Collective responsibility has no place in real justice
The only men who are responsible for brutal incidences of rape are those who commit them, writes Eilis O’Hanlon
APPROXIMATELY eight in 10 of all murders are committed by men. Imagine, though, that a particularly brutal murder had been committed in Dublin, and the response of some public representatives was to say that more needed to be done to “educate men” about the horror of murder — not just the men who committed that murder, or other murders, but all men, innocent as well as guilty — and to tackle those parts of “popular culture” which might lead men in general, as a group, to think that murder was acceptable.
What would we think about that? Would we not say it was insulting to the majority of men who had never committed a murder, or shown any inclination to do so?
The same goes for other offences. Figures from the US suggest that 89pc of people arrested for robbery are men, as are 85pc of those arrested for burglary, 83pc of arsonists, 81pc of car thieves, and 81pc of vandals. So whenever any of these offences are committed, do men need to be “educated” as a whole about burglary, arson, stealing cars, assault and other offences?
Thankfully not. Generally the response is that we should find the perpetrators of these offences and punish them severely, rather than collectively blame certain groups for acts committed by particular members of a group to which they belong.
The one exception to the rule seems to be rape.
After the brutal attack on a woman in Clondalkin last week — when she was dragged into bushes at 3am by a group of men as she cycled home and had her clothes cut off with a knife before being assaulted — Eoin O Broin, Sinn Fein TD for Dublin Mid-West, whose constituency includes the crime scene, issued a statement.
Echoing the fears of local residents, he rightly condemned what happened “in the strongest possible terms” and urged anyone who could help to contact Ronanstown Garda Station, adding: “Any information, even rumour or gossip, could be helpful.” (My italics). That was important.
He also called for greater support for victims of rape, who are often left feeling isolated and alone in the aftermath of their ordeal.
However, O Broin went on to say: “More needs to be done to educate men, and in particular young men, about consent and to have respect for women.”
This skirts dangerously close to the notion of collective responsibility.
The Welsh philosopher HD Lewis put it best: “Value belongs to the individual and it is the individual who is the sole bearer of moral responsibility.” No one, he said, is “morally guilty except in relation to some conduct which he himself ” performs.
He went further, dismissing the idea of collective responsibility as “barbarous”; but still the debate on rape is dominated by the notion that men as a whole might somehow be to blame, on the grounds that they together hold certain opinions, even if they don’t know they’re doing it, which make rape much more likely to happen.
But is that really true? Not only do most men not commit rape, but most have great respect for women, and most do understand about consent. They treat the women in their lives, and those whom they encounter day to day, with consideration and courtesy.
Life would simply be intolerable if this was not the case, and it manifestly is not intolerable. At least not in that part of the world where we live.
Statistics consistently show that Ireland is one of the safest countries in which to be a woman. The chances of a woman becoming the victim of violence, whether sexual or otherwise, are amongst the lowest recorded. Gang rapes are, mercifully, even rarer.
It follows therefore that Irish men must be among the safest men in the world for women to be around.
That doesn’t mean that we should be complacent, or that there isn’t more that could and should be done to make public spaces safer and to protect women who are vulnerable even in their own homes; but it does mean that we should be wary of tarring.
In fact, it’s to the credit of many men that they don’t make more of a fuss when landed with collective responsibility for crimes in which they played no part, because I’m not sure I would be so understanding if an elected TD announced that “more needs to be done to educate mothers” if a woman with children committed some unspeakable atrocity against her children, or “more needs to be done to educate women” if some individual woman broke the law.
I wouldn’t feel responsible for their acts, so why should all men feel somehow to blame for the very existence of rape?
Because, goes the argument, there is a thing called ‘rape culture’ which permeates society, normalising sexual violence and blaming victims for their own fate.
O Broin made that case explicitly last week: “There is a need to do more to tackle the causes of rape culture.” Such as, for instance? O Broin had an answer to that too: “This means tackling those aspects of masculinity that demean or objectify women in popular culture.”
Unfortunately, this is where it also begins to get tricky, because, whilst we can all agree on the need for heavier policing of the streets at night, or harsher sentences for offenders, it’s a huge leap to suddenly suggest the real underlying cause of rape is that women are presented in a certain way in the media.
For one thing, who decides what’s demeaning? Women themselves often assert the right to explicitly flaunt their sexuality. They do indeed have that right. But does that not objectify them in the male gaze too? Should they cover up and be demure to avoid the risk that men, as a whole, might get the wrong message?
Of course they shouldn’t. But who then wins the right to say which depictions of women in popular culture are acceptable and which are not, when the fact is that an overwhelming majority of men are already capable of seeing women as sexual beings, and desiring them accordingly, without also raping them?
We can all agree that violent or sadistic pornography, or the sexualisation of under-age girls in the sleazier end of the fashion industry, is unacceptable, but it’s in the grey areas that ‘rape culture’ becomes much harder to define, because popular culture is not simply one thing.
Nor, for that matter, is “masculinity”. There is not one kind of man, no more than there is one kind of woman.
Ultimately, these debates are all academic anyway. Rape is a crime like any other, and there is no substitute for punishment. Those who are found guilty of rape should be made to pay heavily for it.
Eoin O Broin gets around to that in his final paragraph, arguing for “real reform” of the justice system, but his case is undermined somewhat by belonging to a party whose attitude to law and order, like that of other left-wing parties, often seems to be conditional rather than absolute.
They support the Garda Siochana when it suits them. They support the courts when it suits them. They support the law when it suits them. Their treatment of men and women who have been abused by members of the republican movement has also been disgracefully hurtful.
Of all the people who have the necessary moral authority to lecture others on what needs to be done to help victims, SF comes shamefully low on the list.
Supporters of those parties are manifestly as appalled by what happened in Clondalkin last week as everyone else, but they should also face up to the possibility that making excuses for other criminals, and seeking softer treatment for them when they fall foul of the law may itself contribute to a climate in which victims are seen as less important.
Eoin O Broin is right about one thing, though. “People should be more vigilant and make sure that nobody is travelling home alone at that hour of night,” he warned last week.
That message can’t be stressed enough. Every person, man or woman, should be free to go anywhere they choose without fear of attack, but in the real world no one is safe, and it would be irresponsible to pretend otherwise just to make ourselves feel better.
‘Who wins the right to say which depictions of women in pop culture are acceptable?’