"She herself is to blame!": Why accuse victims of rape
Amazing business - Faced with the situation of violence (and especially rape), many people begin to accuse the victim first. Say, there was nothing to wear provoking clothes, provoking heels and generally appear on the street.
Many people think that it is common only on the expanses of the USSR. I have a hurry to console - the same thing is at least in one country - the United States. There, everything is exactly the same - the victim of rape itself is to blame for rape, the victim of the mismune - in the attack.
Here is one of the characteristic studies (Carli et al., 1989, 1999). Scientists offered to read the participants of the experiment to read a detailed description of the relations of some man and a certain woman (chief and subordinate, classmates in college and so on). For example, the boss, slightly stamped, invites subordinate to dinner. After dinner, they go to him and drink a little wine. And then…
The final of the story was distinguished. One part of the subjects was given the final, where the boss got up on one knee and offered a woman to marry him. And the second part had to read less rainbow ending history - the head of the woman was a woman on the sofa and raped.
And that's what's interesting. In the first case (with a sentence of marriage), all readers saw the touching story of a shy man who had long decided to admit to their feelings.
And in the second - the eerie story of the insidious maniac, who lured the stupid sacrifice in his owns. Moreover, they insisted that she herself was to blame for what happened to her.
The case, I remind, was in the USA.
From the tendency to accuse the victim of violence and rape was made a hasty conclusion about the existence of a "rape culture", where rape is encouraged (at least - it is not condemned), the woman is objectified and in general everything is bad.
In reality, no culture of rape does not exist. There is a phenomenon of faith in the Fair World (Velief in A Just World). People sincerely believe that the world is arranged fair and everyone gets according to merit.
Rassed to blame because provocatively (Borgida & Brekke, 1985), beaten wives themselves caused aggression (Summers & Feldman, 1984), the poor themselves will work (Furnham & Gunter, 1984), the sick himself caused the disease (Gruman & Sloan, 1983).
He opened the phenomenon of faith in the fair world of Melvin Lerner with colleagues. He spent a lot of experiments and from the results of these experiments, the hair naturally get up on end.
Take at least a classic experiment with a "disgusting victim."
The essence of the experiment is simple. Its participants were observed for the learning process (of course, adjusted). The "student" had to fulfill the tasks of memorization, and for errors they beat it with a current (the participants thought so; in fact, no one beat, everything was "Ponaroshka").
Pay attention - the experiment participants only observed. And when they were asked to appreciate the "student", they, in theory, could penetrate the compassion and regret the poor girl who honestly tried to fulfill the task as best as possible, but still received painful shock shocks.
But in practice, the participants of the experiment spoke about the girl unflattering. "She herself is to blame", "it was necessary to be more attentive," "there was nothing to take, if you can't", "she deserved it" ... familiar words, right?
Observation for the victim for some reason caused not compassion, but the censure.
Lerner considered, such a humiliation of a defenseless victim arises because of the faith "I am a fair person living in a fair world in which everyone receives what he deserves" (Lerner, 1980).
This allows you to somewhat horror before an uncontrolled life and make at least some certainty (illusory, of course). This is something like a magical practice - if only bad get bad, then if I am good, the trouble will pass the side.
And if someone misfortunes did not bypass - it means that it fell.
It is curious that at the same time there is an important point - observers reject and disgrace the victim when unable to change the fate of the victim. If they can intervene and correct something, they are often not so critical.
As you understand, in case of rape occurrence, it is impossible to cancel what happened. Therefore, it is much easier to blame the victim in everything in order to preserve your faith in a fair world.
Of course, a person who has undergone violence also made some kind of contribution to this situation. But blindly believing that he (her) got a "fetche", "means not to take into account uncontrolled factors that people cannot affect. In rape, the rapist is to blame, robber, and only so.
In other words, if you want to blame the sacrifice of rape in the fact that "I didn't have to wear such a dress," you wonder and think good things - why did you ever say it really. And then, if you really can't help anything, just squeeze. It will be better for everyone. And, of course, if you can help - help. In short, do you help. Can't help - silent.
Let's summarize. People accuse victims of violence (and rape) to preserve their faith in a fair structure of the world. Such faith reduces life uncertainty and creates the illusion of control. There is no culture of rape - there is a special case of faith in a fair world.
