Thanks for posting this.

When I teach about sexual assault in class, I often start by having students list the "rape prevention tips" they've received (in school, in emails, etc.). The list generally includes things like - don't accept drinks from strangers and never take your eye off your drink; don't walk alone at night; carry mace/pepper spray; check inside and under your car before getting in; etc. One student even said she was told that if you get locked in a car trunk, you can kick out the headlights to escape.

Then, I ask students what these tips assume about rape - about when/where rape happens, about who commits rape, and about who is responsible for preventing rape. It serves as a good discussion starter for talking about rape myths (the myth of the stranger lurking in the dark alley, vs. the more frequent reality of the known attacker) and victim blaming. This video is a good example for discussing alternative prevention perspectives that focus on the attacker's behavior, rather than putting the burden on women to prevent being raped.

I love the robots! Sorry, that was not a productive comment.

Nor do they ever discuss the rape of hundreds of thousands of men in our prison systems every year; for most Americans, male rape is an acceptable deterrent in our penal system. It is commonly accepted that if you go to prison in the US, you will be raped, and that it should remain like this.

I haven't watched the video (can't right now, will later) but, while I agree with your general point I have an issue with the way it is presented.

Namely: "rape prevention campaigns often put the onus on women to avoid being raped, providing lists of things to avoid doing...rather than focusing on educating men about not raping women."

In my opinion, men already know they ought not to be raping women, or anyone else. There's no need to teach them that, per se. That some do it anyway is a different matter, and not the point of this discussion I think.

But many women don't know the dangers to look out for. They don't know not to stand by their car searching their purse for their keys in a parking lot, because that's a very dangerous place to be. They don't know the steps they can take to be prepared and aware. I'm not talking about being alone at night, or wearing certain types of clothes, or whatever else women get blamed with because they "invited" the rape on themselves, or some such. I'm just talking about being aware of your surroundings, like every person ought to be in every situation.

Now if you want to talk about the fact that men need to be taught that women are actual human beings - worth just as much as they are, and deserving of the same treatment - this I will grant you needs to happen in many instances. But it needs to happen starting at age zero, for both boys and girls, and has very little to do with educating them about not raping women. The actual rape is a symptom, not a cause, of the over-reaching mentality.

But if this video, or any rape prevention campaign aimed at educating women, helps even one person avoid a terrible situation, is it not worth it?

Whom, dammit. Who is especially insidious here because you get all the way down the garden path (Who should rape prevention campaigns? Nobody, and how would one rape a prevention campaign anyway? And what does its address have to do with anything?) before realizing that rape-prevention should have been hyphenated and the real verb is 'address'.

meerkat, you're in good company. Let's form the League of Socimagers Who Leave Heartfelt But Non-Productive Comments.

I don't mean to dismiss that different gender standards contribute to this effect, but I think there is more to it.

Consider, do not do the same with with children vs pedophiles, or with people in general vs murderers / terrorists? Maybe there are better examples, but the common denominator I am trying to identify is that the threat here is presumably a person who cannot easily be swayed. We presume, for instance, that pedophiles suffer from some deep dysfunction, and deterring them requires either some therapeutic "cure" or threat of punishment. So, when it comes to byte-size public service announcements, one focuses on protecting children.

There is also an issue of banality. It seems incredibly trite to write a commercial that says "molesting children is bad" or "murder is bad," and people don't want to be trite, they want to be informative or interesting.

Whether these actually apply to rape is a different question. Perhaps many rapists are actually just confused males, who would benefit from being told their predilections are socially unacceptable.

Perhaps it would benefit to treat the situation like we do drunk driving, which does target the perpetrator. Initially, I imagine this was because driving while drunk was not universally acknowledged to be as bad as we now think it is, so initial public service announcements could make this case without seeming trite. Now such announcements tend to focus more on one's likelihood of getting caught, and the severity of consequences. Perhaps this form of public service announcement could deter some of these more violent crimes, like rape (and pedophilia and murder).

Don't forget that men can also be raped, and that women can also be rapists. It's a conversation largely missing in discussions about rape.

Someone wrote this on livejournal years ago, I cannot find the post, but I've kept the text close at hand.

How to stop rape:
If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching tv, don't rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.
If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and tell the guy he's a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it's not okay to rape someone.

Don't give your women friends trite advice on how to avoid rape.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

Did anyone else find it interesting that Dolly's odometer/fuel gauge (or whatever that is) is close to where her heart would be, and Red's odometer/fuel gauge (or whatever that is) is close to where his genitals would be? I don't know if it was intentional, but it felt like a subtle nod to the "women are emotional, men are sexual" assumption.

