Plodding on

Glos Plod have made leaps and bounds, at least superficially, with their website  & the support they claim to give to women victims of violence.  Nonetheless, the communications they send out are shocking.

In response to the tweet above this was sent to Martin Surl, the Police & Crime Commissioner for Glos, and Chief Constable, Suzette Davenport.

Dear Martin/ Suzette,

Gloucestershire Police – Victim Blaming on Social Media

I follow Gloucestershire Police on Twitter. On 24th May a tweet was sent out that ‘urged vigilance’ after reports of a man in the Montpellier area ‘sexually touching’ women. The tweet linked through to a Facebook page, with guidance for women advising them how to avoid being the victim of a sexual assault.

Firstly, I would also like to take issue with the language used to describe the attacks; to my knowledge ‘sexual touching’ is not a crime, though doing so without consent is sexual assault. It is vital to draw a clear distinction between the two. Language is a powerful tool in framing how both individuals and the society we all comprise view the world, and the phrase ‘sexual touching’ almost implies that the author of the piece has the same mindset as the perpetrator. It may just be a poorly chosen slip, but it is deeply troubling that this important distinction isn’t apparent to those we may turn to if we do become victims of sexual assault.

Secondly, directing advice to women about how sexual assault can be avoided puts the onus on the behaviour of women rather than perpetrators. Whilst I have no doubt that this was done with the most noble of intentions it is at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. As a woman in a same sex relationship, would Gloucestershire Police suggest that my partner and I avoid displaying affection in public in case we are the victims of homophobic abuse? 

Implicitly, in focusing on what women should to minimise their chances of being the victim of a sexual assault , Gloucestershire Police are perpetuating the unhelpful narrative that women are responsible for the violence enacted against them. This should perhaps been seen in the context of the most recent ONS social attitudes survey which found 

one in twelve people thought that the victim is ‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ responsible for someone sexually assaulting or raping them when they were under the influence of drugs (8%),by someone they have been flirting heavily with beforehand (7%) or while drunk (6%)

Gloucestershire Police need to clearly take a stand, ensuring that any communications circulated make perpetrators think about their actions rather than making all women consider theirs.

As you are no doubt aware, attacks in public spaces by strangers are rare though make interesting copy for media and as such, tend to be more widely covered than intimate partner violence, which is much more common. It would be more constructive if Gloucestershire Police were to place more emphasis on educating people about domestic abuse and intimate partner violence rather than giving undue weight to the minority of cases where the perpetrator is unknown to the victim. 

I do think that Gloucestershire Police have made a huge amount of progress with regard to victim-blaming; I am delighted to see that your website now has a progressive and up-to-date pages with advice about sexual assault and domestic violence. I hope you will consider the points raised above, and would be interested to know what actions will be taken in light of this. Perhaps it might be useful for the person who sends your communications to undertake some training, may I suggest a course with Everyday Victim Blaming.

I look forward to seeing further communications from you that put the blame for sexual assaults where it should be, with the perpetrator.

With kind regards.

Yours sincerely,