Are woman guilty of being victims?

Thursday 02 October 08

The shocking results of a survey carried out in Northern Ireland have been published this week. The poll surveyed the attitudes and experiences of over 700 students across University of Ulster campuses.

On the light of these results half of the students have worryingly sexist attitudes towards violence against women. Almost half of them believe women who flirt only have themselves to blame if they end up being raped and according to 46% of the young people interviewed for the study rape victims who flirted with their attacker are partially or totally responsible for what happened to them. Not only male students are of this opinion but also a part of the surveyed females.

After reading this, it won’t surprise anyone that domestic violence against female students is apparently widespread in Northern Ireland and sometimes even acceptable, in the eyes of one in 10 students. If a part of the sample justifies violence is probably partly because they have being in contact with it. And if they justify violence, they are more likely to commit it.

Loads of beliefs, regarding how a good girl should be and how is supposed to act a proper man, underpin these ideas. I wonder if youngsters with these ideas don’t feel oppressed by them sometimes.

But I also wonder why adults appear to be so shocked by these results, since many of their own actions and beliefs are sexist and violent and teach these values to young people.

What’s your own opinion about it? How do you explain these results? What do you think can be done in order to tackle the problem of violence against women?