Well, I’ve been seeing this around the place for a little while now, and more noticeably since Badman, Balls and the DCSF declared war on English home educators, and have even personally been on the receiving end of it from a very high profile blogger who shall remain nameless (my crime? Objecting to being referred to has a “homeschooler”).  What is it?  It’s the “if you don’t do x, y & z, and something awful happens, you will only have yourself to blame” line.  Or, to give it it’s proper title, Blaming the Victim.

There are commenters over on Lisa’s blog, particularly, who I have replied to twice in this context, feeling like a lone voice against all the victim blaming (and the related victim judging, even when the judgement is that actions taken were the “correct” ones) that seems to be going on at the moment.

On this post, where a woman called Colleen told her story of persecution at the hands of Social Services, one commenter said this:

“This is the only way to deal with these people. Vultures do not go after the strongest animal; they hover around waiting to pick off the weakest prey. If you present any weakness, lack of self assuredness or ignorance of your rights, they will pounce on you. You must never let them into your house. Period. You have nothing to prove, no need to prove to anyone that “only want[s] to see that the education is ok and see what plans you have for child”. As soon as you open the door to them, you have compromised the safety of your family. How you choose to educate is YOUR BUSINESS, you do not have to persuade anyone, or take into account anyone else’s ideas about what you should or should not be doing, and you should never feel that you have to explain yourself.

This script may or may not be applicable in different situations; certainly, if it is your first encounter with these people, you could do it. No one has the right to ambush you in your own home.

If you get a letter from them, the first place you should send it is to a solicitor who should answer on your behalf in the most withering terms possible. You should not answer these letters yourself, if you are going to send an answer at all.

For all those who cannot afford a good solicitor, you should get together and form a legal defense fund. One thing is for sure; you need to understand what your rights are, and have a procedure in place to follow whenever people come to your house. Depending on what they are, you should have a script to follow. These people must obey the law. Never litigate your case on the doorstep. Do not enter into conversation with them. That is what solicitors are for.

If you do not do this, and you let them into your house, start to talk to them, treat them like human beings and listen to their ill conceived opinions and perspectives, you will have only yourself to blame when the outcome turns bad.”

To which I replied:

“I agree with Alexander and thank him for posting, but I do have to take exception to the idea that if we do not do these things we only have ourselves to blame when things go bad. I understand what he means, but think it is equally important to remember that *none* of the blame for the way social services or other agencies behave should lie with the people who are victimised or persecuted by them. As Alexander says, they will go for the weakest people, but those people do not deserve to be harassed any more than strong people.

We should all definitely know our rights, get everything in writing, do not answer the door to people we don’t know etc, but if someone does *not* do those things, if someone is less politicised or otherwise just less inclined to think like that, they still have a right to raise their children without interference, and are still in no way to blame for the heavy-handed tactics of the state. This sort of thing must be bad enough to have to go through, without the extra burden of blaming yourself. But, yes, it is a war and we must arm ourselves.”

Someone else then said:

“The blame the victim is how the system works when it wants to attempt to force an idea though it does not care about the victim or how bad the victim will feel.  It is a dirty business when the DCSF attempt to change the law.The DCSF will use every trick in the book to get new law though if that means blaming the victim it will do it!”

I did not reply but I will now, because it’s the main point I want to make with this post.  Yes, the DCSF, and generally all Government departments and agencies do blame the victim, of course they do because it absolves them of responsibility, and the commenter (who seemed to completely miss my point) is right, that is how they work.  That is precisely why we should not be engaging in any kind of “blaming the victim” talk ourselves. Can’t you see it plays right into their hands?  If we are going to go around blaming each other, it saves them the trouble of doing it.  And then they can say, well you were warned, and look, these other home educators knew it, and this commenter here knew it, so why didn’t you realise that if you didn’t do x,y & z, you would “only have yourself to blame when the outcome turns bad”.  Now look at you!  We wish we could help but, frankly, you got yourself into this mess. The fact that the DCSF use this tactic is not an argument for us to use it also, but for us to flatly refuse to engage in any victim blaming and to continually make sure, loud and clear, that the blame lies squarely on the perpetrator’s shoulders and nowhere else.

Just to take Lisa’s latest post as a perfect example, she writes about a Daily Mail report about PCSO’s who, as part of a “burglary crackdown” have been jumping through people’s open windows to scare the living daylights out of them and demonstrate how easy it would be for a burglar to do the same.  It is absolutely typical of these kinds of initiatives, especially ones that use such meaningless terms as “crackdown”, to blame the victim for the crime, whilst doing nothing whatsoever about the perpetrator.  You got burgled?  Well you left your window open, what did you expect?  Are you some kind of dimwit? Look at initiatives and strategies against rape and domestic violence, as by far the most prevalent example.  Always the question is, “What can women do to prevent rape or domestic violence?” instead of the far more obvious and pertinent “What can men do to stop themselves raping and killing women?”

Ridiculous as the Mail’s story is, it demonstrates my point beautifully.  In the context of the Badman report and the eventuality of the recommendations in it going through, blaming the victim is exactly what the DCSF want us to do, because it takes the responsibility for the invasions of privacy, the traumas to children, the destruction of autonomous education, away from them.  We can’t very easily put the blame on the Government department responsible if we’re all sitting around thinking, “Well, I didn’t do x,y & z, so I only have myself to blame.”  It is perfect for them – they get us to convince ourselves we are to blame and they get to pretend they are acting in our best interests, the ever-benevolent Government, saving us from ourselves.

If  Social Services come knocking and you answer the door and let them in and speak to them, and then “the outcome turns bad” it is Social Services’ fault, not yours.

If you are raped, it is the rapists fault, not yours.

If your husband beats you, it is his fault, not yours.

If the Government introduce all the recommendations in the Badman report, spelling the end of home education as we know it, and a completely unacceptable invasion into private family life, it is the Government’s fault, not yours.

Blaming the victim; looking at things that other people did and saying, “You did that right,” or “You did that wrong,” will not get us anywhere except where the Government wants us; surveilled, monitored, measured, tested, all for our own good because we are to blame for everything that happens to us.

[*Title stolen from an article by Andrea Dworkin about OJ Simpson.]