Classic victim-blaming

Did you get raped? It must have been your fault!

Petition to get the above columnist to take back this stupid shit and amend it.

Article explaining how Amy Dickinson is quite the dickinson.

upset, but not surprised. thanks to jaxie, friend and new visitor to our blog, for sharing.

question: what does it mean for a woman, rather than a man, to write this victim-blaming column?

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In the PETA-bashing vein…

I think I’ve found another influential form of bigotry in my history. Were y’all raised with To Kill A Mockingbird in your lives? I read that book when I was younger and saw the movie. It was one of the first books that challenged me to have morals. In case y’all aren’t familiar with it the basic premise of the story is that a disabled black man, Tom Robinson, is accused of rape by a lower class white woman, Mayella Ewell. The main character is Scout, the daughter of the white, middle class lawyer, Atticus finch, who defends the black man in court. Through the story we learn that the woman accusing is lying, pressured by her essentially evil father, Bob Ewell. The moral of the story is that Atticus is the best man ever for defending the poor black people that no one will defend from the awful poor white man.

In the same way that PETA uses sexism to promote vegetarianism, To Kill A Mockingbird uses victim-blaming and classism (and racism?) to combat racism. I have NEVER witnessed in my life a woman falsely accusing a man of sexual assault… it’s hard enough to prove it as it is, it’s not like our legal system works in victims’ favor in the first place… AND YET  my dad and so many people I know immediately jump to accusing a woman for her own rape. This movie, I am sure, planted that seed in many people’s minds.

In To Kill A Mockingbird I see the danger of bringing up “moral issues”. I saw myself loving this story for its narrative about a person who defends the underdog and attributing much of my early formed morals to it… and now I see how the Ewells, the bad guys, just happen to be working class, how Atticus fits the paternalistic white man saving the poor [racial minority] folk archetype told again and again (see Avatar, Pocahontas, Fern Gully…), how the accusation of rape happens to portrayed as something only an evil, conniving person could muster… And yet it’s still one of those movies put on a pedestal as one of “the greatest”.

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