say that I was shocked and, in all honesty, utterly disgusted when it recently came to light that the CICA regularly cuts compensation to rape victims who have been drinking at the time of their assault. I find this DEEPLY disturbing and frightening, as a young woman living alone in a country where, apparently, the government and the police find rape to be increasingly excusable and/or the fault of the victim.

I am nineteen years old. I do not drink - a lifestyle choice I have adopted for the good of my own health. However, my little sister DOES drink. If we are both raped on a night out together, does my choice to be tea-total somehow make me more disserving of compensation than her?

It is NOT illegal for women to drink. Alcohol consumption is NOT a crime - even when (shock horror) it is done by young women (despite the fact that, apparently, we should all be at home baking, cleaning and guarding our loins for our future husbands, exposing no leg above the ankle and not so much as THINKING of going out after dark to have a drink with some friends). What IS illegal is for one person to sexually force themself on another. IT DOES NOT MATTER what the circumstances are. The victim could be a sober nun or a drunk, high prostitute - the attacker bares equal responsibility, his crime is JUST as heinous in either case and the victim has been JUST as brutalised, JUST as traumatised and both are equally deserving of compassion and compensation.

I must express, in the strongest possible terms, my anger and my disgust with this smug, misogynistic and downright cruel approach to 'justice' as you apparently consider it. I live in FEAR in a world where my little sister could be considered to be 'inviting' rape, or somehow 'at fault' for drinking before she is assaulted - which is EXACTLY what you imply when you cut compensation to a victim who has been drinking (aka: engaging in a completely legal activity).

What's next? Will you be taking into account what the victim was WEARING when she was attacked? Will you be asking about her sexual history? Will we be returning to the system favoured only a few decades ago, when rape was basically considered to be a myth concocted by hysterical women, to be ridiculed and ignored?

How DARE you tell women that they were at least partially at fault for their own rape! How DARE you remove blame from the men who needlessly, brutally forced themselves upon their bodies!

Thank you SO MUCH to contributing to a culture of victim-blaming in a country where the rate of conviction for rape is the lowest in the economically developed world (a/n: sad but true, fellow british f-listies. Be afraid, girls - if you're raped, the police are far more worried about how it makes THEM look than in catching the guy who violated you ).

Your attitude is disgusting, cruel, infuriating and horribly disturbing. I BEG you to rethink your policies on this matter and consider the HARM you do - not just to the minds of the victims who must endure the shame of the implication that they somehow disserved to be attacked by drinking, but to a culture where rape is already FAR TOO PERMISSIBLE.

No love,
Me

Comments

[valkyriesword.livejournal.com]

THAT IS SO AWFUL AND COMPLETELY ABSURD AND SOOOOO INFURIATING!!!! I don't UNDERSTAND how people can somehow STILL let things like this slide. Just because, god forbid, a woman has a drink, it's suddenly her fault?? Or, if not her fault, then she is still somehow responsible for the affects of it? SO RIDICULOUS.

When I went on birth control, my doctor told me that most insurance companies will pay for Viagra and not birth control. .....but that's a whole different issue. Because of COURSE we should be worrying about old men still being able to have sex and not women trying not to get pregnant when they don't want to. UGH.

[indes-elfwine.livejournal.com]

I read about it on Feministing and felt ill. The burden should not be on women not to drink or flirt or wear what clothes they want to, the burden should be on men not to rape, for God's sake.

Why is it that, when women are overwhelmingly the victims of rape, it is all women who are expected to change their behaviour lest they be raped? Why not just put all men in a curfew? It's ridiculous, yes, but no more ridiculous than suggesting that women are responsible for another person's violation of their body.

[unmellow-yellow.livejournal.com]

That is horrid. Fucking patriarchy. UGH! Why are WE the ones who have to take self-defense classes, not walk alone at night, avoid sketchy people, not drink, not go to bars, not leave our drinks alone, while men have to do absolutely NOTHING? The world had better be a far better place for women in 10 years. I want progress, damn it!