Victim blaming is when the victim is blamed for a crime or accident. It can stem from a belief in a just world or invulnerability. It is associated with biases and is often seen in cases of rape, abuse, and economic inequality. However, there are exceptions where the victim may be responsible. Victim blaming is often built into a culture or community, but laws like “rape shield” have been introduced to prevent it.
Victim blaming occurs when the blame for a crime or accident is placed on the victim of the situation. Some sociologists believe that victim blaming is often a fallacious way of analyzing an incident and can develop from a tendency to believe that the world is generally just and that people get what they deserve. Victim blaming is often associated with racial, economic, or cultural biases, but it is also frequently cited as a common thought process in issues of rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence.
The basic thought process of victim blaming tends to state that the victim somehow caused their own injury or harm. In the case of rape, a classic example of victim blaming is an assailant claiming that his victim caused the rape by dressing provocatively. In economic bias, one form of victim blaming might be that the poor stay poor because they are lazy and unskilled.
Rejecting all “victim blaming” arguments is problematic, because in some cases people can indeed bring their own misfortune. If a reckless driver crashes into a telephone pole, he could be at fault even if he sustains injuries. If a husband is killed by his wife while attempting to beat her to death, the death may be dismissed as self-defense, rather than charged with murder. Since there are exceptions to every rule, it is logically impossible to say that a person harmed by a crime is never responsible for the circumstances.
Some sociological experts suggest that the “victim blaming” mentality is often built into the fabric of a culture or community. Rape of women is often the prime example of a situation where a victim is likely to be blamed for the situation. In the late 20th century, several legal systems moved to introduce “rape shield” laws, which prohibit defense attorneys in a rape trial from asking the victim about her sexual history on the grounds that past promiscuity has no have no bearing on an assault issue. Prior to the use of rape shields, it was not uncommon for defense teams to suggest that a promiscuous person, or one who had consented to sex in the past, could not be raped. In some legal systems, it remains routine for the assumption of guilt to be placed on the victim rather than the accused rapist.
Some experts attribute the presence of victim-blaming philosophies to one of two worldviews, known as the concepts of “just world” and “invulnerability.” According to a just world philosophy, people generally get what they are getting; therefore a person suffering misfortune must have brought it upon himself. In invulnerability theory, a person can assume that they are invulnerable to harm done to a victim, since he or she would not make the same choices.
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