You Didn't Say No Or Why Women Don't Fight When Violent

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

People wonder why the woman didn't "resist" during the rape. However, they are not surprised when a woman refuses to argue. They are not surprised when she is interrupted. They are not surprised when she specifically speaks in a quieter, more dispassionate voice. They are not surprised when women give clear signals that they are not interested in the conversation, or that they do not like someone else's physical intimacy, but their desires are ignored. No one is surprised by everyday social situations in which women behave quietly, in which they are ignored, perceived as invisible, because such social situations are considered the norm. They seem normal to women, they seem to be normal to men, because we all grew up in the same cultural sandbox, drank the same potion.

And all of a sudden, when women are being raped, all of these natural and invisible social behaviors are used as evidence that the woman was not actually raped. Because she didn’t fight, didn’t shout loudly, didn’t run, didn’t kick, didn’t hit her fist. She let him into her room, although it was clear what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. After a while, she stopped saying no.

These social behaviors that are taught to women are not just oil for the wheels of patriarchy. Women are taught that obeying these rules is their protection and that they will be punished for breaking these rules.

This is a damn rude awakening from illusions, when a woman is raped, and she follows the rules that she was taught to follow all her life - she does not refuse to talk, does not refuse to flirt, does not walk away, ignoring him, does not hit, does not shout, does not fight, does not raises her voices, does not deny that she liked kissing - and it turns out that now she will be accused of rape. She followed the rules. The very rules that supposedly were supposed to protect her from rape. The very rules, failure to comply with which makes her a “legitimate target” for verbal and physical violence.

It was assumed that the punishment is due to the violation of these rules, and not for their observance. Because every time she spoke in a low voice, abandoned her own boundaries, did not step back, allowed her own needs to be ignored, she received positive reinforcement from society. And now they tell her that she did everything wrong, that it was an exceptional case when everything had to be done the other way around, and she should have known about it, yeah.

If you have ever observed the gendered social behavior of women, you have seen how a woman hunted down to unpleasant attention to her; how a woman speaking is interrupted; how the woman stubbornly denies that she was upset by the public insult; how a woman is pawed because of what she is wearing; as a woman refuses to argue - and they did not say or did anything, then you have no right to ask the question: "Why did she not resist?"

She didn't resist because you told her not to. Never. Under no circumstances. You told her that this is normal, necessary and correct

An excerpt from a closed post that was quoted here.