In many cases, we must ask ourselves: why blame the victim or assign him part of the responsibility?This type of attribution is most common when we share certain characteristics with the attacker.
This is also common when we don’t want to see at risk our sense of control (if it’s the attackers’ fault and not the victim’s, it can also happen to us). This last task usually lead people to share characteristics with the victim, because if she committed a “mistake/recklessness”, they have a “false sense of security”: if they do not make the same “mistake/recklessness” of them, this will not happen.
- When you think the person who was assaulted is responsible.
- You feel safer because you think you’re in control.
- In other words.
- We believe we are safe.
- As long as we do “the right thing.
- “This belief works unconsciously for blaming the victims.
- Even when the victim is herself.
In any type of gender-based violence, part of the focus is on women’s potential responsibility, for example, we have prevention and education campaigns, which always focus on ‘safety measures’, must be taken.
That is, the only person who seems to have to do something to prevent aggression is women, in this sense, information and prevention campaigns must more often target other objectives, such as potential aggressors and even society as a whole, so as not to indirectly contribute to this guilt.
The right people don’t focus on the convict, but on the victim
We have a complex network in the nervous system that paralyzes us when there is a danger in which fighting or fleeing is not possible (or possible, but is not considered the best answer). We talk about a resource as an extreme form of survival. When there is consensual sex and immobilization, the brain produces oxytocin, the love hormone, which prevents trauma.
But when sexual intercourse is forced, the person is paralyzed and frozen, and this is seen by the rapist (or by outside observers) as an opportunity or consent. Paradoxically, the abused person, who is the victim, remains traumatized by shame and the perpetrator finds he or she is without conscience problems.
All the victims are the same and neither is like the other
When we blame the victim of the attack, we can defend ourselves from something. Our fact-giving powers minimize the burden of justice by accepting less severe sentences.
Who knows, we can still live in a world where women’s rights are what they should be, but there is something else in this psychological attitude of going against the victim, perhaps the men who defend those convicted of sexual assault in their sentences only observe the attributions from their point of view and, in a sense , understand that they are indirectly attacked.
When we blame the victim, we can defend ourselves against something
For women who think the victim is partially responsible, they can do so to have the illusion of control, identifying the factors that would prevent the same thing from happening to them. We’ve all heard comments from other women saying, “This wouldn’t happen to me,” I would act differently, but all we know about these situations is that we never know how we would act.
It is permissible to take on the defendant’s shoes, but in many cases the powers are clear and science gives us the answer to the question of why a person, when he cannot fight or flee, remains paralyzed. yourself in the victim’s shoes.
? You’re not alone. Sister, do I believe you?