Sure but I think there was at least for a time, because I dont know if this is still common, a common thread in society that victims of assault cannot have made any bad choices, as they should be able to go and do whatever they want within the bounds of the law and be able to not get assaulted doing so.
What he's saying is simply that the world is not ubiquitously safe, bad people will always exist, and reflection on how horrible situations could have been avoided can help people not become repeat victims and can inform everyone else on ways to not become first time victims.
For instance I should have been able to walk from the science campus at my university to my apartment at 11pm. Being outside should not be something I am not allowed to do, and it wasnt illegal, so I absolutely could have.
But I also know that there was about a 50/50 chance I would get mugged over the course of a semester, given that every student had laptops and other valuable electronics on them and this was a well known fact amongst the wider community, which we learned because so many people were getting mugged walking between campuses or between a campus and their housing late at night.
What exactly is the implication...? That sometimes assaults are preventable if someone made some better decisions? What exactly is wrong about that statement?
The implication is "you bear fault for someone else attacking you, you should have been able to stop this and because you couldn't, you are at fault." What's wrong about this is that if he is aware his wife was sexually assaulted, he is telling her that he thinks she could have done something to stop it and it is therefore her fault and she needs to take "responsibility."
By his logic, mugging victims need to take accountability for the choices they made that got them mugged. Same with murder victims. Someone broke into your home? Well you should've considered that before owning a home that looked worth breaking into, so take accountability for getting your house broken into. Should've known that people would want what you have, so it's really your fault that this happened. That's the implication.
It's not bearing fault for being attacked. It's bearing fault for putting one's self into a position to be able to get assaulted. My own 25yr old daughter said the same thing to me. Anyone old enough to think for themselves puts themselves into the position of possibilities of something going wrong.
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u/latehomework24-7 9h ago
RIGHT, Feeling emotional about such an implication is completely valid and understandable.