‘Believe All Women’ And the Overcorrection of Victim-Blaming

According to Wikipedia - “the phenomenon of blaming the victim is well established in human psychology and history; for example, there are plenty of examples in the Old Testament where tragedies and catastrophes are justified and the victims blamed for their faults as sinners.“

As far as this generation is concerned, victim-blaming became a household term, derived from the questioning of a woman after being the victim of an assault. The line of questioning sounds something like this:

Were you drinking?

What were you wearing?

Did you put up a fight?

This is perceived, and sometimes rightly so, as a line of questioning designed to implicate the victim and potentially throw some, if not all responsibility of the incident onto the shoulders of the woman herself.

Anyone sensible can agree that a short skirt is not a signal of consent, and neither is imbibing.  Questions involving intoxication, patterned behavior, relationship status, etc. do need to be asked and many times can come off as indelicate, insensitive, or obscene in their perceived motivation, especially when dealing with a victim who is likely distraught. 

Although the questions can be uncomfortable, so is the truth, and if truth is the aim, the questions should not be labeled as perverse or accusatory.

In fact, you may very well need to ask all sorts of questions — beyond any personal judgments, because you won’t know which information may matter at the time. The Atlanta murders were mostly black adolescent males. Ted Bundy had a specific target for brunettes. Roughly fifty percent of all murders involve intoxication, and although there are disagreements on the exact number, a high percentage (up to 74%, the highest rate I could find) of sexual assaults involve intoxication as well. Nearly 93% percent of juvenile victims know their assailants.

The answers to some uncomfortable questions can lead to a broader understanding of statistics and can ultimately lead to information that can be used in preventive measures. Without asking some questions, these statistics would never be known.

Viewing the victim as innocent and therefore noble is also a human trait, but like all human traits, it needs to be protected from overcorrection.

The idea that we shall not blame the victim has become a mantra lately, albeit a dampened one. Even when the term victim-blaming is not being used, its logic and its reasoning are found deep in our society and our conversations. 

The perception is that any line of questioning directed towards a victim, or a perceived victim, or, in most cases, a perceived victim based on group identity, is inappropriate, rude, racist, sexist, etc. Having empathy for a victim, and treating them carefully, especially, with sensitivity and compassion, again, are very human qualities. But is it spared from overcorrection when applied to everything and dominates the process of our rhetoric?

What are, if any, the consequences when the mantra of not blaming the victims is expanded to broader categories of race relations, trans folks, those who live in poverty, and those who may personally be victims of nothing? I find there to be many unintended consequences of not “blaming the victim” and its adjacent logic— meaning, there are consequences of blindly accepting the words of any alleged victim or victim group without further reflections or conversation.

As the logic expands, it encapsulates not just the idea that you should not blame the victim, but also that their victimhood can’t be questioned. That the claim of being a victim is so self-evident that it must stand as immune to any type of scrutiny or challenge. It is now easy to graph the overcorrection of victim-blaming to believe all women.

Why would one have to believe all women? (Or a better question, how does one even attempt to control what one believes?) Typically, humans have gut feelings about what they believe. You can also have an intuition, an instinct, a personality type that may lend itself to being more inquisitive, less trustworthy, more trustworthy, less empathetic, and more empathetic.

We believe what we believe intuitively — but to not be stubborn about it, in light of deliberation, new evidence, testimony, or an epiphany is the key here.

“Believe all women” is an overcorrected rhetorical response and not a serious position. Personally, I see no problem in withholding judgment. On just about any topic, I may have instincts about what I believe, instantly, as the story is received. The trick is, again, not being stubborn about new information. This is why we need facts — especially when they are contrary to our beliefs.

Judson Vereen, author (Like a Bird Knows To Sing, 62 Poems, American Pleasure) and artist. Pursuits include painting, film, music, and poetry. Vereen lives with his wife in Brazil. www.judsonvereen.com.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

JSV
2023