Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
5-22-2012
Abstract
Victim-blaming is a phenomenon that has been happening since at least the beginning of recorded history but has only recently been identified as a dynamic used to empower the criminal and maintain the status quo. Victim-blaming is perpetuated by sexism, the Just World Theory, cognitive biases, and the theories of self-blame. Victim-blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or abuse is held partly or entirely responsible for the actions committed against them. In other words, the victims are held accountable for the maltreatment they have been subjected to. Perpetrators of crimes for which they blame the victim commonly enjoy a privileged social status opposite the victim, and their blame typically involves use of stereotypical negative words.
Comments
julieschoellkopf@gmail.com; Victim-Blaming: A New Term for an Old Trend; LGBTQ Center; GLBT Center; Joseph A Santiago; Joe Santiago; Victim-blaming is a phenomenon that has been happening since at least the beginning of recorded history but has only recently been identified as a dynamic used to empower the criminal and maintain the status quo. Victim-blaming is perpetuated by sexism, the Just World Theory, cognitive biases, and the theories of self-blame. Victim-blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or abuse is held partly or entirely responsible for the actions committed against them. In other words, the victims are held accountable for the maltreatment they have been subjected to. Perpetrators of crimes for which they blame the victim commonly enjoy a privileged social status opposite the victim, and their blame typically involves use of stereotypical negative words. The phenomenon of victim blaming is thus common in hate crimes, discrimination, rape and bullying. The main motivation for people to victim-blame is to justify abuse or social injustice. However, it is not only the perpetrator who engages in the victim-blaming. Perpetrators, bystanders and society and even the victims themselves practice and enforce victim-blaming. Each group of people who blames the victim does so for different reasons based on their power or lack thereof, self-defense and desire to find logical reasons for abuse or social injustice. William Ryan coined the phrase “blaming the victim” in his book Blaming the Victim in 1971, as a response to years of oppression and the civil rights movement. He describes victim-blaming as a way to preserve the interest of the privileged group in power (Zur). Since then, advocates for crime victims, particularly those of rape, have adopted the phrase. Although Ryan coined the phrase, the phenomenon is well developed in psychology and history. As previously stated, victim-blaming has been happening at least since the beginning of recorded history. There are many examples of victim-blaming in the Old Testament regarding tragedies justified by blaming the victims as sinners (Robinson 141). Unfortunately, victim-blaming is still rampant today and has only recently been identified as problematic. Perpetrators blame their victims to justify their actions in order to avoid punishment and maintain freedom to abuse in the future. A perpetrator’s justification for their actions and continued abuse appears to stem from a sense of entitlement and their desire to have power over others. One example of this behavior occurs when people try to justify racism against black people in the United States. Ryan wrote of this phenomenon in his book Blaming the Victim also as a response to Daniel Moynihan’s The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965), which rationalizes the underprivileged status of black people as their fault (Kirkpatrick 219). While this false belief was already well known in society, it has been heavily perpetuated and justified by media. When white people have been racist against black people, a common excuse given is that the black person deserved it for reasons that typically involve claims of their behavior, which typically involves negative racist stereotypes. Racism against black people has created false stereotypes such as that they are dangerous, untrustworthy, lazy, and aggressive. These stereotypes have lead to and validated victim blaming when black people have been oppressed and abused. For example, if a black person was beaten up in a predominantly white neighborhood, they could be told they were behaving in a suspicious or threatening manner. Instead of acknowledging the assault as wrong, perpetrators excuse their violence by claiming it was self-defense. However, according to this phenomenon, if the aftermath of the black person’s same behavior did not result negatively, the situation would not even be of consideration. This is called cognitive bias in which people’s interpretation of behavior is influenced by traumatic events (Janoff-Bulman, “Cognitive Biases in Blaming the Victim”). Cognitive bias is problematic because it causes people to make false assumptions of people’s behavior solely based on the outcome. In other words, if the same series of events were presented in two scenarios with one positive outcome and one negative outcome, someone with cognitive bias would judge the behavior in the former scenario as acceptable but unacceptable in the latter. In validating victim blaming by using racist stereotypes, perpetrators assert and confirm their power, privilege and control over black people. It is important to understand however, that these excuses are completely fictional and made up by the perpetrators to avoid punishment. Over time the excuses made by the privileged perpetrators against black people have been accepted by society. The prevalent use of victim-blaming by perpetrators quickly influences society and legislation which makes victim-blaming a norm. This causes victim-blaming to become more widespread which allows perpetrators to get away with and even benefitted by their wrongdoings. In turn, victims have been less and less able to find safety in society and the justice system.; Another oppressed group who is victim-blamed by their perpetrators are rape survivors. The blaming typically heard directly declares that in order to avoid being harassed or raped women should dress a certain way, behave a certain way and be careful about where they go. One reason women are told this is because cultural sexist expectations and criticisms of women that are used to victim-blame. Many rape survivors have been blamed by their rapists who claim the woman was “asking for it” because of her clothing or behavior (Anderson, K. J., & Accomando 24-28). By blaming the woman, the rapist can avoid being punished and continue to feel power over women. They may also feel free to rape again if they believe they are not at; fault. The following image is a response to victim-blaming in the case of rape: Rapists also victim blame because they feel superior to women and in turn have a right to have control over them. This perceived power is because of sexism, which in turn leads to victim-blaming. More often than not, victims who are blamed for their abuse are often considered unequal to the perpetrator in some way. In this circumstance, male gender privilege allows the perpetrators to blame the victim without consequences (Anderson, K. J., & Accomando 24-28). The excuses made by rapists are fabricated to obscure the reasons they actually attack women. Victim-blaming is simply an easy way out to avoid consequences of wrongdoings and shift the blame to the underprivileged victim. Over time, perpetrators, invariably members of a group that seeks to dominate the victim group, convince others with their victim-blaming to do the same. The phenomenon when individuals do not help in emergency situations and either instead ignore it or enforce it is called the bystander effect. In the circumstance of victim-blaming, the bystander effect is when individuals allow crimes and further victim-blaming to occur. This occurrence is perpetuated as the number of bystanders increases (Meyers). While someone may not himself or herself abuse someone, participating in the victim blaming not only reinforces the social expectations and fallacies perpetrated, but also prevents the victims’ recourse for the crimes committed against them as well as their ability to recover. Bystanders and society at large victim-blames in order to protect themselves from the perpetrators. In other words, bystanders tell themselves that as long as they don’t do what a victim did to “deserve” the abuse they will be safe. This phenomenon is called the Just World Theory; the idea is that only bad things happen to people if they did something wrong to deserve it. The theory suggests that individuals convince themselves that the world is a safe and just place and people get what they deserve (Andre, Velasquez). In the following video, the origins of victim blaming and the just world theory are explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZp1YC7dMaU. If an event establishes the world as unjust, people put the victim at fault or try to convince themselves and others that no injustice has occurred. For example, an individual could assert that because the world is a just place, the victim must have deserved their abuse for some reason or another (Andre, Velasquez). Declaring the victim as deserving of their abuse to ensure a just world is a typical form of victim-blaming. Society also tends to have an optimism bias, the belief that bad things happen to other people and the world is safe (Britt). By believing the world is a safe place and all abuse is deserved, sociey creates an illusion of control over all of their experiences.