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Globe finds a Suffolk student to tell Beacon Hill women to stop overreacting to being groped

The Globe ran your basic second-day reaction story today to the news that another woman was indecently assaulted on Beacon Hill. About what you'd expect, except for this quote from a chipper public-relations major at Suffolk - who lives on Beacon Hill:

Honestly, I feel like the people getting attacked aren't being aware. And they're probably overreacting in their [police] reports.

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Comments

Wow, victim-blaming, much?

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"overreacting" denies the seriousness of the attacks.

"people getting attacked aren't being aware" = "I want to believe that it won't happen to me because I don't make mistakes x,y, or z"

This is how women end up parroting the victim blaming lines - they want to believe it won't happen to them because they play by certain "rules" or follow a certain script.

The reality is that these things can happen to anybody because they are at a certain place at a certain time, and that the attacker is in control of the situation.

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His statements are so moronic, they crossed the line into trolldom. Maybe he was being a troll?

I have to smile at your deadly serious response. OF COURSE no reasonable, sane person wants women [or men, boys, girls, ] to be randomly assaulted. That's like asking what do you think of pollution; how are people supposed to respond to such a moronic, troll-like question? Oh, I love pollution?

I understand some people like to use goofy statements like this kid/young man made to start or continue a 'dialog', but c'mon, really.

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That said, he probably gets away with it partially because of his appearance. He doesn't look like a stereotypical sexual molester/rapist/groper. I'm in my mid 30s, and when walking home from work in Cambridge, to the subway stop [and often walking to a subway stop in Beacon Hill/Public Garden/Back Bay], and it's non-business hours, I'm very careful when approaching lone women so as not to spook them, and well even sometimes cross a street rather than walk behind them. And there's A LOT of lone women walking around at odd hours of the day, IMO far more women than men. This guy sounds like he doesn't raise any red flags before he attacks.

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Regarding the Suffolk student: I meant to say young woman NOT young man.

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It is true that a majority of people most likely wouldn't agree with that moron BUT the problem lies in the fact that this person even said it.

The war on women in real in this country and statements like the one that was quoted perpetuates that is it our fault no matter what or that we are over reacting. We shouldn't be walking alone, we shouldn't be drinking, we shouldn't be wearing what is perceived as alluring clothing, etc,etc.

Unfortunately we live in a society dominated by sound bites and with people that have attention spans of a flea and women either being persecuted for being attacked, being someplace we supposedly shouldn't be and being angry that some people are trying to govern our bodies. It all ties together.

The question is how do we stop the morons from victim blaming and educate them?

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The quoted person was female.

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So?

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I don't know about 95% but enough people agree with or believe her statement to the point that it really does affect whether or not someone chooses to go to the police, whether or not those claims are taken seriously, whether or not anything is ever done about it, and more. Is it still trolling if you are saying exactly what some people actually believe without any exaggeration?

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It's a natural instinct we do to feel safe; we explain away why it can't happen to us.

In this particular dynamic, it sounds really asinine to most of us, but on a lot of news stories we see people trying to make the scene of a crime sound totally nothing like anywhere they'd ever be, so that they can feel safe that it would never happen to them. Even the mainstream media does this -- a backyard barbeque is suddenly a drug-fueled party, the emphasis is placed on the person ending up at an event with people they don't know even though it's common for anyone to go to a gathering where they only know a couple people.

Someone I know was shot by a stranger a few years ago while out at dinner with relatives. The comments on all the news stories and much of the reporting where quite victim-blaming; why was she out in the evening when she has young children (because she got a babysitter like most people do when they want to go out), why would she be in a place where a drug dealer was (because she doesn't do background checks on each person in the restaurant before getting a table there), she was probably drinking (yeah, probably -- I usually have a couple drinks when I go out to dinner too), even asking why on earth she'd be in a different city than where she lives (because that's where they wanted to go out to dinner -- WTF).

Realistically, of course, any of us could get shot while having dinner. Most people don't, and going out to dinner is really a pretty safe activity. So's walking around outside. At any time of day, in any type of clothing, in any area.

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Why would you even do a public reaction story about this? I mean what are people going to say except "Oh my god that's so terrible"? The only other reactions are going to be victim blaming stuff like the one above. (one would think a public relations major would realize how bad that looks)

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Has stopped being "interact with the public" and moved more toward "programming people and telling them what they should be thinking".

It doesn't surprise me that corporate preparation + adolescent inexperience would result in such confident statements.

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I'm surprised at the ignorance of the public to believe choppy misquotes of the newspaper.

Um, if she really is a PR major (not sure where that bit of biography comes from. It's not evident here or in the Globe article), shouldn't she be very aware of the public's credulousness when it comes to the press?

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And plug her name into the Googles and see what happens. I admit I'm getting soft in my dotage: I purposefully didn't include her name because I don't tend to take down UHub posts and you just know this is the sort of thing that can haunt somebody for years and I thought the important thing was the inanity/dumbness of the quote, not the name of the specific person 99.99% of us have never heard of who said it and who may have just learned her first lesson in dealing with the press (or who may be having second thoughts about what she said; your choice).

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I frequently do further research on news articles I find of interest. However since you mention this data point in the title of the article, it should have some back-up also mentioned. Given how often current reporting gets these things wrong, I do like to see some evidence that the reporter did some homework and that as a reader I don't have to do it all for him/her.

Also, given that it isn't mentioned in the original article that she is a PR major or a Suffolk student, it seem unfair to smear those two institutions with her ignorance. Do we have to start every discussion with a reporter with a disclaimer? ;) :)

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On the first point, yes, you're right - I should have provided some backup of my points she's a Suffolk students since the Globe doesn't mention it. Only problem is that would require naming her, which I decided not to for reasons cited above.

I thought both her university affiliation and her major were relevant in an article like this - the school because it suggests she's not a long-term resident and because, to be honest, of the tension between Beacon Hill and Suffolk (see this post, which I put up just minutes before). Public relations because, well, that's not the sort of thing a PR person would actually say (in fact, I first learned about this quote from a PR person, who had a one-word answer after I told him she was a PR major: "Ouch").

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I think you could have gotten away with "A Suffolk student as verified by this reporter". I trust you enough I'd have never checked. :) But now I'm really splitting hairs.

And yeah, "Ouch" was also my reaction. Though in all honesty I'm much more alarmed by the fact that something so stupid was said by a woman than that it was said by a PR student...

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I worked as a newspaper reporter in New York and Conneticut for 5 years. In that time, I was only accused of misquoting a source twice. They were both college students who I quoted in otherwise completely innocuous stories.

Props to this PR major of digging up some rather annoying memories that I had repressed.

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"OMG that's terrible" is the only appropriate reaction to pretty much any crime, yet it's somehow acceptable in the case of many victim demographics to blame the victim for where they're from, who their relatives are, what type of housing they live in, etc.

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That will be one stellar public relations person.

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texting, twirling her hair and snapping her gum while she spoke to the reporter.

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Wow, the quoted source's victim blaming comment was pretty awful towards women but it's a little ironic that you pan her for stereotypically young female gestures instead of her expressed thoughts and words.

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Please enlighten me!

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