I’ve been reading some of these responses and I guess it would be appropriate to say that:
A. The 40 something “manager” did nothing wrong. Didn’t anybody see her interview??? She called her “Fiance” (partner in crime) to come to her corporate job and “guard” a naked teenager? COME ON PEOPLE!!!

B. The finace did nothing wrong because a voice on the phone told him to do it. The Son of Sam did nothing wrong because a freakin’ dog told him to murder all those people. All of Manson’s little hoe’s did nothing wrong because Charlie said to do it???

If you believe this stuff, you’re just as inbred as the perpetrators.

That girl WAS a victim and until you’ve walked in her shoes you know nothing of how she felt or what she was capable of doing.

But thanks for sharing your knowledgable views.

Oh, and to the ZOG moron - I guess the Holocaust never happened either, right?

1. Many people are held hostage in their jobs, whether it be a min. wage job or a moderate wage career. People are afraid to question authority for fear of loosing their jobs or having a bad record (or public image). The is obviously true to such an extent that these people will sometimes say or do things that they really shouldn’t and normally wouldn’t just to save their own skin for fear of negative consequences to them.

2. It is possible to convince someone to do something they shouldn’t by feeding them what to do step by step and explaining away and questions, regardless of how good the explanation is, just as long as one is given.

3. People don’t want to look like they are un-patriotic, esp. since the 911 attacks. I think all this security ‘enhancement’ since that horrible event has negatively affected everyone and has totally backfired to the point that if they didn’t step up most of the securities and scared everyone, fewer of these types of innappropriate actions would have occurred.

4. People are often simply down right stupid and ignorant.

My main points are that that girl should have refused to submit to those searches and left the store and contact the police to protect her privacy and rights. This would also clear her name of any issues if the real Police decide to perform their jobs correctly.

I certainly wouldn’t allow that to happen to me. I am a guy so some of you might think, oh well it’s different for a girl than a guy, but come on. We’re all humans and we’ve all gone through school. Even at 17 this girl had been through at least grade 11 or 12, so she should be intelligent enough to make her own adult decisions as a human in our society not to submit to such an unlawful search.

She is NOT to blame. She didn’t do anything wrong. That is not in question. What is in question is WHY we are so stupid and neieeve. People need to question anything that doesn’t make sense in a situation where it matters.

On the part of the persons who obeyed the instructions of the prankster on the telephone and assulted this girl… They should and probably are being held accountable as well. Same thing goes for them as the girl in the way that they should have used their better judgment not to rape a girl because someone on the phone claiming to be an authority figure says that it is okay. A story like that just doesn’t add up. These people must have either conciously or unconciously thought to themselves that “Hey, someone’s telling me to do something i normally couldn’t do, but since they’re in authority, it’s not me that will be at fault for this, i’m just being their eyes, ears and hands. I’ll do it and it will be an interesting experience” All the while not realizing that this is the real world -reality- people. You can’t perform these acts lawfully or morally without consequence or just cause with authority.

Would these people who strip searched that girl have, in a difference scenario, restrained a male subject and cut off their penis and testicles because a claimed person in authority said the subject was a rapist or pedofile? How far would these people have gone as an instrument of evil?

Everyone envolved is to be blamed. The subject should have refused and left with all her power and will, but again, it was NOT HER FAULT and she is NOT TO BE BLAMED. and neither are any of the other vicitims; however, they DID have a choice to leave and contact the real authorites on the matter.

I hope these cases have given the public a heads up and got them realizing that they have to think about what’s they are doing. It’s not okay to do somthing wrong just because someone tells you to do it, no matter what their authority is.

A person must take ownership of their own acts and communications. A person must also be responsible for their own privacy and to uphold their own personal rights and freedoms with all of their being.

A job is not worth it. Esp. a low paying dime-a-dozen job that nearly ANYONE can do without education.

Those are my raw thoughts.

Most of the conversations I have seen about this event seem to ignore this point. The girl was struck repeatedly, and threatened with more battery if she did not do as she was told.

