Placing the blame on the perpetrators, not the victims

Former Victorian Police Chief, Ken Lay is one of many authorities to have emphasised the importance of fostering anti-violence, and pro-respect attitudes towards girls and women among boys and young men. He has stressed the importance of placing the blame for violence against women on perpetrators, and not on victims.
“When it (violence against women) happens we might think, ‘Well, why did she marry him?’ just as we might think of a rape victim, ‘Well, why was she wearing a short skirt?’
“When we imagine this sort of complicity for the victim — when we essentially blame them — we are congratulating ourselves for our superior judgment, a judgment that will ensure it never happens to us.
“When we do this, we come up with the wrong answers about why violence happens.”
He wants everyone to help bust the myth that victims of family or sexual violence are complicit in their own abuse, and reminds all of us — including parents — that disparaging attitudes towards girls and women are at one end of the “continuum of violence against women”. While the connection between attitudes kids don’t even know they hold and violent behaviours later in life may seem difficult to grasp, it’s been found to be real.
In the US, anti-violence educators have suggested having “the domestic violence talk” with boys and girls is up there in importance with “the sex talk”, and the earlier the better.
According to Our Watch CEO, Paul Linossier, teaching children to, “reject the stereotypes that seek to define and pigeonhole men and woman, boys and girls into limiting gender categories, roles and behaviours” is extremely important.
“Boys and men are socialised to believe that being tough, emotionless and aggressive are the hallmarks of masculinity,” he said. “Girls and women are continually sexualised and undervalued … restrictive stereotypes ripen the conditions for men’s violence against women to occur and to be tolerated.”