Vancouver Transit Police apologize for victim-blaming ad

Another day, another ad campaign accused of blaming sexual assault victims. But this one has a positive lesson in it.

According to CBC, Vancouver Transit Police have agreed to remove this ad from Skytrain, following public complaints.

Transit Police spokesperson Anne Drennan stated that the victim-blaming was entirely unintentional, but added, "we see where they are coming from."

I work on campaigns like this, too, so I can see how this happened. The Copywriter was trying to use a clever turn of phrase, but didn't consider the unintended triggering of the word "shame" in the context. Neither did the client.

To their credit, however, Vancouver Transit Police have responded in a way that should be a teachable moment to other authorities creating campaigns that address the issue of sexual assault, either directly or indirectly.

First, they apologized with an acknowledgement that the wording could cause unintended harm. Then, they committed to removing the ads and replacing them with "new posters with wording approved by an advisory council that includes representatives from women's support groups."

Understand, apologize, fix the problem and show how you'll avoid it in the future. Is that so hard?

Edmonton radio station asks if rape victims "share any blame"

Wait, what? 630 CHED is an Edmonton talk radio station. Today's online poll asks, "It's very controversial but do you think victims of sexual assaults share any blame for what happens?"

Here are the results, as of 1:00 EDT:

I don't know what's worse, the fact that they asked this loaded question or that a third of their respondents want to blame women for being raped.

The station's previous polls run from the trivial ("Will you be celebrating world dog day?")  to impossibly oversimplified takes on big issues ("How would you resolve the problem in Syria?"). However, I failed to see anything else to suggest that victims of violent crime are partially responsible for being attacked.

Here are some suggestions for upcoming polls:

"Do the victims of a home invasion share any of the blame for living in a nice house?" 

"Does the mugging victim share some of the blame for talking on an iPhone in public?" 

"Did the victim of bullying bring it on himself by not fitting in?" 

"Should that fatal hit-and-run victim known better than to walk on the sidewalk after last call?"

Thanks to @TrinaMLee (via @LadySnarksalot) for the "twip":

.@630CHED Rape was an issue long before nightclubs, back alleys and miniskirts existed. Nobody ever deserves it. Your poll is disgusting.
— Trina M. Lee (@TrinaMLee) April 10, 2014

Another campaign tells young women "don't get raped"

Image via Ads of The World

You just have to shake your head. No matter how often people speak out against well-meaning social marketing campaigns that unintentionally (or not) normalize rape culture, people keep making them.

This one comes from Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire, produced in-house by the creative team of Stuart Kerray and Dave Follon. The Council told The Mail they hoped their campaign "will reduce crime and shock revellers into thinking twice about how much they drink."

Writing in her Wordpress blog, Karen Ingala Smith saw it differently. I'll let her take it from here:

Though the poster doesn’t explicitly mention rape,  the lines “when you drink too much you lose control and put yourself at risk” together with an image of a dishevelled young woman in a short dress, make clear that the risk is that of sexual violence. The article was picked up widely re-reported including in The Independent and Daily Mail and eventually discussed in a piece by Sarah Vine under the title “Sorry sisters, but girls who get blind drunk ARE risking rape” in which she stated her  refusal to join “the chorus of feminist disapproval” and argued that women need to take responsibility for their own safety, going on to mention “one or two nasty brushes” that made her realise how important it was to not willingly put herself in the path of danger and “stupidly” becoming a victim. 

The concept of a victim of violence ‘willingly and stupidly putting themselves in the path of danger’ is judgemental victim blaming.  Whether though an act of choosing  or not choosing to do something, a victim of sexual violence is never responsible for what is done to them. Rapists and abusers are the only ones responsible for rape and abuse. 

Rapists and abusers use excuses to justify their actions,  to discredit their victims and to shift responsibility for their choices away from themselves and on to their victims.  They use exactly the kind of excuses encapsulated in the Calderdale poster and Vine’s piece, in short: “She didn’t take care. “ or “She was asking for it.”

Is she reading too much into it? Let's look at how the same campaign advertises to male bingers:

Via Ads of The World

Via Ads of The World

Same playful concept, but no hint of sexual consequences. Instead, the ads talk about the danger of hurting yourself and others. Women as victims, men as aggressors. You've seen it all before.

The council’s Cabinet member for economy and environment, Coun Barry Collins, told the Yorkshire Post (in a classic non-apology) that the images "were not intended to cause offence."

We have used images of both men and women to raise awareness of the impacts on anyone of taking drugs and drinking too much. The aim of the campaign is to expose as many people as possible to timely advice to enjoy a safe night out.

He said the same images were used 
last year, with no complaints until now.

So perhaps some progress has been made?

Victim-blaming on Thai public transit

Via Buzzfeed

The conversation about "victim blaming" in the way North American society treats sexual assault has been heating up the past couple of years. This has resulted in a more critical look at the way sexual assault prevention campaigns are done. 

Some cause marketers, like Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton, have taken this to heart by creating campaigns that put the blame for sexual assault squarely on the perpetrators. Others (in this case through an anti-binge-drinking campaign) still blame victims.

This Thai bus poster, shared by Copyranter, is definitely the latter type of ad. As many others have pointed out, this approach is offensive to both men and women. To men, it communicates the idea that we are all potential rapists constantly tempted by women's bodies. To women who have been victims, it says you could have prevented it.

There are certainly ways to educate women about personal safety without implying that sexual assault is something they are somehow responsible for preventing.