Poster from This is Not an Invitation to Rape Me Campaign

London Student carried out a survey of over 1,000 students at 119 Higher Education institutions the results are truly depressing.

Participants were given six scenarios and asked whether a woman would be totally responsible, partially responsible or not at all responsible for being raped in each.

If a woman was raped when drunk, 31 per cent of students think she’d be partly responsible and a further three per cent that she’d be totally responsible.

Flirting was seen as making a woman partially responsible by twenty-seven per cent of students, with two per cent branding her totally responsible in that situation.

A whopping 44 per cent of students would say the woman was responsible if she’d failed to say ‘no’ clearly to the man, and another four per cent that she was totally responsible.

And if she is alone and walking in a dangerous or deserted area, five per cent of students say she’d be totally responsible for being raped and 26 per cent would hold her partially responsible.

The number of students blaming a woman for being raped were lower given the scenarios that she was wearing sexy or revealing clothes or that she’d had many sexual partners, with 17 per cent saying she’d be partially responsible and two totally responsible in the first instance, and 11 and two per cent in the second.

Male students were on average more likely to consider a woman in some way responsible for being raped than their female colleagues, with the most notable difference of opinion being if a woman was wearing ‘sexy or revealing clothes’. Twenty-six per cent of male students said she’d be totally or partially responsible for being raped in that instance, compared to 14 per cent of female students. Source: London Student.

Laura Woodhouse at The F-Word sums up succinctly

So not only are young people continuing to perpetuate the same old myths about rape, female “responsibility” and men’s inability to control their dicks, but young women continue to internalise the generally misplaced fear of being raped by a stranger when walking alone or in certain parts of town, while some male students appear to feel a need to justify male sexual violence against women, or at least to defend their apparent ‘right’ to access women’s bodies. Source: The F-Word.

You’d hope that attitudes like these would have vanished amongst the younger generation – particularly benefiting from a university education.

Hat Tip: Stroppy Blog.