At this point, the cycle is familiar. A commentator writes an article telling women how they can avoid rape through individualistic, ineffective methods. Dress conservatively! Shout loudly! Stay sober! The piece never addresses how we, as a community, can resist violence, and it shifts the focus from perpetrators’ wrongdoings to the “mistakes” of survivors. In response, the feminist internet rises up to condemn the victim-blaming. The fury dies down and, a few weeks later, another, similar article emerges again.

In these reactive conversations, we rarely get the chance to dig deeper and proactively consider the roots and harms of victim blaming. We sat down (at our individual computers, thousands of miles from ...