This is from page 3 of Saturday’s Daily Mail:
That headline again: Date rape at 19 was my own fault, admits Ulrika
And the headline for the online version of the same story: I blame myself: Ulrika Jonsson speaks about her date rape.
Note to the linguistically challenged editors of the print version. When a woman talks about blaming herself for being a victim, when she puts this self-blame down to an inability to assert herself in a frightening situation, that is not, I repeat NOT the same as “admitting” the abuse she suffered was her “own fault.”
The Press Complaints Commission can be contacted here.
Hat tip to bellamack for pointing this one out to me.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
Why have different headlines in the online and print version? Especially when a few little words make a huge, huge difference to the meaning?
I love that word ‘admits’. “Lindsay Lohan admits she is a lesbian” etc etc blah blah.
Pinch me.
Is it 2009, or 1959?
Ruth – I wondered if maybe the editor of the online version took one look at the original and thought “Oh crap, I can’t use that!” Or alternatively someone complained, so they changed it…..
Wow, rape culture and slut shaming at its worst, or finest depending on what way you wanna look at it.
And the prize for Most Misogynistic Comment goes tooooo… Susan from Edinburgh! Thanks for that, Susan.
Holy shit, that’s appalling. And the Mail published that comment…..
It’s the Daily Mail and I know that their constant victim blaming and support of rape culture shouldn’t surprise me anymore – but it is just so callous and hateful, I’m shocked every time.
I couldn’t get to the page with the article, it wanted me to download foreign character set or something (and put in my windoze disk FFS).
The headlines do seem to sum it up though.
I tried to complain but I had to send the original article: link or hard copy. Naturally they have changed the link and I don’t have the paper.
Gawd I hate them.
The Daily Male has engaged in a very lengthy campaign of promoting rape apologism and this is just the latest example. Of course the Daily Male cannot possibly print an article concerning male rapists’ accountability or why our society is fixated on blaming women for supposedly causing men to rape them.
No that would be ‘man-hating’ would it not – so much easier to promote ‘women-hating.’
There are many reasons why women rape survivors often blame themselves or else believe they should have prevented the man/men from raping them. One of the central reasons is because our society promotes myth women are supposed to be responsible for controlling and containing men’s sexual aggression and belief in their male sex right to women. Fact is only men can stop committing rape and it is not women’s responsibility but scapegoating women and constantly telling women they are ‘responsible’ for men’s sexual violence is much easier than taking a hard and long look at how male sexuality continues to be constructed and promoted.
I do not blame Ulrika Jonsson but I do understand how difficult it is to accept that there was nothing Ms. Jonsson could have done to prevent this man from raping her. No one wants to be a ‘victim’ but fact is rape is a crime and this means all rape not just the narrow definition of rape wherein a mythical deranged male monster attacks an innocent virginal girl or elderly assexual(sic) woman.
Furthermore, Ms. Jonsson’s personal life is irrelevant with regards to her being raped. Such pseudo claims of morality serves to normalise rape because it reinforces dominant beliefs once a woman has engaged in any sexual activity she is supposedly unrapeable because she – not men is responsible for preventing rape.
Men do not commit rape because they were sexually ‘teased’ by a woman – men commit rape for various reasons and often it includes the belief men are entitled to sexual access to women. Women do not cause men to become ‘sexually aroused’ rather men themselves are responsible for their sexual feelings. Heather Corinna’s article on ‘Get Real! Rape is not Her Fault succinctly puts responsibility where it belongs – with the person (predominantly male) who experiences sexual arousal – not the individual (predominantly women) who supposedly ’causes’ male sexual arousal.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/02/19/get-real-rape-is-not-her-fault
Who did you try to complain to Sparks? If it’s the Male just send them this link. If the PCC or similar, you can probably find the paper in your local library.
But here’s the online article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1163642/I-blame-Ulrika-Jonsson-speaks-date-rape.html
Sparks, here is the current link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1163642/I-blame-Ulrika-Jonsson-speaks-date-rape.html
Finally, I can now read it.
Does sound a bit like it was John Leslie though, doesn’t it?
Her description of the rape sounds like many date rapes – the inability to put up much defence is possibly much to do with the disbelief that someone you know/trust is breaking that trust.
