A Little Victim Blaming With Your Coffee.

The Daily Mail says women might imagine being drugged and put at risk of rape, but in reality they just drank too much.

Dr Adam Burgess, from the University of Kent school of social policy, said rumours about the prevalence of date-rape drugs were little more than an urban myth.
This led young women to underestimate real risks of alcohol misuse, which can include impaired judgment putting them at risk of sexual assault.
‘The reason why fear of drink-spiking has become widespread seems to be a mix of it being more convenient to guard against than the effects of alcohol itself and the fact that such stories are exotic – like a more adult version of “stranger danger”.’
The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, found that three quarters of students identified drink-spiking as leading to an important risk of sexual assault – more than drinking too much alcohol.

If a journal of criminology is making these conclusions, you can start to understand the thinking that informs the legal system when dealing with rape cases. The person who analyzed this data set either hates women or is not a woman because (a) “oooh, I was drugged,” is a far cry from an exotic story and (b) being drunk isn’t what puts a woman at risk of sexual assault–being near a rapist does.
Perhaps looking at the increase in use of alcohol by women and its harrowing effects on self esteem on the body or the mind, or who is providing the alcohol to the victim, creating said circumstances for violence, might be helpful. But no, it is so much easier to blame young women and suggest they have rape fantasies about “stranger danger” and lie about their irresponsible boozing. Anything else you got that will shame women about their habits and suggest they were “asking for it?”
via Daily Mail.
Thanks to Hannah for the link.