Gang rape? Always the fault of the gang.

Sometimes I have moments where I don't want to reason anymore, I just want to fling a shoe at someone whom is being such a complete tool and with whom reason just wouldn't work anyway.

Case in point:

A Florida lawmaker wants to institute a school dress code to prevent sexual assault on children, in light of what happened in oneTexas town where an 11-year-old girl was gang raped and where everyone in the town available for a quote talked about how nice those rapists young men were and how that 11-year-old totally dressed like a skank.

Just wow.

The most obvious flaw being that this horrific, violent, 100%-the-fault-of-the-perpetrators-and-not-the-victim crime didn't happen on school grounds.

AND how you are dressed has nothing to do with being sexually assaulted.

And that this is total douche-baggery victim-blaming, which perpetuates and exacerbates rape culture (for those of you not "up" on rape culture, it's basically a culture that institutionalizes, permits and encourages rape. If that's not a good enough explanation feel free to wiki it or read this excellent post).

If victims (because men are victims too) are the only ones responsible for preventing crimes against them, we are all fucked.

There is no winning in rape culture.

None of the myriad of (mostly useless) things women (because very few men spend time worrying about this) do every day to prevent being attacked is ever enough to prevent attack (because, more often than not, we know and trust the perpetrator). Especially when victim blaming turns the fault of crimes on the victims.

Think about the other crimes we just don't blame on the victim... what if we started making it their fault?

"Seriously, how could you leave your car parked in the lot at work? You were just asking for the tires to be slashed.  It was such a nice car too... what were you expecting? You're lucky it wasn't stolen. You should have had an alarm."

"Oh, you rode to the store with a friend, obviously it's your fault that you were mugged. And you were wearing a hooded sweatshirt? Jeez, you were just asking for it."

"Please. You weren't a victim of identity theft. No one would evenwant your identity."

"I can't believe you're prosecuting that Ponzi guy! This is totally going to ruin his future. Plus, all those people he bilked out of millions were totally dressed like adults with high IQs. And, except for maybe that one nerdy dude, none of them were virgins."

See? Ridiculous. But that's exactly what we do to rape victims every day.

Most people can connect that just because you left your car door unlocked doesn't make it less shitty that your car radio was stolen and that the person who did it is the criminal--not you, but go up to a famous basketball player's hotel room, or leave your drink uncovered at a bar, or wear a halter top (whether you're 11, 21, 31, 41.... whatever your age) and what else can you expect?

So, how do we fix this?

It isn't enough for women to be enraged. Men should be enraged too--men are actually capable of not acting on urges ; it's insulting to insist they aren't.

It's not enough to simply not be a rapist, statistically, most people aren't; we have to stop tolerating rape culture.

Stop blaming victims.

Stop apologizing for or worrying about people who perpetrate rape. Worry about the victims.

Stop accepting the line that victims are the gatekeepers and thus the only ones responsible for preventing assault. 

Start holding friends, media, and society accountable. 

While we're at it, call Florida state Rep. Kathleen Passidomo (850) 488-4487 and tell her to stop with the victim blaming already.