"Playing the victim?"

"You have a victim mindset". I hear this phrase alot. I hear it when anti-feminists describe feminists, I hear it when well-meaning people speak about feminism. I hear it used to describe entire movements. But what does it mean?

I've heard this phrase bantered around this blog and I've heard it bantered around other blogs, I may have even heard this phrase bantered in newspapers, but yesterday I got to thinking about it. When someone cites the infamous "victim mindset" what exactly are they saying? What makes a 'victim mindset'? What does someone with a 'victim mindset' do?

Mind you, my thoughts on this issue are still cloudy, so who knows, maybe I'll learn something here while trying to get them out.

I tried to conjure up an image of someone who had a 'victim mindset' last night. I was unable to do so. I simply could not form a picture in my head of what this elusive person would be. Therefore, it seemed to me, that I needed to define it. So I start trying to define it, and guess what? I couldn't even define the word. Strange since I've heard it so often.

After much thought I decided that when we say the words, "Victim Mentality" we are talking about someone who sees the world from a scary place. Someone who is perhaps worried that they will become a victim. Perhaps it refers to someone who talks about being a victim. Possibly someone who speaks about victimization, fear of victimization and victimhood.

"Hmmm...." I think. For a victim mindset to be bad we must assume that the person who is crying about victimization is wrong somehow. Surely a rational thinking human being would not be upset about someone who is talking about facts, right? For the 'victim mindset' to be so maligned there must be some untruth about it, right?

Ok, here we go, try to bear with me on this one. Ultimately I decided that when someone speaks of a 'victim mindset' that they are actually saying that the alleged victim isn't really a victim. Because, following the idea that humans are logical creatures, one would assume that if someone was a 'true' victim then nobody would tell that person that they had a 'bad' mindset. As an example, we wouldn’t tell a soldier returning from Iraq that she/he had a ‘victim’ mindset, would we?

Oftentimes people say that feminists are coming from a 'victim mindset', particularly when a given feminist begins to speak about rape, domination, subjugation and degradation of women. It seems that oftentimes when individual or collective women, begin to start screaming about the violence’s that women suffer they are labeled as having a 'victim mindset'. I really can't help but wonder if that translates into, "Shut the fuck up and talk about something that doesn't make me uncomfortable".

Surely, the status of women as a sex class isn't unfounded? Surely, the fact that 1 of 3 women will experience rape or sexual assault at some time in their life doesn't translate into women screaming over nothing right? For this train of thought I am going to assume that most humans only ever bitch about something that they think is unfounded, something that isn't as big a deal as what someone else thinks.

So what the hell is going on here? Is there some confusion about the numbers? Do people really believe that sexism isn't alive and well? That those rabid feminists are really just harping over rape and systematic worldwide abuse of women just so they can become victims? To me, this is a bit like saying a woman pressed false rape charges against a famous actor just for the publicity.

People who have been victims know, all too well, that 'victim status' is no cup of tea. Between those who are telling you that it was your fault and those who say you're 'overreacting' and those who just fall all over themselves to give you pity, well, it's really no walk in the park. Quite frankly, it sucks to have been a 'victim' of violence because everywhere you go someone thinks that you 'didn't try hard enough' to NOT be a 'victim'. The notion that feminists try to magically create a 'victim' status when there is no 'victim' status to be found is really quite absurd.

I'm left to wonder if it's just a matter of people simply not liking the message that feminists send. That message being that all is not peachy keen in the land of milk and honey. Women are raped. Women are being raped as I type this. Women are DYING. They're dying on the streets, they're dying slowly on the inside, but they're dying.

Some feminists even try to point out that more women have been injured at the hands of men since the War in Iraq began than the soldiers over there. We have a HUGE movement to end the war, (rightly so in my opinion) but yet, more U.S. women have been injured here since this war began than has been injured on Iraqi soil. Where is the War against violence against women? The war against Rape? Where are the televisions? The news coverage?

It is reported from the D.O.D. that the number of U.S. wounded in Iraq since the beginning of the war (March of '03) is 15568. Those are horrible numbers, they make my heart hurt to see them.

It is reported from the FBI that reported rapes in 2004 was up .8% to 94,635. Those are horrible numbers, they make my heart hurt to see them.

What I don't understand is how it can be that so many people say that feminists are in a 'victim mindset' when it's clear that we, as Americans, are capable of feeling enraged over injury to people. Clearly, so many of us are enraged at the first number. We tut-tut and tsk-tsk and curse under our breath. How many tut-tut and tsk-tsk and curse under our breaths at the second number? A number which is almost 4 times as high as the first number in one year. One year. Just one.

If feminists are 'playing the victim' for screaming about the rapes of women, then why aren't anti-war protesters 'playing the victim' for screaming about the injuries in Iraq? Unless, of course, rape and the systematic (to the tune of 94k) abuse and injury to women is LESS important than the smaller number of victims of Iraq?

Now, what I want to do is make it perfectly clear that I support our troops. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am against this war. I want to make it clear that I am sickened by the loss of life and limb to this war.

What I also want to make clear is that I am just as disturbed by the losses to women on a yearly basis. I want to make it clear that I am HORRIFIED by the reaction that our country has given to the war while ignoring the plight of women every single day in our own country.

