When do we start teaching Responsibility to men?

Dan Abrams takes a Boston radio host to task for his sexist and discriminatory views of women. You see, John DePetro blames Imette St. Guillen for being murdered because she was out drinking at 4am and it's just different for men and women.

DePetro then goes on to say women are the targets and should be careful out there in the big bad world of irresponsible men. Abrams informs him that this is indeed blaming the victim and now is not the time to ask why she was out at 4am because the family is grieving and trying to cope with the gruesomeness of Imette's murder.

Most people begin it by saying I‘m not blaming the victim but, like Boston radio host John DePetro who has publicly questioned what Imette was doing drinking at 4:00 a.m. He said anyone who‘s out alone at 4:00 a.m. drinking with strangers is—quote—“asking for trouble.”

Abrams starts the conversation off by asking DePetro if he would be saying this very same thing if the victim had been male. DePetro said that wasn't fair of Abrams to ask nor was it the point.

And why not? Would people be blaming the victim if 'she' were a 'he'? What if 'she' were a lesbian or 'he' was gay, did they ask for trouble simply because of their sexual orientation and they were out at 4am drinking when they should have known better?

Because I believe it doesn't really fucking matter if a woman or man is out drinking at 4am: absolutely no one asks - or deserves - to have a sock shoved into their mouth, held with duct tape, raped both vaginally and anally, tied, mutilated and savagely beaten. Absolutely no one.

So why can this DePetro guy not get that? Oh yeah, that's right, because he's one of those dumbass men who like blaming the women but not the men. DePetro ends up making Imette's murder about him and that he's not like that guy. He does finally say, near the end of the show, that the guy who murdered Imette is 100% responsible yet continues to blame her because she was a woman and already at a disadvantage.

This question has been asked over and over again: At what point should society start holding men responsible for their own actions and inability to control themselves? What this murder, and so many like it, represents, is a lack of self-control by 50% of the US population. Had the bartender been able to keep his rage under wraps (because, believe what you will, rape is not a sex crime), Imette would still be alive.

Why is it women have to constantly pay the price for a man's inability to be responsible for himself and to learn that No really does mean No?

Abrams asked Susan Filan, MSNBC's Legal Analyst, what she thought of DePetro's victim blaming and, finally (yet sadly), the lone woman on the panel made the point I was wanting to scream at the computer screen: Why isn't DePetro out preaching to men that they should never ever harm, assault, sexually or physically, or murder anyone, much less women? Why is DePetro sitting there in his radio station effectively blaming an innocent woman that did nothing wrong legally speaking?

FILAN: Why aren‘t we telling the men don‘t you dare touch a woman, don‘t you dare murder. Why don‘t we put them in jail for the rest of their lives or execute them according to the death penalty. But to tell women that if you go out and do whatever...

DePetro did not appreciate the evident anger in Filan's response as he began whining, tucked his tail between his legs, acting all defeatist and whoa is me. (I was gonna snip some, but it's just wonderful watching the back and forth on this. Even with it being just a transcript, you can feel Filan's anger and rightly so.)

DEPETRO: That is hardly the message.
FILAN: ... you see a sweet young lady in a vulnerable position...
DEPETRO: No one...
FILAN: ... late at night...
(CROSSTALK)
FILAN: ... have at it...
DEPETRO: No one is preaching that.
FILAN: ... it‘s fair game. She put herself there.
DEPETRO: That‘s offensive.
FILAN: It‘s her fault.
DEPETRO: That‘s offensive...
FILAN: You‘re absolutely...
DEPETRO: ... no one said...
FILAN: ... crossing the line in a way...
ABRAMS: All right...
FILAN: ... that I think calls your morality into question.
DEPETRO: You‘re offensive.
ABRAMS: Clint Van Zandt...
DEPETRO: There are criminals and sickos out there. If you want to ignore them and pretend they don‘t exist then that‘s your problem and your daughter‘s problem, but young women need to be warned it is very dangerous. She is 5‘2”, 115 pounds. That is different than a man.
FILAN: So it‘s her fault...
DEPETRO: A man would have a fighting chance.
FILAN: ... sweet little girl it‘s her fault.
ABRAMS: Michael Sapraicone...
DEPETRO: Doesn‘t matter whether it‘s her fault.

Did you see that? He, DePetro, said it "doesn't matter whether it's her fault" yet that's what his entire argument is based on and why he made it onto Abram's show. It's amazing that he couldn't see the correlation between his victim blaming bullshit and Filan's assertion that his theory, "You get what you deserve for being out at 4am drinking alone when you're a wimpy woman," is based in contradiction and ill-prepared research (as in like, none).

And women, we shouldn't be out late at night because, if we want to ignore them sickos and weirdos, that's our fault and that's why we deserve whatever happens to us. Yet, I think someone forgot to tell DePetro that violent crime doesn't just happen at 4am and most rapes/murders of women are at the hands of someone they know, like their significant other.

The reason DePetro angers me with his "Women must be Warned" ideology is because I have been warned about the risks of venturing out into the night by myself since I was in middle school. I wasn't allowed to date until I was 16 and then it had to be in a group setting. I was not allowed to be alone with any boys, no matter it being 1 or 20, 'til I was about 17 and in my senior year of high school. I've been told not to walk alone at night, to walk with my keys in between each of my fingers, to yell FIRE instead of HELP or RAPE because then someone might actually come to see what the problem is. I've been told simultaneously to listen to my gut instincts yet question them because I am just a woman after all and I may just be overreacting or imagining things.

To make "an example" of Imette's murder in this *victim blaming* way is entirely disingenuous because it fails to address the actual problem: why do men feel they are entitled to rape or have a woman's body with or without her permission? What message is being sent out into society that give men this perception? And for fucks sake, why did it take Filan getting into the argument to even bring that up?

How many times do we need to tell them it's men who can stop rape?