Inebriated women are raped. Sober women are raped. Women wearing skirts are raped. Women wearing sweatpants are raped. The common denominator here is the rapist, and that is where rape prevention must begin.

Last week, Slate published an article titled “College Women: Stop Getting Drunk.” The sub-headline reads, “It’s closely associated with sexual assault. And yet we’re reluctant to tell women to stop doing it.”

In the article, advice columnist Emily Yoffe explains that if women stop drinking alcohol, they will no longer “end up getting raped” as a result. This argument is completely tiresome and is the very definition of rape culture, which blames the victims rather than the perpetrators.

Our society is consistently too quick to blame sexual violence on the behaviors of young women. Telling women to stop doing certain things – from the way they dress, to what they drink, to how late they stay out at night – is the wrong way to end this problem. Instead, we need to prevent the actions of the people committing these acts of violence.

This victim-blaming ideology is played out again and again in certain rape cases.

For example, the reopened rape case of 16-year-old Daisy Coleman has recently made national headlines. Coleman was taken to the hospital in January 2012 after her mother found her drunk, barefoot and freezing outside their home in Maryville, Mo. Coleman, who was 14 years old at the time, said a 17-year-old football player assaulted her after she and a friend snuck out to meet him and his friends.

The charges were originally dropped, but the town didn’t revolt against that court. Instead, they harassed the Coleman family. Coleman’s peers called her a skank and liar on Twitter and Facebook, and even encouraged her to kill herself. She attempted suicide twice.

Coleman’s older brother was bullied in school and their mother lost her job. The family ultimately left Maryville.

It’s horrific that Coleman’s peers defended her rapist rather than her. It’s even worse that this continues to be a trend, where victims get blamed and are told they “deserved” their assault.

This attitude is upheld on an institutional level, as well. In a Fox News segment last Thursday, Joseph DiBenedetto, a New York criminal defense attorney, weighed in on the case. He asked, “What did she expect to happen at 1 a.m. after sneaking out?”

It’s appalling that a person in the legal system can have such a skewed perception.

Luckily, other media outlets are critiquing Yoffe’s Slate piece and the concept of victim-blaming.

Katie McDonough, of Salon, pointed out that Yoffe spends her piece blaming women and girls for drinking themselves into victimhood, when she should have focused more on what men and boys can do to stop rape – which is that they should not rape.

Allie Jones at the The Atlantic Wire wrote that college women understand their vulnerability and have long taken precautions: Friends check in with each other throughout the night via their cellphones; roommates ensure that one another get home safe and sororities make sure sisters are sober at events to look out for each other.

Still, even the most vigilant women can “end up” getting raped, and that’s because a person decided to rape her.

For every proclamation like Yoffe’s and wrong-handled case like Maryville, we need to keep responding the same way: Sexual assault and rape prevention begin with the person who commits the crime.

Survivors cannot and should not be blamed for their assault.

Laura Cohen is a junior magazine journalism and women’s and gender studies major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected].

Published on October 23, 2013 at 2:28 am