When the Victim Becomes the Antagonist

When the Victim Becomes the Antagonist

A woman, I know, was thinking of filing a complaint against her boss for taking sexual advances on her. But before she could, the word got out. Before she knew it, she was getting sneers from her other officemates who said their good and generous boss could never do such a thing. Gold digger, flirt, bitch were just few of the less harsh names she was called. Worst, she got fired.

Hurling fury upon a woman who complains of sexual harassment is not something new to us. Our patriarchal society owns people who have the tendency to point the blaming finger on the supposedly victims of malicious acts, mostly women, blaming them for intentionally luring the aggressor into doing so.

I remember how furious every woman in our house was, when Ramon Tulfo asked the mother of Aileen Sarmienta why Aileen had to wear shorts the night she was raped. Aileen was a University of the Philippines Los Baños student, who was raped and killed. The question im...