Victim blaming occurs when the victim(s) of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment are held entirely or partially responsible for the transgressions committed against them (regardless of whether the victim actually had any responsibility for the incident). Blaming the victim has traditionally emerged especially in racist, sexist, and classist forms. However, this attitude may exist independently from these radical views and even be at least half-official in some countries.
People familiar with victimology are much less likely to see the victim as responsible. Knowledge about prior relationship between victim and perpetrator increases perceptions of victim blame for rape, but not for robbery.
Read more about Victim Blaming: History and Concept, Secondary Victimization, Rape Shield Laws, Just-world Hypothesis, Family Honour and Sexual Purity
Famous quotes containing the words victim and/or blaming:
“As we try to change, we will discover within us a fierce struggle between our loyalty to that battle-scarred victim of his own childhood, our father, and the father we want to be. We must meet our childhood father at close range: get to know him, learn to forgive him, and somehow, go beyond him.”
—Augustus Y. Napier (20th century)
“We perversely see mother love as the problem—when it is all we have to sustain us—rather than blaming the fathers who have run out on our mothers and on us. We seem willing to forgive fathers for loving too little even as we still shrink in terror from mothers who love too much.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)