Victim Blaming.

I'm getting seriously sick of victim blaming. I do it, you do it, everyone does it at least once or twice in their life. Anytime the words "They deserved it" comes out of your mouth, somehow, somewhere, you have just blamed a victim of something.

I understand why people do this. On some levels it's a release of responsibility.
"It's not my fault I hit them, they were talking back to me"
"It's not my fault for not being a better parent, it's society/their teachers/TV/Friends"
"They deserved that punishment, so it's not my fault, they did something bad!"

We don't want to be responsible for our reactions to someone else's action. Sometimes it can be something little that really does seem to be the "victims" fault. Spanking a child for doing something bad, punishing a student for failing to perform properly in class. The parent and teacher are still the ones responsible for the punishment, but we have to realize that they are responsible for that punishment, and stop blaming it as a natural reaction to what the other person did.

But then it can be larger, like punching someone when they insult you, like raping a woman because she was dress provocatively. Much bigger scale, but same thing. You can never say "They should have known better" or "It's just punishment for their actions"
No.
No that is all the responsibility of the one who did the act. You are COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE for EVERY ACTION or even REACTION you commit. Every. Single. One.

But I understand.

The second reason I figure in victim blaming is the belief that we somehow have control over other people and the world around us. See if it's the victims fault they got raped or killed, then clearly they did something bad for it to have happened. As long as we avoid that action, we can avoid having that reaction happen to us.

This theory is only functional when dealing with an inanimate object. Something that does not have it's own thoughts or functions and only does what it was designed to do. Don't touch fire, don't put your hand on an electric wire, don't stab yourself running with scissors. The issue then is can we apply these lessons when dealing with other people?

Of course not. We can only ever control ourselves, we cannot control those around us. Each person has to be responsible for their own actions so when someone is raped, who raped them? The rapist is 100% to blame for the rape. No if's and's or buts. The victim could have been walking down the street naked and bending over random area's waggling their ass. They never grabbed the rapists penis and forced it into themselves. They are not responsible.

I understand, we'd like to think that if we don't go our at night, or dress poorly, or live in a good neighbourhood we'll be safe from bad people, and clearly if something bad happens to someone, it's from not following those "common sense rules"

We'd like to believe, but it's not true. And all it does is make it harder for us to get justice when we learn the hard way that you can't blame a victim.