Victim blaming: when the victim is blamed
In an ideal world, a girl victim of revenge porn - the illicit sharing of intimate material - would be protected and protected by both the law and the community. In the real world, however, the young woman loses her job and her dignity. This is not a fictional story, but a fact that really happened at the end of 2020 in a small town in the province of Turin. There, a teacher is threatened and fired following the unauthorized disclosure of a video that portrayed her in intimate attitudes with her ex-boyfriend. To share the video, the latter. Although it is clear - or rather, it should be - that the real and only culprit of the affair is the boy, it was she, the victim, who suffered the humiliation and the media pillory. This recent news story is a clear example of victim blaming, a perverse phenomenon that has polluted society from time to time and which we urgently need to talk about every day.
What's this?
Victim blaming is the psychological tendency to blame the victim for what they have suffered. It is a phenomenon that affects and sees women especially when they are victims of sexual, domestic violence or other forms of abuse. We are witnessing this "reverse" blame process when the victim is held responsible, if not totally at least partially, for the offense suffered, whether it is a "simple" misfortune or a real crime.
See also
Secondary victimization
A direct consequence of this mentality is secondary victimization, an expression which refers to the fact that the victim is also suffering a second offense. We could exemplify the concept, referring to the popular saying "in addition to injury also insult". This attitude is found above all in cases of rape. Often people who are sexually abused are either not believed or considered partially guilty of what happened. Franca Rame herself, an Italian actress and playwright, after being raped, had to suffer a second form of violence due to the insidious and impertinent questions of agents, doctors and lawyers who, instead of defending her and punishing the guilty, asked her: "You enjoyed? Has he reached orgasm? If so, how many times? ”, Implying that he was partly consenting to the rape.
The consequences of secondary victimization
Furthermore, this phenomenon is particularly dangerous also because it discourages victims from denouncing the wrongs they have suffered. These, in fact, fear of falling in turn into the trap of secondary victimization, thus being not only humiliated but also accused of being the real culprits. On the other hand, those who trust in justice and in the good sense of society risk being disappointed, having to clash with reactions that are anything but supportive. In both cases, the victim must deal with a devastating trauma and with the blame wrongly attributed to her.
Why do people blame the victim?
The reasons behind the victim blaming are quite complex and deserve a separate study. One of the reasons why society tends to clear the guilty and blame the victim lies in the "just world" theory, an idea that people are unable to accept that negative things happen even to those who do not deserve them. . In their eyes, it would be an unjustified reversal of the social order to which, in the impossibility of finding a rational answer, the victim is blamed, unfairly treated as a scapegoat.
In addition to this explanation, this practice has its roots within a profoundly masculine and patriarchal social structure, for which the woman - Eva docet - is always perceived as a source of sin and temptation and never as a symbol of innocence. But, despite the premise, do not naively believe that it is only men who are complicit in this attitude.If on the one hand, in fact, these represent the majority, there is certainly no shortage of women lined up in the front row to point the finger at the victims rather than the perpetrators. Man adopts this attitude in a desperate attempt to defend the "category" to which he belongs and not see his own sexual gender tarnished. Women, on the other hand, are victims - if we can say so - of the "illusion of control": these, in fact, fearing to suffer the same violence or wrong inflicted on the victim, look for something in the latter's behavior that may have triggered the executioner's reaction, so as to avert the danger of an unjustified crime that they themselves could suffer without having any responsibility. Or, it may happen that these same women have in turn been victims of harassment or abuse without ever obtaining justice and this has convinced them that this is the only possible way to deal with similar episodes.
Paradoxically, envy also plays a fundamental role in the act of victim blaming. The attention and words of comfort reserved for those who have suffered a crime can generate hatred in some people, often frustrated and lacking in empathy. Or, as in the case of revenge porn, envy of a publicly disdained but privately coveted sexual freedom.
Furthermore, let us not forget that we are living in a society driven by extreme envy, in which it is increasingly rare to find traces of genuine and disinterested solidarity between human beings.
A problem of bad journalism
There is also a certain amount of bad information at the origin of the victim blaming. Often journalists, both men and women, report the news in an intentionally equivocal and misleading way, dwelling on the merits of the perpetrator, implying that he was absolutely not violent in nature but was only going through a difficult period, and emphasizing, on the contrary , certain characteristics or attitudes of the victim, such as the clothing worn at the time of the rape, which would act as a mitigating factor for the seriousness of the crime suffered. By doing so, the media with their enormous power influence the opinion of the reader and this is evident in an obvious way from the comments section under certain articles relating to news stories, in which it is possible to perceive the perverse mentality behind this phenomenon for which the innocent does not generate punishment but blame.
Victim blaming in sexual violence
As previously pointed out, the dynamics of victim blaming comes into play especially in cases of sexual violence. Reactions to news of a rape are often tinged with indignation, not at the rapist, but at the person raped. Striving to find an explanation for such a brutal event, public opinion tends to focus on the victim's conduct, asking misplaced questions, including the most common: "how was she dressed?" / "Had he been drinking?" / "What was he doing there, all alone, at that hour?", Which totally take the criminal off his own, turning the situation upside down in a paradoxical way and discrediting those who had the sole fault of running into the wrong person.
Victim blaming in domestic violence
But public opinion finds room for skepticism even when it comes to domestic violence. At the news of the umpteenth woman beaten or, worse, killed by her husband / partner / boyfriend / ex, there is no shortage of inappropriate questions from those who want at all costs to find a fund of guilt in the victim. "Why didn't he ever report him?", "Why didn't he leave him before?", "Why did he come to make such a gesture?", These are just some of the most common - and devious - questions raised in these cases. And it is exactly this dangerous reaction that pushes more and more victims to self-blame to find a justification for the violent behavior of the person they love and from whom they delude themselves into being loved, coming to endure the unbearable until it is too late. And who could have helped them, did nothing but point the finger at them.
Known cases of victim blaming
Harvey Weinstein, Alberto Genovese, Marilyn Manson are just three of the names of well-known sexual predators, whose abuses have jumped to the news following complaints that over time would have only been destined to grow. But despite the myriad of evidence and testimonies, despite the founding of a powerful and impacting movement like Me Too, thanks to which more and more people have found the courage to come out and name and surname, these facts have turned into media trials in which the victims were accused, found guilty of the treatment suffered as, in the eyes of public opinion, unscrupulous careerists.
Chiara Ferragni's message during Denim Day
A public figure who, on the other hand, has spent several times on the protection of victims of abuse is Chiara Ferragni. The influencer addressed all those who have suffered rape and did so on a particular day, Denim Day. On this day, in fact, we remember the historic and shameful "jeans sentence", a terrible flaw in the system Italian judicial law which took place in the 1990s. A rapist is acquitted by the Italian Court of Cassation because the girl was wearing tight jeans and, consequently, the assailant would never have been able to take them off without her consent.
The story has rightly aroused many reactions and controversies and the resulting social initiative is testimony to how much work there is still to be done before justice takes its course, fully taking the side of the victims. Without ifs and buts. Just like Chiara Ferragni did, with whose speech we want to conclude our digression and instill a message of hope: "It was not your fault and you are better than how you were treated. If you are victims of something wrong, do not keep it to yourself. . Talk about it, because - today more than ever - you are not alone. [...] You are not alone, you are heroes ".
