Victim blaming

Victim-blaming consists of holding victims of crimes or other misfortunes wholly or partly responsible for what has happened to them.

For example: a motorist who leaves a car unlocked with the keys in the ignition may seem partly responsible if another party steals the car. Or persons who use verbal abuse may count as partly responsible if they suffer a physical assault.

In the context of rape, this concept refers to popular attitudes that behaviour such as flirting or wearing sexually provocative clothing may encourage rape: that such actions resemble leaving one's car with the keys in the ignition or provoking an assault by "winding up" the assailant. In extreme cases people may accuse victims of "asking for it" by not behaving demurely.

The theory depends on the view that a prospective victim should know and acknowledge either human nature or other facts of life when making decisions. Thus persons may appear blame-worthy if they act recklessly or with negligence. Laws acknowledge this concept in some areas, for example when a driver ignores the rules of the road. However, victim-blaming does not simply imply that the perpetrator behaved recklessly, but that the victim should take responsibility for the criminal. This implies that the victim creates temptation which tests the perpetrator's resolve.

Note that insurance contracts by implication endorse the concept of victim-blaming when they require an insured party to take due care of insured items.

The idea of victim-blaming can also apply to people who become victims of accidents, natural disasters, or other personal misfortunes. Commentators may blame the victims of these misfortunes for not succeeding in preventing or overcoming their misfortune. Thus, for example, the poor receive blame for their fecklessness, and the victims of famine for not having had the foresight to prepare stocks of food.

Some have proposed that one cause of the phenomenon of victim-blaming involves the Just-world phenomenon, where people who tend to regard the world as a just place cannot accept a situation in which a person suffers for no good reason. Therefore, they reason, people who become victims of misfortune must have done something to bring that misfortune upon themselves. This theory dates from very ancient times: the biblical Book of Job offers a canonical exploration of it.

Supporters of this view (once referred to as "Job's comforters ") must perforce accept that to do otherwise would require them to give up their belief in a just world, and require them to believe in a world where bad things -- such as poverty, rape, starvation, and murder -- can happen to good people for no good reason. The cognitive dissonance in doing this becomes too great, and results in victim-blaming.

External links

• Just World hypothesis
• The Just World hypothesis