Self-Protection or Victim Blaming?

A few weeks ago, someone posted to Tumblr a list of safety tips for women by actual attackers -- don't wear a bun or ponytail that could be grabbed, attackers generally don't go after women carrying something that can be used to thwart an attack, like an umbrella, etc. It was pulled almost as soon as it was posted for being too "victim blamey."

Maybe I'm very, very out-of-touch, but I don't think teaching basic safety is akin to victim blaming. Victim blaming is insinuating that the victim somehow caused or contributed to the attack: you looked to "sexy," you drank too much, you "led him on." Now maybe if you had said, "You know what, if you'd just not worn that swingy ponytail, maybe that guy wouldn't have had something to grab onto and maybe he wouldn't have shoved you into the trunk of his car," that would be victim blaming. The idea that if an attack or rape is going to happen, it's going to happen leaves me with no sense of agency, and I don't think many potential rapists have taken many feminist theory courses. If that makes me a bad feminist, so be it. I think there needs to be a definite distinction. More importantly, I think we need to change the way we talk about rape, shifting the onus from victim to perpetrator.

Though the original post didn't exclusively focus on rape, "staying safe" is usually code for "avoiding rape." When I was in college, self-defense courses were offered as gym credits, and the focus was solely on ways women could "prevent rape." This wasn't questioned. And at the risk of sounding hypocritical -- because I do see value in self-defense classes in giving women a sense of agency -- I looked up rape statics prior to writing this post. The one-in-four number kept popping up, but nowhere did I find any statistics on how many men rape. The language of rape is undeniably passive.