Re: the video, I love this. I also have that list of tips that Shay posted. I recently turned parts of it and a few other things (including some truly vile quotes by judges) into a mixed media project for a class.

Also, mc, you make brilliant points.

Several of the posts have commented on it, but I think a campaign to understand the definition of rape would be extremely beneficial. Because of the way rape safety is taught, men, I'm assuming think that rape = jumping out of the shadows and violently doing mean, angry sex to a woman.

I'm confused.. the video I just watched shows how a female robot is instructing a male robot on how NOT TO assult/rape/harass female(robots)?

Yes. It uses sarcasm and satire.

Yes, of course, responsibility for rape lies with the rapist. There can't really be an argument about that (not among reasonably intelligent people in modern society, anyway). But is this video actually helpful in stopping rape?

In my mind, there are two responses that most men will have to this video (and similar messages):
-The majority of men, who are not rapists and do not condone rape, will be offended.
-The minority of men who do commit or condone rape will not be influenced by this video; additionally, they will be less likely to see it than members of the aforementioned group.

Do rape-prevention messages directed at women really blame women or put all of the responsibility on women for prevention of rape? How is this different from other crime prevention advice, such as advice to lock one's house or car? Nobody should ever be a victim of any type of crime, but what is wrong with giving advice to potential victims on how to avoid being victims?

On the other hand, perhaps this message is too narrow. Sometimes it seems that our entire society needs a lesson in the importance of consent, because in addition to crimes like murder and rape, our society seems obsessed with forcing things upon its members under a threat of violence.

The fact that we use the phrase "get raped" instead of "was raped" pretty much sums up our society's collective opinion on the issue. It's inherently victim blaming—a person "gets raped," ie, brings it upon him or herself.

I know most people don't consciously mean that when they use the phrase, but it always stands out to me.

During my freshman orientation week in college, we went to an assembly where an acting troupe acted out various scenes and asked us if they were rape. In several, the woman was drunk, or dressed in revealing clothing, et cetera. The majority of the audience didn't think a lot of situations were rape (ones where no consent had been given), and when the troupe members stopped the pantomime and told us that they were indeed rape, a lot of the men started laughing and jeering, yelling things about how "the bitch was asking for it."

They left laughing, and I left in tears. It was the first time I truly realized that, in the eyes of many men, I'm not human.

I think that's the problem, and it all boils down to misogyny and rape culture. Understanding issues of consent is important too, but rapists rape because they don't think women are humans worthy of respect. If a man doesn't respect me as a human being, consent doesn't matter.

'...in the eyes of many men, I’m not human.

I think that’s the problem, and it all boils down to misogyny and rape culture. Understanding issues of consent is important too, but rapists rape because they don’t think women are humans worthy of respect...'

I agree. Underlying this is the aggressive, competitive, self-oriented mindset of culture. Humanity's inability to not objectify.

Here are two videos that cover items on the rape prevention tips for men list:
http://abyss2hope.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-videos-based-on-rape-prevention.html

To the people who keep commenting to say that people raping men is also an issue: Yes, it is. No one here's saying it isn't. The video isn't saying that all men are rapists and women are necessarily victims. The video is rather directly referencing the kinds of safety tips addressed at women to protect them from rapist men (through placing the responsibility on the women to avoid getting raped by men instead of focusing on the subject of rape as a crime committed by men). Though there are people who would make such blanket claims, that's not what this video is about, and we as commenters are here to focus on that issue brought up in the video.

To the people responding to the people I address above: Please understand that not everyone is familiar with feminist ideology, and that people who follow similar patterns of behavior are not the same individuals. Sayings like "what about the poor men" are commonly understood within the online feminist context, but not everyone is going to be familiar with such, so saying "what about the poor raped men" in an annoyed way may be interpreted as condescension toward men who have been raped as though to say they are not worth compassion.

I just want to aid in communication, and sorry about the meta comment.

NPR’s “Tell Me More” had this piece on today: Date Rape Article In Student Newspaper Stokes Anger
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125988719

The piece’s content speaks directly to this issue. Very disturbing ideology professed.

as requested... here is a link for the shorter version of Dolly & Red
http://jerseybearswitness.blogspot.com/2010/04/because-10-minutes-is-long-time.html

as requested... here are the youtube links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj2P0N9NYSI

(short version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r80OrHIuyEI

Thank you for the youtube link Monica C. Hope you don't me embedding it on my blog.