World News Korner

This may be the saddest advertisement for women's clothing that I have ever seen.

Courtesy of Slate:

AR Wear is for you, the woman who’s “ever been out walking alone, wishing you could feel safer.” But it’s also for that other “you—parents and friends,” who have spent nights “worried about a loved one” walking alone. AR wear will give you, “women and girls, additional power to control” your bodies “when things go wrong.” But they’ll also give you, parents and friends, a pointed, yet elegant, holiday gift for the women in your lives whose bodies need safety locks.

“Rape is about as wrong as it gets,” the two New York women behind AR Wear note in their Indiegogo campaign, which has raised a little over half of its $50,000 goal for finalizing production-ready prototypes of the design. “The only one responsible for a rape is the rapist and AR Wear will not solve the fundamental problem that rape exists in our world. Only by raising awareness and education, as well as bringing rapists to justice, can we all hope to eventually accomplish the goal of eliminating rape as a threat to both women and men. Meanwhile, as long as sexual predators continue to populate our world, AR Wear would like to provide products to women and girls that will offer better protection against some attempted rapes while the work of changing society's rape culture moves forward.”

I am sorry but this is a bad idea no matter how you look at it.

Rape is NOT about sex, it is about power, and if a rapist finds himself stymied by uncooperative clothing it does not mean that the woman is suddenly safe. In fact in my experience that only increases the chances of the attack becoming more aggressive and more dangerous for the victim.

Look I trained women in rape prevention techniques and self defense, and I think I speak from a place of experience and knowledge.

The best prevention is to instruct young women in how to avoid putting themselves in a vulnerable position, but the second is to treat rape seriously, and to prosecute rapists, and put them in jail for as long as the law will allow.

Having said that I think it is disgusting that women have to feel such fear for their personal safety and consider taking such drastic precautions.

How about all of us, especially those of us raising boys, simply make it our job to teach our kids that it is simply not okay to rape? I mean how fucking hard is that really?



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