Sexual consent shouldn’t be a difficult concept for men to get through their heads. In fact, it’s so easy to explain all you need are stick figures and a cup of tea. But recent studies show that 20 percent of women are sexually assaulted at some point during their college years. And many of these assaults go unreported because the survivors fear they’ll be victim-blamed by the legal system. Earlier this week, New Zealand comedienne Alice Brine perfectly explained the double standards women face by using a brilliant role-reversal analogy.
Here’s her post on Facebook:
I’m gunna start going home with random very drunk guys and stealing all of their shit. Everything they own. It won’t be my fault though… they were drunk. They should have known better. I’ll get away with it 90% of the time but then when one brave man takes me to court over it, I’ll argue that I wasn’t sure if he meant it when he said ‘no don’t steal my Audi.’ I just wasn’t sure if he meant it. I said ‘Can I please steal your Gucci watch?’ He said ‘no’ but I just wasn’t sure if he meant it. He was drunk. He brought this on himself.
You should have seen how he was dressed at the club, expensive shirts and shoes. What kind of message is he sending with that!? I thought he wanted me to come and steal all of his shit. He was asking for it. When he said ‘no’ to me taking everything he owned I just didn’t know if he meant it. ‘No’ isn’t objective enough, it could mean anything.
Brine’s consent and victim-blaming analogies are a perfect example of how abused women are undeservedly judged for what they wore, drank, or how they behaved on the night they were victimized. So let’s hope her words keep spreading and will help put an end to the dangerous doubled standards that perpetuate sexual abuse.
