BLAMED FOR THEIR OWN ATTACK
“In deeply patriarchal conservative societies, women have been the victims of inequality since time immemorial.” So said a female writer named Kabir in The Kashmir Observer. She wrote in response to an acid attack this month. In Hawal, a city near the northern tip of India, a man asked a 24-year-old woman to marry him. She declined his offer, so he and two others tracked her down and splashed acid on her face. According to a hospital official, “Nine percent of her face has been completely burned.” Kabir criticized the patriarchal tendency of blaming the victim for angering or humiliating the man. Such attacks by males in her culture can be explained, she says, “by how men see any attack on their power as an opportunity to resist through inflicting punishment on the opposite gender.”
BLAMED FOR HIS OWN TRAGEDY
As Job lay on the ashes mourning the tragic death of his children, his friend Bildad informed him that the children were obviously killed because of their sins against God. He seems to be chiding Job for his sadness and possibly rebuking him as a father…because if he and his children had done the right thing, none of this would’ve happened.
Questions
- Have you ever witnessed an example of victim blaming? Describe the incident.
- Why do you think Bildad said what he did to Job?
- What’s something helpful we can say to someone who is in grief?
