Conclusions

Considering these three advertisements and the interactive website, the intertexuality between them presents a clear discourse of victim-blaming. Each of these advertisements takes aim at not only the women and men under the influence of alcohol but also at their "friends." Responsibility is taken away from the other characters in these narratives (for example the person who raped the girl in figure 1) for the actions that have occurred and the burden of blame is shifted over to the person(s) suffering the consequences.

According to Rusinko et. al. "A conservative estimate of the number of women who have, or will, experience sexual assault at some point during their life is one in six" (357). Due to a woman's high risk of experiencing a form of sexual assault this discourse is a very important one to consider. If a woman is told through media forms and other manifestations of ideological discourse that rape victims bear the burden of blame for the violation of their bodies, then if and when she is faced with an assault, she will be more likely to blame herself and therefore suffer more from the situation. She may then refuse to seek help or justice, and even feel ashamed because she may think that she let it happen to herself. This can be seen in the research of Stahl et. al.: "the possibility of being viewed as responsible for being raped most likely contributes to rape victims' reluctance to report transgressions to proper authorities" (240). Making the victim the sole recipient of blame in cases of rape can not only cause severe psychological damage for the victim and risk prolonging the after effects of the assault, but it also reinforces existing negative ideologies surrounding the bearer of blame in these situations.

These negative ideologies begin to govern the way that women act whether or not they have experienced any form of sexual assault. As Idisis et. al. points out, "It is possible that, given the perception that women are vulnerable, exposed, and more aware of their vulnerability, they are expected to act with extra caution to avoid rape, and are therefore judged more harshly when actually victimized" (114). We see here that as a result of victim-blaming ideology, women are often powerless at the hands of blame attribution because of pre-existing ideas within dominant culture that assert that women should live in fear at all times of those out to rape them. When a woman lets her guard down, whatever happens to her is her fault. This results in what Stahl et. al. describes as "secondary victimization" which they define as the idea that victims not only have to suffer from the sexual transgression itself, but also from people in their surroundings who tend to see them as partially responsible for what happened to them" (240). This secondary victimization is just one of the many adverse effects of this kind of ideological discourse.



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Works Cited

Idisis, Yael, Sarah Ben-David, and Efrat Ben-Nachum. "Attribution Of Blame To Rape Victims Among Therapists And Non-Therapists." Behavioral Sciences & The Law 25.1 (2007): 103-120. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.

Rusinko, Holly M., April R. Bradley, and Joseph Miller. "Assertiveness And Attributions Of Blame Toward Victims Of Sexual Assault." Journal Of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma 19.4 (2010): 357-371. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.

Stahl, Tomas, Daniel Eek, and Ali Kazemi. "Rape Victim Blaming As System Justification: The Role Of Gender And Activation Of Complementary Stereotypes." Social Justice Research 23.4 (2010): 239-258. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.