In a week that’s seen half a million people take to the streets of Washington to defend women’s rights (and many thousands more across the world) how is it that we are still having to talk about the length of women’s skirts?
The tabloid media love any excuse to run photos of scantily-clad lovelies (who their photographers pursue on nights out, drunk and vulnerable, in order to catch any ‘nip-slips’ or gutter vomming for the morning editions) and if it’s a slut-shaming survey, so much the better. The survey in question involved 8,000 UK adults, and came up with such enlightening opinions as: ‘one in three women think girls in short skirts are partly to blame for their sexual assaults’ and – even lovelier – ‘two fifths of men think women in that position should share some of the blame.’ Thanks chaps.
I mean, not to dwell because I have a lot of rage to get out here, but the phrase ‘share some of the blame’ just turns my stomach. Would you ask someone whose house had been burgled to ‘share some of the blame’? (“I mean, come on mate. You did buy a house. And then you went out for the day. You were asking for it.”)
And the worst part? The survey was undertaken by the Fawcett Society - a feminist organisation. * Bangs head on desk and throttles self with mini-skirt * I see their intention, I really do, they were trying to prove that women are living in a culture of blame. And the good news is, they did prove that. The bad news is, the media seized on (admittedly only a small section of the survey) and ran with it as a nifty ‘debate’ story. It came to my attention via This Morning, which decided to get two women to battle it out about whether or not sexual assault survivors are actual victims, or really just rampant short-skirted nymphs who dress entirely to charm rapists.
Even if it’s just being used as a filler between Gino D’Acampo suggesting six new ways to use Parma ham, and Holly and Phil giving their opinions on Helen Mirren’s bikini pics, it doesn’t make it an appropriate topic for a chat. In fact, I think that’s actually worse than if the programme makers truly believed that women should be locked up under house arrest for their own safety. It just makes ‘are women to blame for being violated’ part of the background noise; part of the daytime TV you have on when you’re off sick from school. “What’s on?’ ‘Oh it’s soap news, and then a segment about how you’re to blame for the most traumatic moment of your life. Next up, Loose Women.”
It’s no good saying it will ‘spark debate’ because while that’s true in one sense, I hardly think: ‘are women sluts, yes/no’ is a valid or helpful debate in a way that, say, ‘is the police force/judicial system doing all that they can to support rape survivors?’ or ‘should parents teach their children about consent?’ or ‘should sex education in schools also touch upon sexual violence?’ or ACTUALLY ALMOST ANY OTHER QUESTION IS.
What about the 12,000 men who are raped in England and Wales every year? Are they wearing tiny skirts? Should they not be drinking with their friends? Were they ‘asking for it’? And then of course, although it’s almost too horrible to bear, there are the one in every 20 children in the UK who have been sexually abused.
I volunteer for Peterborough Rape Crisis Care Group and the range of people trying to piece back their lives after abuse is truly remarkable. We’ve seen every age, every background. The numbers keep on growing, and our waiting lists for emotional support now stand at more than a year, despite volunteers donating many hours of their time to training and support.
The thing that makes me saddest about this survey – even sadder than the fact someone thought it was necessary in the first place – is that it’s women as well as men who are answering. I can only justify this by assuming that they’ve never known a friend or family member who has been through it; who has come to them, mascara-stained and breathless with terror and rage and shame. That they’ve never tried to release someone they care about from the burden of this misplaced shame. Never reassured and reassembled a broken woman from the wreckage of abuse.
Women have been raped throughout history – in burqas; in jeans; in designer clothes; in Primark dresses; in their pyjamas. Thousands have been raped in their marital beds, stone-cold sober. Women have been raped and abused who have never even tried on a mini-skirt, let alone worn one on a night out. Yet the thing they all have in common is that someone has decided to exert their power and physical dominance over them in one of the most brutal acts available.
This is all beautifully, harrowingly, illustrated by the brilliant photographer Katherine Cambareri in her ‘Well What Were You Wearing’ series, where she photographed items of clothing women wore when they were raped. Here we see a plain white T-shirt; sweatpants; a well-worn pair of Converse trainers, suspended in the air like ghosts.
Finally – semantics point here – no one is ever ‘asking’ to be raped. By its very definition rape and sexual abuse are non-consensual. Yet that doesn’t stop one in five women aged 16-59 having to cope with it.
The problem actually, in my opinion, isn’t so much the answers given, but the fact that the question was asked in the first place. WHY are we still asking about what assault victims are wearing? Even if you ask it in this context, as a tool to raise awareness of a sexist culture, you’re justifying it as a topic. Giving it airtime. And the problem is that it normalises it as an issue – to judges, to police, to jurors and, worst of all, to the girl who has just been abused and is wondering if maybe it’s all her fault. I’m all for debating about the causes of sexual violence, and why the problem is escalating at an alarming rate, but can we please start asking better questions?
If you need to talk to someone about rape or sexual abuse, contact Rape Crisis England and Wales){href='http://(rapecrisis.org.uk/index.php)' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'}.