Last year something of a furore broke out about victim blaming, sexual assault and alcohol.
Where’s the harm in telling our kids not to get drunk in a bid to avoid being sexually harassed or raped? On the face of it, some can’t anything wrong with that statement. To comprehend its toxicity you need to be willing to delve beneath the surface. Constructing the argument that drinking less will protect a person from a certain type of harm creates a false sense of security.
It sends a message to anyone who is sexually assaulted – whether they have been drinking or not – that some of the onus not to be assaulted sits with them. If someone has been drinking and they’re sexually harassed they will feel – whether it’s the express intention or not of the people around them – partly responsible. They’re not.
A conversation which focuses on what would-be victims can do to avoid such a fate creates the impression they are. And it inevitably contributes to the shame and humiliation that keeps victims silent.
No individual is responsible for not being sexually assaulted; every individual is responsible for ensuring they do not sexually assault another person.
The very ugly truth is that despite what we all hope, people are most often sexually assaulted by a person they know. And the link between alcohol and the incidence of sexual assault is far from clear.
It’s a false story so why do we cling to it so ferociously? Because we desperately want to believe it is in our power to avoid certain fates. That there are things we can do or things we can tell the people we love to do and harm will not come their way.
I was reminded how deeply, and seemingly unwittingly, engrained this subconscious pattern is as I read the line of questioning that Rosie Batty has faced this week. Rosie Batty’s son Luke was murdered earlier this year by her ex-husband Greg. An inquest into Luke’s death is underway partly because of the various systemic failures between different authorities that were involved in the family’s life in the lead up to Luke’s murder.
It is tempting to write a potted history of everything Rosie did along the way to protect herself and her son from Greg, whilst also trying to respect her son’s love for and need for his father in his life. Tempting though it is, I won’t.
Because I don’t need to explain or justify or defend her actions any more than she needs to. Which is the question Rosie posed as she broke down at the inquest this week; why does she have to justify her actions?
She has lost her son because he was killed by his father. That is not her fault. Even implying that this woman who has lost her only child at the hands of a violent man is somehow responsible for what happened is diabolically disconcerting. It is as ignorant as asking women why they don’t simply leave violent relationships. As simple as it might seem it betrays the complexity of the situation.
In hindsight would Rosie change things? I have not a single speck of doubt that she considers that daily. But is she to blame? Absolutely not. People die when people kill. Rosie Batty did not kill anyone. She is a victim of family violence which is a complex and endemic problem we are struggling to adequately counter.
We might desperately want to cling to the notion that there is something we can do to avoid awful things from happening to us. The awful awful truth is it’s not always the case. Rosie Batty knows that as brutally as anyone. We need to understand that, even if it requires us to delve beneath the surface. Things are rarely as simple as they seem; why is that so hard to accept?