How can people say that feminists are coming from a 'victim mindset' when these things are REAL? When the reported rapes for 2004 came in at 94,635? Four times the number of U.S. injuries from the START of the war? Are we, as a country, really saying that women and men who scream over the rapes of women are just making too big a deal out of it? Is that what we mean when we say that there is a 'victim mentality'?

Is the life of a soldier more important than the life of a woman?

"But, BB" You may be saying, "Those soldiers had no choice but to go to Iraq!".

You're right, they didn't. Do women get the choice not to be raped?

I ask again, how can anyone say, after looking at the numbers, that women and feminists are using a 'victim mentality'? Women ARE victims, they are being forced into victim status in larger numbers than the wounded in Iraq. Yet, their cries remain silent.

We have politicians and liberals screaming to "Stop the War in Iraq!". How many of them are rallying to the cry of rape victims in America? How many of them are screaming to "Stop the war against women!” Nobody is. Nobody but the feminists and they're labeled as having a 'victim mentality' of 'focusing too much on victims'. Hell yes they're focusing on victims, someone HAS to. The numbers aren't making themselves up. In fact, as most of you know, the VAST majority of rapes go UNREPORTED and that number was REPORTED rapes.

The war in Iraq has, by some, been deemed as being a ‘crisis’. Where is the ‘crisis’ to end the 94k per year? Where is the nationwide push to end the systematic abuse of women by men?

Fuck yeah we're screaming our heads off. Fuck yeah we're crying from the rooftops that it's happening. If we shut up about rape, something that many people would really like to see, then their voices, the voices of the survivors, will NEVER be heard. Someone HAS to speak for them, speak to end this madness. And it’s a real shame, as well as a larger than life indicator, about how our country feels about rape when those that are screaming and yelling and raising hell are called, ‘rabid feminists’ or told they are using a ‘victim mentality’.

How does focusing on the pain of these women, the pain inflicted to their bodies and souls, equate to 'victim mentality'? This rationale would only be valid if it weren't true. Hell, it MIGHT even be valid if there were already millions and millions of people screaming from the rooftops about it. But there isn't. Nobody talks about it. Nobody wants to hear it. Everyone just wants the screamers to go away and not bother them with their paltry 94k a year, afterall, there are far more important things to think about than 94,600 reported women a year. You know, things like the estate tax. Or the new bankruptcy law.

We hear campaigns about ending AIDS (a noble cause to be sure), campaigns about ending the war (another noble cause) but where is the campaign to end RAPE? Where is it? Why don't we hear THOSE protests? They're out there, women organize them as often as they can. How many of them make the 6 o'clock news? How many people reading this right now are active and vocal for other causes but not this one? How many people reading this are enraged that I had the nerve to compare rape to an injury in Iraq? I suspect there are quite a few and I suspect that I will hear about them in the comments section. But you know what?

I don't care.

Quite frankly, people want us to shut up about rape. But those of us who have lived it, those 94k each year, deserve to be heard. They deserve, just like the soldiers in Iraq, to have someone fight for their cause.

Those soldiers, those 15,000 soldiers, are noble. Those soldiers are victims of a machine far larger than they. Those soldiers who were injured will carry the scars of PTSD and physical scars their whole lives.

Those women, those 94 thousand women, are noble. Those women are victims of a machine far larger than they. Those women who were injured will carry the scars of PTSD and physical scars their whole lives.

The latter are suffering in larger numbers than the former.

The next time someone says, "You're coming from a victim mentality" ask them, what precisely do they mean? Are they upset that we're talking about it? We have to, who else will? Surely not our elected officials. Our elected officials are busy trying to craft laws to keep brain dead people alive. They're busy trying to destroy abortion. They're busy fighting over the 15 thousand soldiers who have been injured since 2003. They're not paying attention to the 94 thousand women who were injured in the year 2004 alone.

Ask them, the next time you hear it, what EXACTLY do they mean? Make them clarify their words, make them think about it. Make them tell you why it is that a woman, a feminist, who speaks out against these 94 thousand women is any different than those who speak out against that 15 thousand soldiers because to me, there is no difference.

If crying about the injury to body, mind and soul of a woman is somehow different than talking about the injury to body, mind and soul of a soldier then someone please, explain to me how, because I don't get it.

I don't see how someone can be hailed as a 'fighter for peace' when screaming about one atrocity while another can be hailed as 'having a victim mindset' when screaming about another atrocity.

Is it because we’re women? I really can’t tell you how much I HATE jumping to that conclusion. However, I honestly do NOT see a difference, other than gender. Rape has always hidden in the shadows; abuse of women has always been back page fodder, if it’s even IN the newspaper at all.

What does it say about our society that we are up in arms over considerably less American losses in Iraq than we are about considerably more American women here, on our own soil? What does it say that about our country, about our collective state of mind, when we tell people who are speaking out that they are ‘reveling in a victim mindset’?

The point of screaming is to build a movement to overcome the rampant victimization of women. Women, whether you want to hear it or not, are being made into victims. Those women move on to become survivors, but it is through no fault of their own that they are becoming victims in the first place. If women weren’t being victimized then the feminists would shut the hell up. So, if you want them to shut up, then get your ass out there and start working towards ending it.

Unless of course, only some victims matter.

~BB