In any case, one thing I think we can be reasonably sure of is that people were asked in this survey about their attitudes to women who are raped, not women who claim to have been

I expect that this subtlety was lost on most of the respondents, and that the distressingly large amount of false claims plays a significant role in affecting how people think about these things.

Agreed, but I don’t think that’s what the survey results indicate. Malcolm does a good job of outlining the difference between responsibility and blame.

If someone sets out to sail across the Atlantic, gets caught in a storm and dies, I expect a lot of people would say he or she “should accept some responsibility” for their unfortunate end. But I doubt those people would say the unlucky sailor did anything morally wrong, or deserved to die.

Of course, the problem is that “dressing provocatively” or “going home / getting into bed with a stranger” does attract the condemnation of a significant number of people in our society. But this survey isn’t very illuminating because we can’t seem to tell (from the way the questions were worded) what proportion of people would blame the victim as opposed to thinking the victim had done nothing wrong but had nevertheless put him/herself at greater risk, while not excusing the rapist for their actions at all.

What percentage of a survey would agree that leaving your front door open puts you at greater risk of burglary? Probably a large majority. What percentage of the same survey would blame the victim and excuse the burglar because the victim was clearly “asking to have their TV ripped off”? Probably a small minority. How many people – if sitting on a jury – would fail to convict a burglar on these grounds? Hopefully none. These crucial distinctions don’t seem to be made in this survey, rendering it a bit useless to the debate IMHO.

Andrew – I wouldn’t claim to know why most rape claims are dropped. But it obviously isn’t “safe to assume that most of those were false claims”. You can’t possibly know that, and it’s not at all safe to assume it. In any case, one thing I think we can be reasonably sure of is that people were asked in this survey about their attitudes to women who are raped, not women who claim to have been, so it’s not a relevant consideration.

We haven’t see the survey questions; but it may need some further research to identify the proportion of people who take the “responsibility isn’t blame” line and the proportion who do see the victims as wholly or partly to blame when they dress provocatively, get drunk, get into bed with the attacker etc.

– A bit over half the rape claims reported to the police are then dropped by the accuser. It’s safe to assume that most of those were false claims. This is not helping.
– There are some cases which represent an error on the part of the accused, rather than criminal intent. This is usually due to mutual intoxication and poor communication. While the act may technically be rape, these cases need to be handled differently.
– There’s still a significant number of cases which don’t fall into either of those groups, and are straightforward violent assault.

Part of the problem is that we muddle all of these cases together and talk about them as a group. People then react based on which subset they were thinking about. People who say the victim was partly or wholly responsible are probably not thinking about the ‘violent assault’ case.

No, it most certainly isn’t. “Blame” involves censure – to blame someone is to say that they have done something bad, with bad consequences. To say that someone is (whether partially or fully) responsible for something reflects only on the consequences – or perhaps only on the predictable consequences – without necessarily attaching any moral stigma. It’s a really important difference.

“It seems odd to me to say “the woman was responsible for what happened, but the man is to blame”.”

This is another case of blurring the question to produce an answer that wasn’t really given. It’s only odd because implicit in the paraphrase you offer is that the woman was wholly responsible, and the man is wholly to blame. That would be strange. But to say “the woman was partly responsible for what happened, but the man is to blame” isn’t odd at all. (I wouldn’t say “partly to blame”, because I don’t think that blame is reduced by being shared – another distinction from responsibility.)

It seems odd to me to say “the woman was responsible for what happened, but the man is to blame”.

I can quite understand three quarters of women thinking that if a woman has got into bed with a man, she has significantly increased the likelihood of a sexual act taking place; and more than a third thinking that if a woman has dressed provocatively she is giving out some sort of signal that she is responsible for. Both of those thoughts are very different from “You did that and you got raped – so you’re to blame”.

He was initially convicted, but I recall was quickly quashed on appeal.

Looking at such cases, the juries would think “it’s not as if he leapt out from behind a bush and dragged his victim off at knifepoint”, and err on the side of the only caution they have.

Parents – mothers and fathers – in the jury may look at the accused and see their son.

As it’s been done with complex financial issues, I do think there’s a case for rape trials being heard by a panel of specially trained judges rather than juries. Whatever we say, we are still unsettled by sexual discussions which often are cloaked in euphemisms and mumblings. There may be people who’d be willing to get up in public and describe consensual sex in terms of “then he kissed and licked my ****, before pushing his **** into it where he moved it back and forwards until we both ****”.

I would find that odd.

How many people are answering the question about victims having “some responsibility” in the sense that Alec uses it in the context of pickpocketing, only to see their answers translated (as in the opening sentence of this article) as referring to the rather different issue of culpability?