On rape, and personal responsibility.

So in the blogosphere, there's this going on. Long story short: young woman writes to an advice columnist, saying "I went to a party, I got drunk, I went back to some guy's room, he promised me he wouldn't touch me, then he touched me [it's not clear exactly what happened], and then his roommate got back and kicked us out."

The columnist says: "Yes, it was, and you were not only his victim but your own, because it's kind of stupid to go to a party alone and get drunk and go home with a guy who pinky-swears he won't hurt you."

Certain women on the internet proceed to freak the hell out (as women sometimes do. Note: fellow women, please stop being retards). Because, you see, if you point out that a woman's actions may have helped to enable a rapist, you are a rape apologist and think all women should be raped and are living in a "rape culture" (whatever the hell that means; rape is used as currency or something?) and are otherwise worthy of being flogged by the clearly-superior Womyn.

See, there's a certain brand of "feminist" (I'll explain the quotes in a moment) that thinks that feminism means never holding a woman (sorry, womyn, let's not be patriarchal) accountable for her actions. Go out to a party or with a guy, get completely wasted thereby intentionally incapacitating yourself, go back to his room alone - no problem! If anything happens, it was completely unavoidable. There is absolutely nothing, not a single thing, that the woman could have done differently to ensure her own safety.

Well, newsflash for you all: the world is not a nice place. People, by their very nature, are assholes. Human beings are self-centered, violent, hateful, ignorant, and pretty much overall worthless. Usually, society keeps us from acting our nature, at least on an individual level. Most people will keep the change when the cashier accidentally hands over a ten instead of a one, but most people won't walk up to a random stranger and assault them for no reason.

Some people will.

As a consequence, you need to keep an eye out for yourself. Your safety is your responsibility. The police and the fire service are there to help one things go wrong, but there is no one in the world who owes you so much as a smile, so if you want to stay safe, you're all on your lonesome. You need to make sure that you lock your doors, and that you don't leave valuables out in the open, and that you don't go off and intentionally make yourself vulnerable.

This applies to men, and women. You are on your own. No one owes anyone anything, and if a man goes to a party and gets completely drunk and gets his nose broken by another man in a fight, is the victim utterly blameless? No, because he got drunk. He intentionally removed any hope of controlling the situation.

So. Feminism is, in theory, about equality. The radical notion that women are people too.

You can have equality, or you can get symapthy for college chicks who get drunk and are shocked when a boy wants sex. You cannot get both. This is my problem with a lot of modern "feminism" - they say they want equality but really they want a double standard. Women should be able to rip their shirt off to let their baby suck on their teat whenever and whereever they want. Women should get as much time off for maternity leave, and then for the next eighteen years, as they want. Women should get special train cars so they don't need to deal with obnoxious weirdos on the subway. Women shouldn't ever be held accountable for their actions if someone else victimizes them.

No. You get equality, or you get handled with kid gloves. You do not get both.

Also, while we're here: Rape is not a women's issue at all. It's a crime, just like any other violent crime.