In the middle of the year, just as exams were coming upon us, SU Campus Security thought it a good idea to paste up safety awareness posters all around campus with slogans such as, “Open window = open invitation – keep valuables away from windows!” and “Donkerwerk lok konkelwerk – maak spore as die son sak!”(“Darkness brings bunglery – be off when the sun sets!”).
This is the English translation of Mart-Marié Serfontein’s Afrikaans piece on Netwerk24. Please note that this article contains mentions of rape and other crimes of physical assault.
In the middle of the year, just as exams were coming upon us, SU Campus Security thought it a good idea to paste up safety awareness posters all around campus with slogans such as, “Open window = open invitation – keep valuables away from windows!” and “Donkerwerk lok konkelwerk – maak spore as die son sak!”(“Darkness brings bunglery – be off when the sun sets!”).
These posters drove me nuts. Tome it was as clear as daylight that these posters did not address the problem of crime on campus in the least. It was a plaster for a wound that has long since become infected. The message to the students was clear: if you ignore our advice and you become a victim of crime, it’s your fault!
Campus Security’s problem is that they are trying to provide fixes for a problem that’s not going away unless the system is fixed. But I’m not writing about inequality in Stellenbosch (although I’ll gladly return to that topic one day), I’m writing about victim blaming and the impact it has on society.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, victim blaming is when a crime is blamed on the victim and not on the perpetrator. This is regularly seen in cases of rape, muggings and domestic violence.
How many times have your parents told you to not walk home in the dark, to rather call them to pick you up? How many times have you been asked, the morning after a night out, if you saw that one girl who was dancing with all the guys, practically glued together like she had no shame.
Why are these scenarios so familiar to you? Because if I walk down the street after nine at night and I get attacked, the first question will always be, “What were you doing there, all alone?” Because if that girl is found in an alley the next morning, raped within an inch of her life, people will always talk and say that she, in the first place, should never have been dressed so provocatively.
I can think of many more examples, but you get the idea.
All crimes have a perpetrator and a victim – the perpetrator is the one who violates the law and the victim is the one who’s rights have been violated. If I am attacked and my cellphone is stolen, I am the victim. That girl in the alley is the victim.
But.
I was walking alone in the dark. That girl was dancing with a stranger and left her drink alone when she went to reapply her lipstick. If we didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have been in the later predicaments. So, what now? Am I not allowed to walk down the street? Are girls not allowed to go out and have a good time in town?
The problem is that we don’t live in a perfect world. Because if we did, we’d be able to do anything and there would be no negative consequences. But because the world is bad, we have to take undeniable steps to ensure our own safety. Not so that people can stop accusing us of getting ourselves into a particular position, playing a part in our own rapes or muggings, but to reduce the possibility of those things happening to us in the first place, because the world isn’t perfect.
Studies have shown that women who reconsider their actions after being the victim of a rape or mugging have an easier time coping with what happened to them when they decide to accept a degree of responsibility. That coping mechanism takes away the feeling of powerlessness they experience after having their rights violated, because they can change their behaviour to prevent incidents in the future.
Instead of them feeling absolutely helpless, waiting for the next attacker to strike, they could take their destiny into their own hands and know that because they changed their own behaviour, the chances of them being another hapless victim were so much smaller.
We must always strive towards a perfect world, where anyone can walk anywhere at any time of night,where men don’t walk into clubs, pockets stuffed with Rohypnol. Where, if I forget to close my windows, I don’t return to a missing laptop and jewellery. That is the ideal we must attempt to reach, and we must fight for it. We must insist on it and create opportunities in our communities to make it a reality.
But, before that perfect day arrives, it might be a good idea to take some responsibility for our actions, and perhaps those posters did have a valid point…
