The Psychology Of Victim-Blaming

The article starts off with the case of American comedian and actor Kurt Metzger. After a performer was banned from a theater in New York because he had been accused of sexual assault by several women, Metzger took to Facebook to defend the guy: "I know because women said it and that's all I need! Never you mind who they are. They are women! ALL women are as reliable as my bible! A book that, much like a women, is incapable of lying!” and “If we ask them to even merely also post a vague account of what happened before asking us to believe that would like re-raping their rape!”

That is a perfect example of victim-blaming, but there are also other, more subtle, ways of doing it, like berating someone for getting robbed because they were wearing a zipless tote bag and not a “proper” one.

Sherry Hamby, a professor of psychology at the University of the South, explains that sometimes people blame victims because they strongly need to see the world as a just and safe place. So, in this safe-world paradigm, they think the victims must’ve done something wrong, otherwise the universe wouldn't just turn on them for no reason. But the victim-blamers tend to overestimate their capacity of control over the world and over their own behavior. Hamby also says that “this desire to see the world as just and fair may be even stronger among Americans, who are raised in a culture that promotes the American Dream and the idea that we all control our own destinies".

What’s also worth mentioning is the research done by Laura Niemi, a postdoctoral associate in psychology at Harvard University, and Liane Young, a professor of psychology at Boston College. Among other things, they’ve found that the words used and the focus in presenting assault cases are crucial to whether victim-blaming will happen.