Dear Editor:I’ve spent the last week driving my English 101 students mad with my incessant ramblings about what I consider to be the two most important aspects of writing:knowing their audience and paying attention to the implications of what they choose to put on the page. I am always on the lookout for good “teaching texts,” particularly those that I can point to and say this is where things went wrong. I’d like to thank Charlie for Thursday’s column, “Rape can and needs to be prevented,” which, sadly, has given me so many “good” examples.

I can summarize Charlie’s underlying argument in four words:Women are to blame. I offer the following quotes as support for this claim:(1) “people (meaning women) seem to care so little as to make themselves perfect targets for this sort of crap,” (2) “people, especially girls, need to just make better decisions,” (3) “as horrible as it sounds, a skirt probably isn’t the best decision,” (4) “the way you present yourself to people can put you in a horrible position,” (5) “the thing I hold most responsible, even more so than the bad decisions already made, is the booze. Ladies, lay off the juice, please,” (6) “why don’t you just make it a rufie colada while you’re at it – in fact, make it a double,” and (just in case we somehow “overlooked” his main points) the final summary (7) “people (still women) still need to be making better decisions, especially in the way they present themselves, the situations they put themselves in and, most of all, the ingredients, like booze, which add to the situation.”

What I find most remarkable about this article is that, in almost 3,000 printed words, not once does Charlie point the finger of blame in the direction of men. They are, after all, the ones dragging women into bushes, pinning them down, disregarding what are apparently insignificant things like fear, screaming and the ever-ignored word no. Here’s a thought, Charlie:How about pointing a finger, preferably the middle one, their way for just one moment. Even better, how about stopping to consider the implications of what you write before it goes to press. Perhaps the solution to the “rape crisis” in this country isn’t to offer a “wake up call” to all the “chicks” of the world, many of who are apparently “fools.” Perhaps the solution is to stop and ask what message is sent to men by a society that constantly portrays women as “asking for it.” Perhaps we need to point the finger at ourselves and the judgments that we make.

Advertisement

Graduate student in English