Anonymous wrote:I think there is an inherent problem with how people define "victim blaming". Here is an example:

A person decides to walk down a city street late at night while holding a bunch of cash over their head and singing loudly. Someone robs them.

I say: "That person should have not walked down that street doing that". That statement is an undeniable truth. Their decision played a role in what happened. BUT...I am NOT blaming them. The fault lies solely on the person who robbed them. That person shouldn't have done a bad thing, not matter what.

Again, I'm not BLAMING the victim, but they did play a role and could have made better decisions (even though they shouldn't have to).

Do you still think I'm victim-blaming?

It’s really this.

I closely follow a case where a woman had a creepy colleague who was obsessed with her. One day he asked for a ride home and she gave it to him. He killed her. Did she deserve to die? Absolutely not. Did she play a role by agreeing to give her creepy stalker a ride? Yes.

Back in college I went on a sketchy date with an even sketchier stranger who asked me to lunch after a brief conversation in the campus bookstore, because I was dumb. If something would have gone terribly wrong, my role would have mattered in the outcome.

Adults generally have agency, and with agency comes the reality that our choices can place us in certain situations. Agency means our choices matter, sometimes in ways that increase risk, even when harm remains unjustified. Life is rarely a single-cause event. Outcomes often arise from a combination of personal decisions and others’ actions.

Anonymous wrote:I haven't seen anyone attacking Epstein victims? Other than the other men of course, I'm not sure that those other men are blameless or victims of him.

Refusing to hold the men (and women) who committed these crimes accountable is linked to victim blaming. There is an attitude of "oh well, this is what powerful people do, what do you expect?" Epsteins victims are literally just walking around trying to get anyone to care or do something about what this man, and the many people who helped and collaborated with him, did. And people look right through them. Like they aren't there, like this didn't happen. It did, everyday we learn more and more about how much it happened. And yet so many people still act as though the victims are irrelevant or inconsequential. It's sick.

I am an SA survivor and I've seen this firsthand. The first thing many people do when you tell them that a person they know SA'd you is look for an explanation to exonerate that person. People will do this even if they have known you, the survivor, for a long time. They seem to justify before they even contemplate expressing empathy for your experience. The assumption is that you must be mistaken. I've experienced this enough times that I no longer talk about my experiences with SA in any setting other than one designed for SA survivors. It's not worth it. I am tired of fighting through this instinctual reflex to protect the perpetrator.

I've seen people do this even when they KNOW it's the truth. Power corrupts people. Not just the person in power. Everyone around them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are so desperate to be seen as victims. Our culture is obsessed with performative victimhood. Many so called victims are not. I reserve my sympathy for the real victims, not people who are simply desperate for attention or regret their bad decisions.

Why does every jerk on the internet act like 1. their sympathy is of any value and 2. sympathy is a limited resource?

Every other day I see some lower functioning being saying "I have NOOO SYMNPATHY for..." and OK...what would you like us to do with this information?

I guess some people just think of themselves as special.

People who feign victimhood are nothing more than pathetic attention seekers who exploit the sympathy of naive virtue signalers like yourself in order to gain attention and status.

But to you, a person just describing a negative experience is "feigning victimhood." You view your sympathy as a finite resource that people prey on and try to steal from you. You get mad at people for just talking about their lives, as though that creates an imposition on you. When you could just choose to ignore the stories that don't interest you.

I see it on DCUM all the time. People get yelled at for posting about problems or situations as though posting here creates some imposition to respond. It doesn't. Just because you don't care about someone's issue doesn't mean the are obligated to never discuss it. It means YOU need to exercise judgment in where you choose to engage.

The world is not full of people "feigning victim good." Everyone has problems. You don't have to help them or even care about them. But they are allowed to look for help or compassion if they want. That's called being human, not "playing the victim."

I haven't seen anyone attacking Epstein victims? Other than the other men of course, I'm not sure that those other men are blameless or victims of him.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a survivor of sexual assault and a person with a lot of health issues, I see the same kind of victim-blaming put on sexual assault victims as those with serious illnesses. It all comes down to people desperately trying to feel a sense of control over their lives even it means saying horrible things to suffering friends and family that amounts to telling the victim/sick person that they deserved it.

True. My kid’s ADHD and autism is our fault, but also doesn’t exist and we’re indulging some spoiled behavior - BOTH OF THOSE AT THE SAME TIME!

🤣

I'm not sure I've ever related so hard to a post on here. Laughing and crying over here.

Anonymous wrote:I think there is an inherent problem with how people define "victim blaming". Here is an example:

A person decides to walk down a city street late at night while holding a bunch of cash over their head and singing loudly. Someone robs them.

