Ever thought that a rape victim’s behaviour is responsible for their rape, a battered woman for her beating? Ever viewed people living in poverty as lazy, those sufferers from illness, mental or physical, as having invited their disease through poor lifestyle choices? Wondered if a bullied child asked to be bullied?
‘Victim blaming’ is an unconscious defence mechanism protecting us from feeling vulnerable. We would like to believe in a just world where actions have predictable consequences and people can control what happens to them, where good happens to the good and bad to the bad. ‘Victims’ threaten that belief.
‘Victim blaming’ is an unconscious defence mechanism protecting us from feeling vulnerable. We would like to believe in a just world where actions have predictable consequences and people can control what happens to them, where good happens to the good and bad to the bad. ‘Victims’ threaten that belief.
When bad things happen to good people, the
implication is that no one is safe, no matter how good we are, and that we too
could be vulnerable.
In order to restore the equilibrium in our minds, we blame the
victim. “If they deserved their ‘punishment’ then I am safe, because I wouldn’t
have done what they did.”
A victim, by definition, is passive. Nothing the victim did
can be the reason for what happened to them.
STOP BLAMING THE VICTIM
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