No, John Kasich, women are not to blame for rape [View all]

[smirkymonkey]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/15/john-kasich-rape-comments-parties-alcohol-women

"Today Ohio Republican governor John Kasich presented a “solution” to sexual violence that is more flawed than his losing presidential campaign. At a town hall in Watertown, New York, he told a female college student that to avoid “sexual violence, harassment and rape” she should not “go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol”.

His flawed logic should not be surprising. After all, Kasich’s comments are only the latest in a long tradition of Republican victim-blaming, which includes Todd Akin’s idea of “legitimate rape” and more recently, Ben Carson’s opposition to abortion for sex assault survivors. Yet the fact that so many influential men still fail to grasp the basics of rape culture is both intellectually baffling and incredibly dangerous for women. To decrease the rates of sexual assault, we need men to fight misogyny.

You’ve heard the rape myths before: women are raped because they show cleavage, drink too many coolers or twirl their hair flirtatiously at fraternity houses. In reality most sexual assaults happen in bedrooms, not at parties, bars or in alleyways. Some 80% of victims know their perpetrators and almost 20% of sexual assaults are committed by intimate partners. Any woman who has walked down a street is more than familiar with harassment.

Despite those inconvenient facts, rape is the only crime for which we blame the victim. We do not tell someone who was hit by a drunk driver that they should not have been on the road. We do not tell someone who gets shot that they should not have left the house. Why can Republican men understand this logic in scenarios that might affect their own safety, but not when it’s applied to female victims?" [more]

I can't believe this guy has daughters! What would he say if one of them were raped?