She should have walked out, she should have resisted, she should have, she should have, she should have. Every single time you insist that a rape victim should have, you are excusing the rape and helping to perpetuate more rape. In fact, you are a rapist, a rapist of the heart and the soul.

I hate to wish ill on anyone and certainly don’t wish rape on anyone, but I would like all these shoulda, coulda self righteous idiots to just once be a victim of a crime — something painless like a purse-snatching that will inform them that everyone of us have moments of vulnerability and powerlessness and that none of us can guarantee our perfect safety at all times. To understand, once and for all, that the fact that you have never been the victim of a crime or an assault is not the result of your high moral fiber, foresightedness and wisdom, but more likely than not, the result of pure luck.

I look back at that chapter of my life… you don’t leave because you are afraid to. Yes, you can be raised to be terrorized. It is like the story of the elephant…

A baby elephant is chained by one leg so it cannot move. Years later, when it is a grown elephant, it is still chained by one leg. Clearly, it could get away, but because it was trained to think it could NOT get away, it will not even try.

As for me? If I see someone I think is in trouble? I just ask them. I talk to them about dignity and abuse and anything else I can think of to try to help them.

Men rape. Men rape and other men waste a lot of time ignoring it, justifying it, attacking women the men rape, and all kinds of shit like that. Men rape other men. Men rape women,children, boys, and other men. Rape is male, in reality. It’s a male invention, and men protect it.

Men who get defensive when rape is mentioned—”I was just giving some advice!”—–help rapists. Men who look for excuses not to discuss men raping help rapists. In short, if you’re not talking about men, you’re not talking about rape, and you yourself are doing everything you can to avoid looking at rape the way it really is: by men, for men, in a rape culture. Saying ’some men’ is a sop. I don’t deal with ambiguous language. You’re being ambiguous. There’s no ambiguity here. You’re being defensive, you’re doing all kinds of shit to avoid looking the issue in the eye: men rape, and it works for them. It works for other men, too, because it enables those men to blame everything on women. Everywhere, every time.

In short, Glaivester, you know what you can do to stop rape? Stop fucking making excuses and avoiding the isuse and doing every goddamned thing you’ve been doing. Shut up and listen. Shut up if you want to talk about the victim. Shut up if you want to bitch about the victim’s choices. The guy chose to rape that woman. That’s what’s relevant. Nothing else. If you’re discussing a crime that’s already occurred and you want to criticize the victim, you are a fucking asshole, and there’s nothing to be learned for her. You’re not being educational: you’re criticizing her.

Every rape victim blames herself. It’s about fucking time we had some voices raised blaming the damned rapist. If that means you have to keep your mouth shut because that’s all you can think of to say, well, cry me a river.

Talk about rapists. When your buddies talk about rape victims, tell them to talk about rapists. Keep doing it, just like I’ve done here. No excuses, no rationalizations, no long-winded defensiveness. Talk about rapists. You wasted time whining about something other than rape here, justifying your position and getting defensive. That’s time you could have spent either reading something about rape or listening.

For starters, read Amp’s post about rape culture and keep reading it till the urge to talk about the victim goes away. If it doesn’t go away, YOU are part of the rape culture.

The reason I tend to get involved in these discussions over whetehr or not one should “blame the victim” is that sometimes I get the impression that people think that the way to change the world is simply to tell the bad guys to stop being bad.

I think that’s an entirely false impression.

For example, look at this article on avoiding computer viruses.

Is this article “blaming the victim?” Should we instead focus on how to stop people from writing viruses? Is giving advice on what messages to open and not to open wrong because it shifts the blame? Should people refrain from advising others on what antivirus software to get, because to do so is to put the obligation on the victim, not the virus-writer?

I mean, applying the logic here to computer virues, many of the people on this board would be arguing that it is wrong to recommend antivirus sofware or to discuss suspicious emails, because it is the responsibility of the would-be virus-writer not to write the virus, not of the computer user to protect himself/herself from the virus.

Well, I have to mention women as a contrast point (e.g. why are men more likely to rape than women?)

