Oh, Look. It's the West Mercia Police being Misogynist. Again.

The West Mercia Police have already been forced to apologise this week for a stunningly, ill-conceived and downright stupid campaign which basically blamed women for being raped. The Feminist backlash campaign, led by the Worcestershire Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre, resulted in this poster being removed [supposedly, and, I say supposedly because I haven't seen any evidence that they have been]:

Drinking alcohol doesn't make you vulnerable to rape. Being with a rapist makes you vulnerable to being raped. Rape isn't sex you regret. Rape is a criminal act perpetrated by a man. Now, I'm not adverse to tattooing all convicted rapists on the forehead but they aren't exactly representative of most rapists since most rapists are never charged; never mind convicted. We live in a rape culture which hero-worships convicted rapists like Mike Tyson and pretends Julian Assange can't possibly be a rapist because he is critical of the military-industrial complex. Or, something. The West Mercia Police's campaign buys into some of the most pernicious and dangerous rape myths which are simply victim-blaming. Frankly, I'm disgusted that this campaign was approved.

Turns out that poster wasn't the only piece of misogynistic twaddle that the West Mercia Police came up with. This one with the genius victim blaming slogan: Let your hair down, not your guard.  

Yep, because being raped is all about letting your guard down. The campaign only makes sense if the West Mercia police have put rapists in charge of their anti-rape campaign. After all, blaming women for being raped only benefits rapists. It doesn't prevent rapes. It doesn't protect women from rapists. And, it doesn't make rapists responsible for being rapists. Whoever conceived of and approved this campaign, needs to be demoted and retrained [or fired. I'd go with fired. There are lots of unemployed people who are intelligent and are in possession of normal emotional literacy skills. Might as well get rid of stupid police officers now]. 

The "This Is Not an Invitation to Rape Me" campaign by the Scottish Government was a brilliant piece of media campaigning. I have no idea why the English and Welsh governments haven't just borrowed the whole campaign since re-inventing the wheel isn't exactly cost-effective [not that money should matter when dealing with rape but our current government clearly don't give a shit about people so we might as well use the economic argument to appeal to their inhumanity]: 

We need to stop blaming victims and start holding men accountable for their violence.