The Kansas City Star was forced to issue an apology this weekend after a columnist decided to give rape prevention advice that didn’t sit well with some of the paper’s feminist readers.
According to Laura Herrick in the paper’s “voices” section, women do have a responsibility to take certain actions to help avoid being sexually assaulted, including, but not limited to, knowing your drink limit and “stopping there.” She also counsels women to take personal responsibility for their actions and not “cry rape” when they end up making the “walk of shame” home after a regrettable evening.
Now, while Herrick is a tad… unforgiving… in her advice to young women, she’s hardly the first person to suggest that avoiding that tenth shot of Fireball is a good way to avoid making terrible life decisions. And Herrick does couch her advice with an admission that no matter what a woman says or does, she isn’t “asking for it.”
Regardless, Internet feminist outrage knows neither the bounds of reason nor the circulation of print newspapers in flyover country, and Laura Herrick became a top target. According to a hyperbolic writer at Jezebel, Herrick is simply encouraging rape culture because she admits that women can “never be 100% safe around men” and, in encouraging women to think about their own culpability before falsely accusing men of rape, Herrick clearly becomes a rape apologist. No merit could be found at all in Herrick’s arguments.
The reaction across the feminist sphere was predictably similar (and as predictably insightful).
Laura Herrick please stop writing! You are officially part of the problem. https://t.co/eyrwzdXu5E #victimblamer Just another @KCStar #fail
— Maggie Fitzgerald (@maggifitzgerald) July 11, 2016
Hey @KCStar: Laura Herrick is not a "Midwestern Voice." She's a victim shamer you gave a platform. #shame #disgusted
— eebsworthgoold (@eebsworthgoold) July 11, 2016
Laura Herrick is a dumb bitch.
— Betty Ford Dropout (@ManicMinxy) July 9, 2016
Not all of what Herrick wrote is without flaws, even from the standpoint of someone who believes personal responsibility plays a role in avoiding potentially dangerous situations. Herrick closes by opining that, “If she was so drunk she was unable to make good judgments, then how can we be sure that she has any idea what actually happened?” — a statement that could potentially excuse a man who’s taken advantage of a drunk woman.
Of course, the paper apologized and removed the column, but as is typical, the response wasn’t not nearly enough to satisfy the Internet hordes.
The author is a school teacher. Laura Herrick, you need to resign before you damage more innocent minds.
— Superhero Girl (@crackedmirror) July 9, 2016
Apparently, hitting the delete button makes everything okay in @KCStar land.
— banen. (@banenroyer) July 9, 2016
Unfortunately for Herrick, the Star is “putting measures in place” to ensure such an article is never again published in their pages.
