The Rules We Live By

The want and need to control situations in our life is at the core of every human. With this feeling of control comes the feeling of safety, and more and more in our society people strive to achieve this feeling of total safeness. Without control, we have fear; fear of the unforeseeable. With this in mind, a point that I feel Campbell argues very well in her article is the fact that throughout our lives women are taught the false idea that we can control whether or not we are attacked, and we are therefore responsible for our own level of safety. The “rules” that Campbell speaks of, such as don’t walk alone at night, don’t park your car in dark places, carry a whistle, learn self-defence, walk with assertiveness, and so on, dictate how women live their lives, and can transform us into “caged animals” within a society.

After reading the article, I began to think of all the small things that I do to make myself feel more in control, and therefore more safe. I recently moved into an apartment on my own and, like one of the women in the article, chose the apartment on the second floor and not the first. I make sure that I check my storage closet right when I enter the apartment. I walk with assertiveness and grip my keys strongly in my hand, as if a key can do more damage than a potential attacker. What stuck with me the most in the article was the woman, who also lived her life by these rules, yet these did not prevent her from being attacked in her own home. And, much like the interviewer, I will not be leaving my window open at night anytime in the near future.

What I find most problematic about these rules is the fact that, firstly, as Campbell mentions in her article, these rules allow society to believe that women are in control of their attackers actions and therefore how women act can dictate what another may do to them. Secondly, after an attack has happened these rules give licence to the media to portray the rape survivor as “doing something wrong.” Personally, I believe that the media plays a vast role in creating the atmosphere of victim blaming within the broader society. While doing light research on the topic, I found myself in a wormhole of YouTube videos of past news broadcasts, in which the reporters portrayed more of a sympathy for the accused than for the victim, and who continuously made allegations toward the victim on reasons why this might have happened to them and things they could have done to avoid it.       

In a society where media and social media influence so much of our thoughts, ideals, and even laws, it is not surprising that many of these women felt re-victimized while trying to find justice. How can we feel supported or safe in a society where we turn on the T.V. and see female reporters attacking other women for their “allegations” of rape?