A brutal double standard

This weekend, I read about a young woman who was brutally raped and killed after leaving a bar at 4:00 in the morning. Like so many other Americans, she was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with her friends.

What struck me about the news coverage was that the first thing the investigators did was to blame the victim. Her skirt was too short. Too long. She had no right to be outside alone at 4:00 in the morning.

I can’t help but wonder: what if the victim had been a man? Would people analyze what he was wearing and then blame him for having been murdered? Would he have been blamed for his death because he was alone outside at 4:00 in the morning?

Any psychologist worth his or her salt will tell you: it is not the victim’s fault for being raped. It has nothing to do with the clothes she is wearing. Years ago, I saw a popular media personality interview a rapist. She was wearing a conservative, almost dowdy, business suit. She asked the rapist if what she was wearing was “provocative.” “Yes,” said the man. He admitted that pretty much anything a woman could wear would be provocative to him.

I also find it disturbing that, just because she is not a man, a woman has “no right” to be out alone at night without risking her life.

Personally, I am disgusted by all the double standards that govern men and women in American society. We blame women when they become victims of violent crime. We label them as temptresses and seducers and sluts. By reducing and, in many cases, eliminating access to sex education, birth control, and abortion, we have made women solely responsible for pregnancy — but, last time I looked, it still takes two to tango. And we are insisting more and more that each pregnancy result in a live birth without regard to the needs, health, or situation of the woman involved.

Meanwhile, as women are struggling to retain what few rights they have left to govern their own bodies, men can not only get recreational drugs like Viagra, but, unlike birth control, it is paid for by insurance. Way to go, America — let’s make sure we put ALL the burden on women!

I don’t know about you, but I am sick of always hearing it from the man’s point of view.