Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Let's rephrase that......

Evidently, a Canadian peace officer is in some serious trouble because he recommended that women not dress like "sluts" if they wanted to avoid rape.  Now reality here is that I thankfully do not have any idea whether women are more likely to be raped if their clothing suggests sexual looseness--I've heard data indicating rape is a crime of violence, not passion, though.

That said, even if most rape were a crime of passion, most men do not need a woman to show every curve in order to lust after her.  Rather, in certain settings, men will flirt with women while they are working in a class 100 clean room, all parties wearing our culture's closest thing to a burqa.  Yes, personality and posture beat tight jeans and high heels every time.

That said, we might encourage modesty in attire for a very simple reason; certain clothing styles render a woman unable to escape or repel an attack.  It's not dressing like a "slut," but rather dressing for vulnerability.

High heels, painted on jeans, tight skirts, and such might not mean that a woman is loose, but they do mean she is going to have trouble running away from a criminal.  In the same way, certain attire will prevent a woman from throwing a punch or kicking an attacker, and certain attire is quite frankly likely to come off as soon as it is grabbed.

In short, I think the peace officer probably missed a great chance to tell young ladies that if their clothing tells an attacker they can't run or fight back--and quite possibly that they have no male protector--they just might be more likely to find themselves the victim of an attack. 

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