It is not uncommon for dogs to go viral.
Our furry friends are always doing something adorable or hilarious and capturing our hearts. However, one dog managed to go viral for demonstrating a very important point about sexual assault.
The wonderful dog in question belongs to Bree Wiseman
Ms Wiseman, like any normal person with a dog, was taking a picture of her pooch.
Soon, however, she realized that an image she had snapped had potential behind it for teaching a lesson about victim-blaming in sexual assault cases.
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Ms. Wiseman shared this seemingly normal image to her Facebook.
The picture shows 22-year-old Wiseman’s dog patiently and obediently staring at its owner while a plate of steak — her dog’s favourite food — lies at eye-level on the table just next to it.
Alongside the picture, Wiseman wrote a powerful statement.
She wrote on the Facebook post:
“To the people that say women get raped due to the way they are dressed. This is my dog. His favorite food is steak. He is eye level with my plate. He won’t get any closer because I told him no. If a dog is better behaved than you are, you need to reevaluate your life.”
Ms. Wiseman then encouraged people to share the message.
The purpose of the message is to show the ludicrous nature of the misogynistic argument that women can be responsible in rape cases due to what they were wearing.
What a woman was wearing is still a question that some people think is relevant to ask in sexual assault cases. However, no item of clothing gives someone else the right to commit sexual assault.
Wiseman’s image was quickly shared across the internet.
The photo of her dog along with the caption have been shared over 320,000 times, and have received over 200,000 likes!
The comments were full of supportive messages.
“I love your post! It’s not a woman’s responsibility to control a man’s sexual desires,” wrote one person. “That’s his responsibility to keep it in his pants. Any person who thinks women have to cover up is hypersexualizing women. Parents also need to teach their sons that women are not sex toys. They’re to be respected regardless of the attire they wear.”
“No means No. Very simple. My kids and my dogs know that,” wrote another. “I can leave a room and they won’t touch my food. Why, because they know what the word NO means. They were taught what the difference is between Yes and No.”
However, there were also a lot of people angered by Wiseman’s post.
There were men and women who took to the comments section to complain about how some women dress, and wax lyrical about how women wearing revealing outfits means “A lot look like they are begging for it in their dress” — and yes, I’m sorry to say that that is a direct quote on Wiseman’s post from a delightful woman we’ll call N.
It is staggering that people can still hold such poisonous, archaic, misogynistic values in today’s society. How is victim-blaming still something that some people hold on to in this day and age?
Ms. Wiseman has since expanded on the meaning behind her post.
In an interview about the problem of victim-blaming with HuffPost , Ms. Wiseman explained that she had been inspired to share her message online after her own experiences with sexual assault.
“If a 4-year-old pit bull understands the word ‘no,’ even though he is looking at something he wants so bad he is literally drooling, then adults should understand ‘no,’ no matter how the other adult is dressed,” she said.
“Appearances shouldn’t make any difference in sexual assault cases […]
“The only person to blame in a rape offense is the rapist. It was their decision to rape. People shouldn’t have to worry about what they chose to wear for fear of rape. I want people to see that this is a problem, and to stand together against victim-shaming.”
Since the image went viral, Ms. Wiseman has had to disable comments on it.
Apparently, Ms Wiseman grew sick of the amount of negative comments her post was receiving from people who had misconstrued her point.
“Almost everyone I know has been through trauma or at least uncomfortable situations just because someone didn’t respect the word no.”
“I posted that because I believe in what I said,” she told Bored Panda . “Once the hundreds of comments flooded in misconstruing what I wrote, I turned off the comments. People can take the post however they wish.”
Hopefully, as a society we can keep spreading the message that the victim is not at fault in cases of sexual assault.
Some people had a problem with Ms. Wiseman’s analogy due to oversimplification of the problem; but regardless, at its core the message of no meaning no is something that needs to be emphasized.
Only a little over a month ago, a video was released of a high-school teacher in Australia telling students that “it _does_ matter” what a woman is wearing when she is raped.
And, that dangerous misogynistic ideology is something that we simply cannot be allowed to be taught to younger generations.
h/t: HuffPost & Bored Panda
