And doing so publicly shames the victims who don’t escape.
How difficult is that to understand?
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It’s about shifting responsibility. In the world we live in, sometimes the only way to survive is not to fight. Ask yourself what will be said to the children who - despite their parents training them and teaching them all the things pointed out above - fight and lose. What about those who freeze, or those who realize resisting will get them killed so they choose not to fight?
This is why there has been so much reaction to the comments in this case from law enforcement, the media, and people posting in this thread. It’s not about denying the girl in this case congratulations on being lucky against the odds. It’s about countering the oh-so-wrong message that fighting is the best or only option and not using it leads to terrible results. It’s about blaming (whether intended or not) those who got the terrible results. It’s about not giving girls a false sense of security that knowing how to fight will prevent them from ever being a victim.
It’s also about listening to people sharing the benefits of their experience, instead of falling back on wishful thinking that can cause a great deal of mental and physical harm to girls in the future. The not listening to or believing women is a major part of the reason the world we live in is still full of cases like this one. As was mentioned in the article, the girl reported this abductor before he tried again. We should be telling the people it was reported to they should learn how to fight harder for children’s safety. Then it wouldn’t be necessary for them to push the false narrative that the best solution is kids need to learn how to defend themselves against adults.
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I don’t think this is a zero-sum situation. Respecting victims and taking assaults, especially against women, seriously, is something we need to change on a societal level. Since we wont get to an assault-free world anytime soon, what should we tell people to do in the face of an assault? Victims feeling guilty because they couldn’t stop an assault seems to be a part of many traumas.
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Again, no one has said that women shouldn’t fight back ever. No one.
And saying that they should ALWAYS fight back is part of the problem with that. It’s situational and saying that “fighting back” is the “correct” answer indicts the women who don’t fight back.
It’s NEVER the victims fault. That’s the point.
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Amen!
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Who here has said that women should always fight back? You can’t decide to fight or not if you don’t feel able to fight, or think it’s an option. And you didn’t answer the question. Given that there is currently a risk for assault, what should people be taught to do in the event they are attacked?
The people saying that girls and women being attacked should uniformly get defensive training to deal with these crimes against us, that’s who.
If people want to take defense classes, they should. If people want to carry weapons they should. No one should be forced to do what they don’t want to do and then blamed if they don’t take the suggestions of people who aren’t in danger. The implication is that the people who don’t do the “right” things are at fault. We see that time and again in these conversations.
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Four more days of this; oh joy.
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No, it isn’t, no one deny the attacker is the one responsible. It’s about suggesting the (usually) best response to an attack. Run, scream and fight. Call attention to the situation, delay the attacker as long as you can in the hope someone shows up.
In the first case you tell them they did their best. That struggling is something you try in the hope you are lucky and the attacker is a coward, not because a child can win a fight against an adult. In the second case you explain as has been done many times in this thread that no one knows how they will react.There are also plenty of cases of people who have frozen the first time they get into danger but later in life turned into brave heroes, so even if you freeze the first time you shouldn’t go through life believing yourself a coward.
If they didn’t fight because they thought it would get them killed, that’s fine too, they were there, we weren’t, they may have been right. The suggestion to fight back is a guideline, not an absolute rule that is best in everye single case. Anything you do or don’t to in that situation may have terrible results.
And those who do fight back but do so unsuccessfully. Did they not “fight like hell?” Were they not sufficiently determined? It always seems to come back to, one way or another, their fault, what they did or did not do. That is a false narrative.
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Destroying the false narrative that is ever the victims fault for being attacked is certainly the desired outcome.
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That’s a fault of your own comprehension and not what I said, literally the first words in your quote say we need to “cool it” as in “become less fervent” about the results of average people’s reactions to an extreme situation. In no way does that communicate that we stop teaching people what to do.
What I said was that we have to remember that people won’t always remember what they are taught, and that authorities must have a high degree of empathy for allowing individuals to make mistakes - and their language choice in public spaces needs to reflect that. What I said is that just like with commonly taught driving techniques, people will make mistakes. When they are the victims of criminals singling then out, they need to stop focusing on what a victim does right or wrong since we know it causes more harm than help.
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Me (a woman): I was assaulted, too, and I used to feel very afraid. This is what I did to fight back and be less fearful…
The internet: Stop shaming women. What you just said perpetuates toxic masculinity. Fuck off.
Although, again, there is no one way to react, so it’s not a mistake for the victim to make. If people don’t fight back, they don’t deserve less empathy.
Stop putting words in people’s mouths. No one is shaming people for doing what they need to do to take care of themselves. We’re pointing out that “fighting back” isn’t the “right” way to handle a situation like this. It’s A way, but not the ONLY way. There is no right or wrong here. Whatever you or others did in a given situation is the right thing to do. Being told that if we fight back, we’ll help ourselves and that if we don’t, we won’t isn’t helpful for anyone.
I’m guessing that whatever you did, you did the best you could in that situation. I will not second guess you on that, because I wasn’t there in YOUR situation. But presumably, you wouldn’t guess anyone else here who were in a situation of danger, either…
there is an awful lot of people saying in this thread that fighting back is the correct response, and the fact is that’s not always the case.
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Except that is NOT at all what you wrote, nor is it the actual response you got.
(I’m a woman who’s a survivor too, btw.)
Fighting back is good; making it so that fighting to survive is rarely ever a necessity is better.
Even better is creating a society that doesn’t put the onus of solving its’ problems on victims.
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I am referring to my comments here about my own actual experiences and the other comments here telling me I did it wrong and should stop talking about it.
I agree with you completely, except for the part where you tell me I didn’t say what I said.
Given that “solving the problem” of people wanting to attack other people is likely impossible there will always be potential victims. Telling people about the full range of available reactions is one way to help reduce the number of potential victims from becoming actual victims. This in no way claims the victim deserved to be attacked. It does not shift the responsibility for the attack away from the attacker. One person fights, and the attacker flees. Another person complies and therefore doesn’t get killed by their attacker. Another person sets the bed on fire. All are ways to survive a situation in most ways beyond the victims’ control. Celebrating the success of one does not negate the success of the others.
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