Rethinking Responsibility: Changing the Narrative on Spiking
Director’s Blog: Originally Posted on LinkedIn on December 21, 2024 by Managing Director Lisa Charlotte Davis
The Wrong Message: Blaming the Victim
I’m supposed to have switched off for Christmas after a minor operation and the need to take it easy, rest and recover.
But this spiking image (on the left) has really annoyed me!!!
Haven’t we addressed this before?!?!?!
The image on the right (produced by Bettie Hope Hanley for our What’s All the Fuss About? learning resource) is what the message SHOULD BE.
How are we going to “stamp out spiking” if we direct our communications at those on the receiving end of it as opposed to those DOING IT!!!!!
We might think, but this is sensible practical advice, like wearing a seatbelt (I have been told this by an old man at a business networking event) — avoid danger…
But if Gisele Pelicot has shown us anything, it is that we cannot always avoid danger.
The Real Issue: Challenging the Culture
And so, if we don’t like that a certain kind of danger happens to women — let’s address why it happens.
It does not happen because of what a woman wears (as a young man wondered aloud to me at an educational event recently).
Some comment that Gisele Pelicot was a “perfect victim” and therefore not representative because it is clear there were no other actions she could have taken (for those inclined to victim-blame). But sadly, her case is a useful example because it shows that there are men who think that sex with an obviously unconsenting woman is desirable.
And this gives us an opportunity to ask why.
This extract from Rebecca Solnit’s piece — questioning whether the Pelicot case will prompt men to “engage with the culture that led us here” — suggests one answer:
“Many of Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists denied they were rapists, assumed that her husband was entitled to give them permission to assault her while she was unconscious.”
The bottom line is patriarchy. The assumption that women are somehow “for” men. That men are entitled to sex. That a woman needs to give it.
As one of the lovely male students we worked with recently wrote on a campaign placard (in a session for Cassandra Jones at Northumbria University) —
“Not All Men But It’s Enough.”
It’s enough.
Sex is to be mutually enjoyed by whichever consenting adults wish to engage in it. It should not be a weapon to get off on the perception of one’s greater power over another.
This party season, can we please switch the narrative of responsibility?