Wednesday, February 24, 2010  Blaming the Victim?  I listened to
Amanda Marcotte's commentary in a recent discussion discussing
the question of whether victims of rape ever bear some of the
responsibility on a podcast called World Have Your Say by the
BBC. Unfortunately, they let City Journal's Heather MacDonald
talk more than Amanda, and the discussion got a bit convoluted.
I was also somewhat astonished by some callers who asserted that
the way women dressed was to blame for sexual assault. Still,
the discussion was interesting and I was pleased that a couple
of panelists pointed out that there's so much emphasis on
educating women on what not to do but not nearly enough emphasis
on teaching men not to rape.  Additionally, I think MacDonald's
narrative is deceptive in many ways. In addition to the fact
that she paints drunken girls at frat parties as the norm when
it comes to rape, there's also a danger in painting this
narrative of telling women how to avoid rape.  But by bulleting
a list of behaviors wome