Tory MP Richard Graham is under fire after he suggested that women wearing short skirts and high heels (and drinking) might increase their chances of getting raped. Graham said:
“If you are a young woman on her own trying to walk back home through a park early in the morning in a tight, short skirt and high shoes and there’s a predator… if you are blind drunk wearing those clothes, how able are you to get away?”
“It’s not about the impact of your clothes on a potential predator – it’s about whether the clothes you’re wearing make it harder to get away from a predator.”
Presumably that means women should wear clothes that make them more capable of fleeing would be rapists at all times. Tracksuits and trainers perhaps?
Jo Wood, a trustee of Rape Crisis England and Wales, put the opposing case succinctly:
“It doesn’t matter if you are off your face and lying naked on a bench – that man takes it upon himself to rape you. We should put the blame back on perpetrators.”
We couldn’t agree more – Richard Graham should apologise.
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