I say: "That person should have not walked down that street doing that". That statement is an undeniable truth. Their decision played a role in what happened. BUT...I am NOT blaming them. The fault lies solely on the person who robbed them. That person shouldn't have done a bad thing, not matter what.

Again, I'm not BLAMING the victim, but they did play a role and could have made better decisions (even though they shouldn't have to).

Do you still think I'm victim-blaming?

You are one of the people OP is talking about trying to hard to see everything as simple and easily avoided. How much time do you spend with victims?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are so desperate to be seen as victims. Our culture is obsessed with performative victimhood. Many so called victims are not. I reserve my sympathy for the real victims, not people who are simply desperate for attention or regret their bad decisions.

Why does every jerk on the internet act like 1. their sympathy is of any value and 2. sympathy is a limited resource?

Every other day I see some lower functioning being saying "I have NOOO SYMNPATHY for..." and OK...what would you like us to do with this information?

I guess some people just think of themselves as special.

People who feign victimhood are nothing more than pathetic attention seekers who exploit the sympathy of naive virtue signalers like yourself in order to gain attention and status.

Anonymous wrote:People are so desperate to be seen as victims. Our culture is obsessed with performative victimhood. Many so called victims are not. I reserve my sympathy for the real victims, not people who are simply desperate for attention or regret their bad decisions.

Why does every jerk on the internet act like 1. their sympathy is of any value and 2. sympathy is a limited resource?

Every other day I see some lower functioning being saying "I have NOOO SYMNPATHY for..." and OK...what would you like us to do with this information?

I guess some people just think of themselves as special.

People are so desperate to be seen as victims. Our culture is obsessed with performative victimhood. Many so called victims are not. I reserve my sympathy for the real victims, not people who are simply desperate for attention or regret their bad decisions.

Anonymous wrote:I think there is an inherent problem with how people define "victim blaming". Here is an example:

A person decides to walk down a city street late at night while holding a bunch of cash over their head and singing loudly. Someone robs them.

I say: "That person should have not walked down that street doing that". That statement is an undeniable truth. Their decision played a role in what happened. BUT...I am NOT blaming them. The fault lies solely on the person who robbed them. That person shouldn't have done a bad thing, not matter what.

Again, I'm not BLAMING the victim, but they did play a role and could have made better decisions (even though they shouldn't have to).

Do you still think I'm victim-blaming?

Oh black and white argument instead! It's never that simple.

I think there is an inherent problem with how people define "victim blaming". Here is an example:

A person decides to walk down a city street late at night while holding a bunch of cash over their head and singing loudly. Someone robs them.

I say: "That person should have not walked down that street doing that". That statement is an undeniable truth. Their decision played a role in what happened. BUT...I am NOT blaming them. The fault lies solely on the person who robbed them. That person shouldn't have done a bad thing, not matter what.

Again, I'm not BLAMING the victim, but they did play a role and could have made better decisions (even though they shouldn't have to).

Do you still think I'm victim-blaming?

Prosperity gospel. If you are downtrodden and poor it's because you did something wrong. If you are rich then clearly you have the higher morals and hard work that got you there. And the general hatred and fear of women. Women were the midwives and knew more about herbs and medicines long before medicine became and official field. The mystery of giving life and supporting it scared and still scares men. Midwifery was criminalized when medicine because a lucrative field for male doctors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the above.

And also victim-blaming reinforces existing power structures, and most people will always seek to align themselves with the most powerful person. Even, it turns out, if that person is a known pedophile. Especially if he is?

If you don't see these dynamics happening at a smaller scale in your own life, you are likely not looking very hard.

+1
People side with abusers because (1) they want to be on the side of the powerful, (2) they agree that some people matter more than others, and/or (3) they want to believe that nothing bad will happen to them, so they tell themselves a story where bad things only happen to people who deserve them.

Its this. Its why the mean girls and guys don't have to ever apologize and why others are drawn to them and mock those who don't go along. As a victim of child sex assault who immediately reported only to have people forgive the perpetrator and constantly ask that I do as well only to have him assault again 5 days later, I've had 40 years to figure out why no one cared about me as a victim or did anything and then also started labeling me as the problem for their own internal struggles. It's why Trump's obsession with being powerful and people latching onto this type of thought process is so triggering. I see people in my daily life acting this way, siding with power and mocking the less powerful.

Anonymous wrote:Because people desperately want to believe that nothing bad can happen to them.

It’s this. I realized this from seeing the responses to the kid in hot car death posts on here even after people shared the Gene Weingarten article on it repeatedly.