Men raping women: reactions to my tweets have been fascinating and disturbing. There is a profound unwillingness to locate the problem with the perpetrator, and a willingness instead to locate the problem with the victims and potential victims – to emphasise what women can do

5 problems with this: 1) Women are told throughout their lives what to do to try to avoid rape. 2) If this is all we do, this is victim-blaming. 3) Women already use a whole range of strategies to try to lessen their risk. 4) This does nothing to hold perpetrators to account.

5) Perhaps most importantly of all, focusing on what potential victims of sexual assault can do to lessen their risk does nothing to *prevent rape perpetration in the first place*.

The emphasis on what women should do to avoid rape is based on victim-blaming, but also on: underestimation of how common sexual assault is, assumption that the men who rape are a tiny minority, and belief that rape is the expression only of individual pathology or sexual desire.

Here are the facts. Substantial numbers of women suffer sexual assault. Substantial minorities of men have perpetrated sexual assault – it’s likely that at least one man you know has done so. And rape is the entirely predictable outcome of common norms of sexuality & gender.

If we *actually* want to prevent women being raped in the first place, we need to change the attitudes, norms, and conditions that make rape more likely. The good news is, there is evidence that *it is possible to prevent* sexual assault. Key reviews here: http://xyonline.net/content/preventing-violence-against-women-xy-collection-key-reports-and-reviews