Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.~Henri Cartier-Bresson
You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.~Friedrich Nietzsche
Why, she wonders, do people call them weeds? She thought they were pretty. . . Nobody loves the head of a dandelion. Maybe because they are so many, strong, and soon.--Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Poverty is the worst form of violence. --Mahatma Gandhi
In The Shorthorn’s October 2nd article about the increase in crime on campus, Assistant Police Chief Rick Gomez was interviewed about the rise of sexual offenses on campus, and, when addressing the issue of date rape, said, “Women need to be smarter about who they date and be careful about what they drink, so that they'll have their senses about them so things like that won't happen.” He goes on to say, “But as far as women just walking out around campus and being raped by a stranger—that’s not happening.”
In other words, if women were more discriminating and didn't drink so much, "things like that [wouldn't] happen."
Women do need to be prepared to protect themselves if a man tries to rape or assault them (whether they know the man responsible or not), but the logic of Gomez's statement is not the logic of just in case but the logic of causality: if they "have their senses about them," are smarter, and behave themselves, then they won't be assaulted. After all, they're not assaulted when doing something innocent like walking across campus, he notes. It's true that most sexual assault and rape is perpetrated by someone the victim knows, but that doesn't indicate that the victim made a bad decision in getting to know that person (rapists don't wear signs) or that the victim invited the assault. Instead it indicates something about the sexual offender.
This blame-the-victim mentality is not new. It surfaces repeatedly in our culture. It says that child molesters can accuse 5-year-olds of seducing them and be believed; it says that women who wear miniskirts or Victoria’s Secret underwear are “asking for it”; it says that not saying “no” is the same as saying “yes” or, worse, that saying “no” but not forcefully enough, is equivalent to a “yes.” After all, “her lips say ‘no,’ but her eyes say ‘yes.’”
Ultimately, despite many of its proponents’ claims to the contrary, this mentality provides no real help for women. I have little doubt that with his statement to The Shorthorn Assistant Police Chief Gomez was trying to do his job, which consists of protecting UTA students, both male and female. However, telling women that the responsibility for their victimization belongs to them and them alone does no more than exacerbate the guilt and shame women who are victims of sexual assault already feel. It does not prevent men who are willing to sexually assault their acquaintances from doing so.
In place of insisting that women protect themselves by developing the ability to pick out date rapists from a crowd and by being perfectly and constantly vigilant against all men, women would be better served, in the short term, by increased availability of self-defense training so that, instead of a passive defense of avoidance and the mere hope that they are not attacked, they will have at their disposal a method of active defense that will be able to deter an attacker (at least until help arrives) and, in the long term, by a shift in cultural attitudes that eliminates the sense that some women are just asking for it and places the blame where it truly belongs.
...we do not have to die by our own hands. We do not have to grieve for the death of our dreams. If you cannot walk yourself to the movies at night for fear of what will happen to you, you are not free. If you cannot wear whatever makes you feel alive for fear of repercussion, you are not free. If you cannot allow your spirit to soar because you have never been told it is your inalienable right to be moved by something beautiful, however you define beauty, you are not free. It takes courage to reach for freedom and it requires strength to fight for an authentic life, but both require far less energy than a fear-based existence.This speaks quite convincingly to the empowering and potential of fashion and to its ability to coexist with feminist ideals. Varian does acknowledge elsewhere in the essay that the relationship between beauty, feminism, and the lives and experiences of individual women can be quite complex, but she refuses to compromise her love for beauty or her passion for a feminist movement that works to uplift all women.
[...]
The intrinsic artistic merit of fashion is not diminished because the world of fashion can be unsafe for women. . . . What is not up for interpretation is the desperate condition that women face globally. If we do not find a way to bridge our differences and reach for each other, we are likely to face even more disastrous realities. The first step to thinking outside of the box is to step outside it, and for most women that means claiming beauty, claiming ownership, and claiming personal freedom. The battle lines were drawn before any of us were born, and up until now we have not been able to sustain any kind of unified resistance. I can't guarantee you a safe and easy outcome if you fight, but I can promise I'll be standing next to you. If we have to go down, we might as well go down together and looking fucking fabulous.
Forcible sex offenses increased from one in 2006 to five in 2007, and burglaries more than doubled from 31 in 2006 to 72 in 2007, according to the [university's annual crime] report.In other words, if women were more discriminating and didn't drink so much, "things like that [wouldn't] happen."
Assistant Police Chief Rick Gomez said most of the sexual offenses were "date rapes," crimes where the victim knew the offender. They often happened in residences and involved alcohol, he said.
"Women need to be smarter about who they date and be careful about what they drink, so that they'll have their senses about them so things like that won't happen," he said. "But as far as women just walking out around campus and being raped by a stranger--that's not happening."
