A new video from CARE Norway has been making the rounds online, and itâs certainly making an impression. Called #DearDaddy, the video makes some important and powerful points about the many things that contribute to and perpetuate rape culture. Itâs the âjokeâ told to friends, itâs the judgement of the way a woman dresses, itâs in inaction. Itâs not calling people out for their comments, itâs not giving victims the support they deserve, itâs pretending youâre not part of the problem or pretending the problem doesnât exist at all when you are and it does.
To make this point, #DearDaddy is a 5 minute video that shows the consequences of all of these active and passive contributions to rape culture happening to one manâs daughter as she narrates them in a message to him.
Look, Iâm happy to see a video that holds men accountable for rape culture and doesnât victim blame, that tells men they are part of the problem and that they also have to be part of the solution, that draws attention to the fact that we shouldnât be teaching our daughters not to get raped, but rather teaching our sons not to rape. These are important points that ought to be made and listened to. But we have to stop framing these arguments in terms of wives, daughters, and sisters.
It always goes something like this: âYou should care more about the victim; what if she was your wife, or your sister, or your daughter? Think about how youâd feel if that was someone you cared about.â
I get it, this can be a useful argument to pull out when youâre talking to people who donât empathise with victims because it humanises the victim, doesnât it? Honestly, though? No. Itâs not helpful and itâs not even really humanising the victim at all. This argument is dehumanising them. By using this rhetoric all youâre doing is perpetuating rape culture by continuing to promote the idea that a woman is only important or valuable when she is considered in terms of her relationship to a man.
A rape victim might very well be someoneâs daughter, or wife, or mother, or sister but thatâs not what makes the rape and rape culture wrong. Rape is wrong because women are people. People shouldnât be raped. Women are people. Women shouldnât be raped. Thatâs it. Itâs that simple.
I like to think I live in a world populated by men who are capable of being empathetic towards women without having to have them compared to their wife, or mother, or daughter. Itâs an argument that will cause more harm than good. Letâs promote empathy thatâs gender-blind in order to see women as individual people with worth, rather than reducing them to their relationships to others. Not only that, letâs promote empathy for victims thatâs gender-blind so that we donât just see victims as female; men are abused and raped too.
Besides that, what does the argument in this video say about women who arenât wives, or sisters, or mothers? Do they not deserve sympathy or protection from rape culture? So, yes, I am someoneâs sister, Iâm someoneâs daughter, but I donât want that to be the only reason someone treats me with integrity and respect. I want to be treated well because I am a person, an individual with my own value.
We should be teaching that to our sons and daughters. Teach them that we should treat others well because theyâre human beings. Teach them that they themselves arenât just mothers and fathers, daughters and sons; they are people too, deserving respect for who they are, not for who they are in relation to someone else.