The problem, ginmar, here, is that “men” as a generalism for all male humans is just as amorphous a term as “society.” “Men” do not rape, specific men rape. And a large number of them do that not because of society, or a “rape culture” or anything like that, they do it because they are evil people who will take advantage of other people if they feel they can get away with it. Trying to “change them” through better education, or through trying to change “society’s perceptions of women” is futile. The only way to change their behavior is to make it damn clear that if they rape or otherwise sexually abuse someone, they will be held to account.

The reason why the vast majority of rapists are male instead of female is not because something in our culture screws up men more than women. It is because male physiology is more conducive to a man becoming a rapist. On average, males have greater physical strength, and far greater levels of testosterone, a hormone that is implicated in aggression (for example, ‘roid rage in those with large amounts of artificial testosterone). In evo-psych terms, the male reproductive strategy is more geared toward accumulating a large number of partners than toward getting the highest average quality of partners possible (which is the female strategy).

None of this is to say that men “have to rape” (which are words that I am sure a lot of people want to put into my mouth). People have the choice to do good or do evil. What I am saying is that biologically, men who choose to do evil have a greater motive, desire, and ability to let that evil manifest itself as rape than do women. As long as there is rape in society, biology suggests that men will do it more than women will. So I don’t see rape as evidence that there is something specifically wrong with the way men as a group are socialized in our society; rather, it is a manifestation of the general category of evil that is by its nature more prevalent in evil men than evil women.

Yes, there are some men who rape because “they don’t know any better.” But the majority who rape do so because they don’t care. Teaching such men not to rape would be useless, because it’s not that they don’t know they shouldn’t rape, it’s that they don’t care. The way to stop such men from raping is to (a) make certain they do not get into positions where they have more of an ability to rape, and (b) to make certain that they know that if they rape, there will be swift, severe, and certain consequences.

So, then, how to reduce rape in our society? Well, rapists (who, yes, are overwhelmingly men), generally have two ways they can rape. Physical coercion (pinning someone to the ground, threatening them with a weapon, wait until they are asleep or drug them) and psychological coercion (make someone feel they have no choice; threaten their job, make them feel worthless, make them feel they have a moral obligation to submit to abuse [e.g. Catholic priest suggesting that God disapproves of people questioning any demands made by a priest]).

The only way to deal with physical coercion is to make certain that the men who rape know they will get caught and punished.

The second situation, however, usuaqlly involves the man who rapes having some form of power or authority bestowed upon him by other people (e.g. he is the boss, or the teacher, or has some other position that wold give him power over thsoe whom he would victimize) can also be prevented by (a) making certain that men who are willing to abuse their power do not get power, (b) (in case (a) fails) reducing the number of situations where persons of authority have such absolute power that a man so inclined could abuse the situation, and (c) (in case (b) fails) making certain we reduce the vulnerability of those who might be victimized.
If (a), (b), and (c) fail, then the way to deal with the situation is again, to make certain that the men who rape get caught and punished.

Or what exactly is it that you want me to say? What should I say that we should do to men in general to make fewer of them rape?

FWIW, I still think it’s worth fighting and educating to change the way women are raised, but you’re right that this isn’t the right place for that discussion.

In other words, authority figures are to be tolerated (better yet, used) when it is beneficial, but not venerated or respected.

To put it in context, I’ve applied this philosophy throughout my life, and my relationships with authority figures have been very, very successful. In fact, I’ve always been surprised at how much power I ended up wielding over persons who were my superiors in a hierarchy. I am not above feigning respect for authority for personal gain; but I never allow myself to believe that persons on authority are any more intelligent, wise, or moral that I am, or than anybody is.

Anyone who works in fast food should bear in mind the following adage: Corporate America is a resource to be exploited; nothing more.

There IS a movement to empower women and make them more likely to stand up for themselves. It’s called feminism.