Best book on acquaintance rape is:
I never called it rape Robin Warshaw
Sorry about that Polly, your comments got spamulated. I have no idea why (perhaps my spamulator has also decided you’re the most evol person in the Internetz – bet it was designed by a bloke).
There were a couple of good links off the Corinna article:
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/boyfriend/how_you_guys_thats_right_you_guys_can_prevent_rape
(although the scarleteen site is sex-poz, pro-bdsm I believe, but this piece is quite good)
And a book written by a man, for men (and women). I have not read it though.
themachoparadox.com/
(broke the second link so I didn’t end up spammed)
Cath, even my second comment got spamulated, even though I broke the 2nd link.
Obviously spamulator has deemed me as evol as Polly.
Grrrr, the Daily Male!!!
I complained the other day about its lazy and sensationalist reporting on the death of Natasha Richardson – where they seem to think raking up dirt on the sexuality of her late father and other family history is more important than being sensitive about her death:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1162783/Natashas-ski-fall-tragedy-Struck-eternal-curse-Redgraves.html
The Daily Male’s assistant editor is Charles Garside (charles.garside@dailymail.co.uk) so worth copying him into any email complaint.
There have been some very unsympathetic articles about Jade Goody as well (one was from a female journo).
It all stinks.
Another installment in the ongoing saga of “women are responsible for what men do to them”, brought to you by the corporate media and approved by misogynists everywhere.
“women are responsible for what men do to them”
I wonder how many thousand’s of years this shit’s been going on for now?
According to Len Firewood they are Sparks. The bitchez make men rape them by flaunting their hawt bodeez.
I didn’t realise that men were monsters who had no control over their actions. Hell, I thought they were human and fully capable of doing things like, y’know, *not* raping.
If they really can’t control themselves then I see no alternative but to lock them up, because obviously they can’t look at a woman without raping her. And they certainly shouldn’t be in charge of countries if they cannot even make themselves not rape. In the (half-remembered by no means verbatim) words of John Stuart Mill, why should the better be ruled by the worse.
And there was me thinking that men were intelligent, rational animals who were able to make decisions and chose not to commit acts that outrage the conscience.
Better lock ’em up away from the sparks.
This rant brought to you by Extreme Sarcasm and Cynicism- items necessary for the retaining of sanity when being female in a patriarchy.
Yet we are told ad nauseam that men are the bearers of all things that accord with reason and logic which deny ways of being not based on appeals to emotion or prejudice.
But wait: the Emperor, he is nekkid!
What part of the PCC code is being violated by this story? Tried to complain there but didn’t have time and aren’t legalese-y enough to decide which one, the complaint won’t go through without a category being selected.
Wow.
Not enough men of good, wholesome character out there to single out on this board – so it seems the sweeping generalisation team have commited to painting any and all males as depraved, sexual predators that should all be despised by womankind for all time..
Jennifer Drew is quite clearly a poster who has no time for the niceties of civilised discussion, instead all I see is verbose, venemous bile being spewed to fill in the cracks of her argument that men are to blame for everything.
Can you explain why the rest of mankind who have never so much as lifted an angry finger towards women should sit back and allow you to sully our names?
“Men are all the same” you’ll say – yes, thats right, Adolf Hitler and Francis of Assisi were definitely cut from the same cloth weren’t they?
Instead of looking at who is to blame – look at the fundamental differences between those who rape and abuse and those who don’t – maybe? Maybe!? MAYBE!?
Could it fit in with the idea of asking why adults who have never previously commited sexual transgressions against minors suddenly and inexplicably develop a desire for it? Why some people can try and quit a drug with ease while others struggle thier whole lives with it? or finally, how some people can remove themselves so completely from reality that they think sexual violence against anyone is justified by thier gender or thier pathological programming?
Answer those questions instead of carpet bombing half of the world with crude, unqualified garbage about mascilinities’ role in suppressing women.
Lovely weather today. I think I caught the sun.
Yep, it was well sunny here too Laurelin.
It’s boiling now, I expect my tomatoes to shoot up (if I remember to water them of course). Home grown salad soon!
Indeed, lovely weather today. Polly – mmm, home grown tomatoes!