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Comment by mcmancini | Hacker News Reader

Can you help me to understand victim blaming? Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management?

I think of taking precautions online as being like defensive driving (or any kind of risk management really). If Alice gets sideswiped on the highway because Bob was on his cell phone and didn't check his blind spot, Bob maybe gets charged with failure to maintain the lane or something like that. Doesn't Alice share some responsibility by recognizing that Bob, being on his cell phone, posed an elevated risk and managing accordingly (say by changing to a more distant lane)?

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> Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management?

This is a delicate issue. The answer to your question has to be: No, not per se...

However there are some other things to keep in mind:

() If one suggests that the victim's poor risk management absolves the perpetrator of responsibility in the slightest degree, then one is definitely blaming the victim.

() Sometimes that subtext -- that the perpetrator is not fully responsible -- is present but not stated explicitly. So I think people are often right to be aware of the possibility that that's underneath what is being said.

() On the other hand, sometimes that subtext is absolutely not intended, but is heard anyway. A lot of people have trouble with the notion that two parties to an interaction are both 100% responsible for their own choices. And someone recently victimized may not be emotionally ready to look at how they allowed it to happen. So one must be careful here; but sometimes, if one wants to get the point across, it's necessary to emphasize that the perpetrator is still totally responsible for their own actions.

So in your example, if you were to suggest that Bob's fine should be reduced because Alice could have prevented the accident, that would be victim blaming. But if you're only saying that Alice could learn from this (to be more alert, to try to stay out of other people's blind spots, and to watch out for nearby drivers using cell phones) then that isn't victim blaming.

Thanks for a thoughtful response.

> Can you help me to understand victim blaming? Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management?

Er, yeah, it is. The victim always knows they exercised "poor risk management", to some degree. You don't need to reinforce that point. It's not what the takeaway lesson should ever be. It detracts attention (and implicitly averts blame) from the perpetrator.

We don't aspire to live in a world where "risk management" becomes the takeaway lesson from events perpetrated by conscious actors (i.e. you should always exercise risk management when it comes to things like hurricanes).

Because then you start saying things like:

"She shouldn't have been walking alone at night."

"She shouldn't have been wearing that dress."

"If he didn't want to get raped he shouldn't have gone to prison."

That's a terrible analogy. Firstly, that analogy is ridiculous: Alice doesn't necessarily see that Bob is on his cell phone, she's concentrating on the road and cars around her - not looking intently into the car next to her! In fact, being in a blind spot means that it's literally impossible for Alice to see that Bob is on his phone. So the answer is no, she doesn't bear any responsibility at all.

Secondly, you should be able to congratulate your daughter on Twitter regardless of your status as a public person.

I can't be held responsible for your actions. Making an innocent tweet about your daughter is not something you should have to be worried about. That's chilling freedom of expression! So you can't be a proud dad because some arsehole might threaten to rape your daughter? Give me a break.

Now I'm really confused. You're saying that if Alice is in Bob's blind spot, it is impossible for Alice to see Bob on his phone? Are we talking about the same blind spot?

I probably overstate that point, but it is less likely you can see they are on the phone. My point still stands - it's not the responsibility of the driver to peer into the car next to them to see their behaviour. In fact, that's downright dangerous.

I completely disagree, it's downright dangerous to not evaluate the behavior of other drivers around you. If I see someone aggressively changing lanes or tailgating, talking on their cell phone, or doing anything that looks risky to me, I mentally note it and keep as far away from them as possible. I'm frankly amazed anyone wouldn't do the same.

I agree that Alice in my example doesn't have any legal fault for the accident. Maybe this is a cultural difference, but as I see it she does share some responsibility for being in the accident if she didn't make a best-effort attempt using known-good practices to avoid it. All drivers share that responsibility.

I guess we'll agree to disagree then.

I'm assuming you see it happening as you drive past. But do you look into each car intently to see what the driver is doing? I see drivers on phones, but I'm sure I don't see all of them. I'm normally aching the traffic and the way they are braking/swerving to determine if the driver is someone to keep clear of.

There is no cultural difference on this one that I'm aware of. In Australia you must be aware of what is going on around you on the road. But you asked about victim blaming - I think someone above expressed it better than me, and you thanked them for their post. That's the one I'm going with :-)

In your analogy the fault entirely lies with Bob. Ann is expected to pay attention to the road - a pedestrian may step out suddenly; there might be debris in the road; and she's expected to pay attention to other drivers - someone might overtake and cut back in lane suddenly. Ann is not expected to monitor the actual drivers of other vehicles to see if they're eating or dancing or talking on their cellphone. Those other drivers are expected to not be so fucking stupid.

Victim blaming is a legitimate complaint when discussion of the victim's choices distracts from the way they have been victimized. E.g., "Well, what the hell was she doing in a dark alley at 3 a.m., anyway?" You have to judge whether something amounts to victim blaming by its impact on the discourse.

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