And you are misunderstanding the nature of intimidation and power. We ALL have to submit to authority; it’s part of what makes us human. It’s also what makes us ALL very easy to manipulate when someone we perceive as authoritative tells us to do something. Maybe for you that isn’t a police officer unjustly accusing you (although if you never argue with police I wouldn’t call you stupid). Maybe it’s a doctor, or a a judge in a courtroom on the record (almost no one argues with a judge on the record). Maybe it’s someone you have learned over time to respect. Point: it is ridiculously easy to get almost anyone to obey authority. It’s why sociopaths can cook up genocides and slavery. Teaching people to think for themsleves is wonderful, but no one can defy authority unless they can reasonably believe that the authority will be held accountable, which rapists are not when we focus on the weakness, fear or even passivity of the victims. It’s the abuse, aggression and violence of the perpetrators that has to be dealt with.

Glaivester, in order for your opinion to matter it’d have to be something other than the shit you’ve been spouting. Why are you here, anyway? You sure don’t give a fuck about women. “Why doesn’t she leave?”

Avenir, sweetie, you’re still doing it.When you’re whining about people putting words in your mouth,don’t rush to do it to someone else.Christ, you bang on and on about what works for you. I don’t give a shit what works for you. It’s not relevant. You have a cute safe little life and if other women don’t want to do what you do,well, then, what’s to be done?Certainly not talk about rapists, of course. Let’s not talk about them at all. Let’s talk about women. Let’s just talk about what women do and what society does to women and let’s act like society is the damned weather instead of composed of men and people like you and Glaivester.

It takes guts to fight something, and that’s why it’s so disturbing that people are going after society’s scapegoats. Men are the establishment. Men have all the power, and it’s frightening to hold them to account, to take them to task. LIke Rad Geek says, society is made up of poeple who act in ways that make sense to them. You guys go on and fucking on about women this and women that, but you’re just not shitting and getting off the pot. You never get around to talking about men. After a while, it becomes too noticeable. Deal with it. YOur patronizing assumptions about how to protect women without inconveniancing the men who attack them are pretty obvious.

I have a challenge for you. WAnt to prove me wrong? Talk about men for a change. Not society, not vague amorphous terms, and not women. You cannot talk about women at all. I dare you. Let’s talk about men and how to stop them. No snarky passive aggressive insincere attempts allowed, either. Be honest or be damned.

Poor girl… why did they have to train her to be so submissive? Question authority, question anyone who gives orders. I hope she can rise above this…

I Fear the future…

I think that when someone at McDonald’s feels that they have no choice but to strip and submit to sexual humiliation when a supervisor asks them to, that that indicates that the supervisors at McDonald’s are given way too much power over the employees.

It is one thing to have a healthy respects for one’s superiors (superior in the sense of having a higher rank in the company, not superior in terms of human worth), but it is wrong for the company to create an environment where the employees are so terrified of sanction that supervisors have license to abuse them. I think that companies ought to do a better job of making certain that employees know their rights, rather than relying on their employees’ ignorance as a means of having power over them.

My point was that if stories like that of Sophronia’s friend were rarer, it would be much harder for incidents like this rape by proxy to occur.

Jesus Christ, here’s a guy justifying asking battered women, “WHY didn’t you leave?”

I said asking “why didn’t she just leave?” presumably to third parties who are discussing such issues, not asking “why didn’t you just leave?” to the victim. I never suggested that the question be asked to the victim.

My point was that it is more effective to assume that a person asking this question is asking in good faith, and that explaining the situation is more effective than demonizing them. Of course, that would not provide as many opportunities to exercise righteous indignation and to extol one’s moral superiority.

Famergirl and Glaivester don’t have any interest in stopping the rapists: they just want to pin it all on victims.

And I think that you are less interested in stopping the rapists than in extolling your moral superiority.

In any case, in case people were unclear on this fact, I think that the telephoner, the supervisor, and the supervisor’s fiancee all ought to be locked up in jail for a long, long time. I didn’t explicitly say this before because I thought that it was obvious that they should all be locked them up for sexually abusing this girl, and so I didn’t see it as a point of discussion.

To be honest, I think these things are just examples of rape culture, and I think the reason some of us tend to focus on them is because it’s easier than facing the fact that, as women, there’s next to nothing we can do to prevent rape.

I really really don’t think that saying this is tantamount to blaming the victim.