Is So-Called Victim Blaming Always Bad?

Recently, Cee Lo Green, Ray Rice, and Adrian Peterson have personified the triple threat of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. One motif throughout discussions of these cases is the idea that any discussion at all of the victim’s behavior constitutes “blaming the victim” and should be shut down. Such excursions might include inquiry into the conduct of the victim prior to the crime, what the victim was doing there in the first place, who started the conflict, and so on.

The same monitoring does not occur with other types of crime, such as robbery or theft. The world is quick to point out that it was not a good idea to leave your stuff in your car where someone could see it through the window but is constrained from pointing out that certain outfits and drinking habits can endanger you.

The difference, of course, is that the world has always blamed the robber and thief, but the world has been and remains ambivalent about criminalizing sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. Indeed, in many parts of the world, and in the USA until somewhat recently, many examples of these behaviors were not criminalized at all, and many juries still nullify these kinds of prosecutions by acquitting the perpetrator (as if Michael Vick’s dogs were somehow more vulnerable than Adrian Peterson’s son). In that context, any discussion of the victim’s conduct can be read as meaning that she invited or deserved or condoned the crime. The great advantage of silencing all references to the victim’s behavior, then, is that legally and morally, her behavior is irrelevant.

Psychologically, however, there is much to be gained by understanding the victim’s piece. With respect to prevention, understanding the conditions that lead to crime can facilitate safety. College women should not get drunk (or drink anything that was left unattended) not because it makes them morally contributory but because it’s a sensible approach to personal safety. If a woman thinks there’s a good chance of her getting hit during an argument, she should seriously consider leaving the relationship—but she should also avoid arguments until the issue has been clarified. Getting into an argument doesn’t mean she would be blameworthy for getting hit; it just means she would be putting herself at risk.

When you are not allowed to discuss the victim’s characteristics or behaviors in any way, you inadvertently paint a picture of the crime as occurring between a predator or monster and an innocent bystander. For example, if a man breaks into a locked house in the nighttime and rapes a stranger in her bedroom, there is nothing to say about her. A date rape victim is just as morally and legally innocent as the stranger sleeping in her own bed, but the psychology of the situation is very different. Most prevention efforts will be more effective if they are designed to protect women from date rapes or acquaintance rapes and assaults by partners, and this can only happen by looking at the victim, too.

Further, and this seems particularly salient to me, prevention efforts will be more effective if men can identify with them. When sexual assault is painted as an attack by a psychopathic predator, the vast majority of men capable of committing a more typical sexual assault do not see themselves in the picture. They probably think the prevention efforts are directed at truly evil men while thinking their own conduct is somehow justified or not as bad as that of the housebreaking psychopath.

Analogously, when it comes to treating perpetrators, there are intense political pressures to characterize them, even in the bounds of the therapy, as monsters. I shudder to think what would happen to a sex offender therapist who said publicly that the problem is not pedophilia but its expression. Consequently, many sex offenders cannot engage in therapy because they do not see themselves accurately portrayed in therapists' construction of them. Refusal to discuss the victim’s behavior paints them as housebreaking or lying-in-wait psychopaths, not as what most of them are. Also, many offenders need to learn to avoid situations and signals that they misread, sort of like the way many alcoholics need to avoid places where alcohol is served. If the therapist is forbidden to discuss the victim’s behavior, the relevant situations cannot be identified.

When it comes to the treatment of victims, they are often encouraged to take no responsibility at all for what happened. This proposed role of total innocence often conflicts with their narrative of events, which usually includes a more nuanced view of the perpetrator than the one implied by “absolutely, totally his fault and his fault alone.” A more productive, healthy narrative cannot be imposed as if on a blank slate; it must start with and tweak the patient’s narrative. Further, to the extent that the patient is ambivalent about the perpetrator (someone she knows or thinks she loves), painting him as a monster puts her in the reciprocal position of reminding herself that he is not one. Systemically, it makes more sense to remain neutral about his violence, so she can explore it herself, or even to represent some of his positive qualities, so she can refute them.

Finally, the treatment of victims should be empowering. Some brave researchers have shown that, for example, rape victims who partially blame themselves do better in the aftermath than victims who do not. Presumably, this is because the woman who partly blames herself also gives herself something she can do about it in the future, giving her a sense of agency that violent crime often deprives her of. And some sense of responsibility may also benefit the victim because it comports better with the evidence available to her, and a healthy narrative has to account for the salient facts if it is to be psychologically productive.

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So please, before silencing inquiries into the victim’s behavior as “blaming the victim,” make sure to distinguish morality and law on the one hand, where I welcome it, and prevention and treatment on the other, where it can create obstacles.