Victim Blaming

Victim blaming is when someone holds another person who has been victimised partially or fully at fault for their experience. It can be direct or indirect, unconscious or explicit. It can be done by people of any age or gender but may be more likely to happen to people from minorityitised groups (LGBTQ+, adults and children with learning and/or support needs, Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic people).

There are two types of people who victim blame. The first are those who have a vested interest in doing so (e.g. the rapist, their lawyer or their employer). The second are those who don’t have anything to gain by victim blaming but choose to do so anyway. The impact of victim blaming is that it silences victims. It can mean they do not seek help or report their traumatic experience to the police, that they do not get mental health services and/or that they do not access financial supports. It also means they do not feel safe to talk to other people about what happened to them.

Some of the most obvious examples of victim blaming are questions like “did she deserve it?” or “did she do something to provoke him?” which suggest that the assault was the victim’s fault. This is not only unhelpful but it can put survivors in greater danger, for example by encouraging them to go out alone, or even to return to their abusers out of fear that they will be blamed again.

It is equally damaging when friends, family members and community members victim blame survivors. This can be as simple as telling rape jokes or dismissing a survivor’s story, but it can also include making survivors feel intimidated or afraid, using their children against them, belittling or talking down to them, manipulating them into discussing their experience with their abuser or making them feel bad about disclosing their experience. These actions can all be classed as revictimisation, and can lead to the survivor returning to their abuser out of fear or a lack of other options.

Finally, when it comes to legal proceedings, judges who hold victim blaming attitudes can re-traumatise survivors by delivering verdicts that allow abusive men and women to walk free or by putting them on extremely lightweight sentences. The general public can take a number of steps to address this including writing open letters, protesting unfair verdicts, signing petitions and calling for judges to be recalled/disciplined.

Ultimately, the best way to counter victim blaming is to ensure that survivors are heard. If a friend or family member does victim blame, remind them that it is not their fault and reassure them that what they experienced was not their choice. It is also vital to educate ourselves about consent and how to recognise situations in which consent cannot be given. Educating ourselves can also prevent the perpetrators of violence from being let off the hook. This can be achieved by teaching our peers and young people about the importance of consent, how to identify situations in which consent is not given and what the law says about it.