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October 20, 2006
Bottoms up
"If Canadian society was any less strong and more caring it would swoon dead away in a puddle of tears," says Christie Blatchford on a variety of topics. I'm sympathetic to this complaint, though her beefs run too broad a gamut from banning tag in school playgrounds (so intergalactically stupid that the people who came up with it should be summarily fired), to mandating one seatbelt per passenger (pure common sense, and I can't believe it wasn't the law already).
Also on Blatchford's wide-ranging agenda is the new move to allow Ontarian barflies to take their drinks with them to the loo, which should cut down on the unknown number of women who get drugged in bars and nightclubs. I think this is likely a good idea — the current prohibition always struck me as silly — but I wonder if it's been thought through. It is true after all, as Blatchford says, that we have little idea just how often "date rape drugs" are used in bars. But as long as the current prohibition against drinks near toilets was drawn up for for absolutely no reason, then this is a 100 percent no-lose proposition. If not, time will tell.
That Globe & Mail article contains a few howlers, incidentally. Howler #1:
Vancouver [Vancouver? -ed.] rape crisis worker Daisy Kler called the strategy "misguided."
"This move is really still holding women responsible for their attacks," she said. "Now, we not only have to watch what we wear, and where we go out, and what time it is, but we are having to police our drinks and take them with us wherever we go in bars."
The perfect defeats the good in a TKO.
Howler #2, I present without comment:
Although [Ryerson student] Ms. [Lisa-Marie] Bahrey knows a woman who was the victim of a date-rape drugging, she believes efforts are better directed at funding rape-crisis centres.
"Look at the centres that are available for young women who are sexually assaulted, maybe put more money into that … instead of allowing women to take their drinks into bathrooms.
And Howler #3 is a rather crucial detail parachuted in near the end of the article:
The proposed legislation, which will be introduced on Thursday, does not make it mandatory for bars to allow patrons to carry their drinks into the bathroom.
"That's kind of annoying," said Vanessa Santilli, a first-year Ryerson student.
Indeed. This story has a severe factual deficiency, and it's sustained only by the ghastly phenomenon at its core.
Posted by Chris Selley at October 20, 2006 10:14 PM
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Comments
Years ago, there was a movie available called something like, "How To Say No To A Rapist - And Survive."
The movie offered some strategies to women who thought they may become a victim of rape as well as some intelligent ways of thinking about rape that could assist someone going through such an evil and tramautic event.
I recall there were some "rape crisis workers" who condemned the movie. Seems if a rape didn't actually occur, it meant a possible rapist was still "out there" and without "evidence" to track him down.
Some times, there are folks that have bizarre logic and short circuited brains or something.
Posted by: Ian Scott at October 21, 2006 05:45 PM
Ian,
It might be that some interest groups are never taken to task for some of plainly illogical claims they make.
Since logic and reason are never foisted upon them, they continue to make the same mistakes, over and over again.
Posted by: lk at October 22, 2006 03:17 AM
Organizational Behaviour theorists, although in general a bunch of wooly thinkers, have an interesting maxim: "an organization is an organisim." The maxim illustrates that oranizations tend to focus on their own growth and survival; if their survival is threatened they react in ways that "they" (or more accurately, their membership, particularly their leaders) think will ensure survival. Part of their growth-seeking is to become more effective, produce a better product, and so on - and that includes ensuring that their product or service continues to be required and relevant. In many cases where survival is threatened it forces mission creep - as Chris has noted, MADD has morphed into a prohibitionist society - in others it leads to efforts to undercut alternative solutions to the problems that the organization was meant to deal with.
Rape Relief centres are in the business of providing post-assault support: if there are no more assaults, then there is no need for that service. Perhaps the spokespeople are not being illogical - they are operating under a distorted world-view, where not having Rape Relief centres is worse than not having rapes in the first place.
Posted by: dcardno at October 22, 2006 12:41 PM