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Blaming women

If the Internet were a physical form, the darkest and slimiest grottos would be home to Reddit. Reddit has compiled and contributed to the world some of the most heinous pictures and comments, including subcommunities called: beatingwomen, jailbait, and most recently TheFappening. Though all these groups have since been banned, all have done their fair share of damage. TheFappening was one of the internet forums that hosted the dozens of recently hacked celebrity nude photos.

The celebrities ranged from Olympic athletes to Academy Award winners, but they all had one thing in common: They were women. That sentence is likely shocking to no one. Nude photo scandals have become associated with females. It’s the default assumption. What the hackers did was an awful invasion of privacy that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, but the fact that women were targeted and men were markedly not is almost as offensive as the act itself. It’s unlikely that the hacker couldn’t access the nebulous iCloud accounts of a single male celebrity; rather, it’s as though he thought that only women’s privacies were open and subject to violation. That only women deserved to be embarrassed for the pleasure of people that they don’t know.

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The thing is, even though these women were the victims of hacking, they’re still being blamed for the events that happened. Critics are asking the celebrities how they could be so careless and stupid, even though the images were protected on personal phones. In 2007, Vanessa Hudgens was subject to a photo leak that resulted in lots of apologizing on her part. Disney released a statement describing it as “a lapse in judgment,” hoping that Hudgens “learned a valuable lesson.” The thing is, as an adult, Hudgens was fully entitled to do what she wanted in the privacy of her home. Blaming her for the photo leak would be tantamount to blaming the victims of a home burglary just because they kept valuables in the house at all.

A parallel situation to this occurred more recently with“TheSuite Life of Zack and Cody”star Dylan Sprouse’s leaked nudes. Reactions, however, were markedly different. Dylan acknowledged and joked about the problem, and both the media and fans were supportive. Headlines commended the actor for being gracious with his mistake and commented that this was damage control done right. Hardly anyone lamented the downfall of the Disney star, and no statements were released implying that Dylan was learning from regrettable actions.On top of that, headlines decried the “bitter ex-girlfriend” that leaked his photos, insisting that Sprouse was not to blame for the ordeal — though no such defense occurred for Hudgens’ photos.

Largely, victim blaming seems to be a problem that women have to deal with. These leaked photos are a good example of this, but there’s an even darker side to this, wherein the consequences for women are even worse. In the case of rape, questions are asked regarding what a woman did or wore to bring it upon herself. A survey taken in India asked men whether they would marry a rape survivor and many — though not all — responded that they would not, even though the women were the victims. What’s worse is what happens when we look at how the rapistsdeal with the consequences of their actions: The rapist from the nationally publicized Steubenville, Ohio case was just reinstated to his high school football team a few weeks ago.

It’s not terribly difficult to be more cognizant of victim blaming. It’s an easy thing to put an end to if, as a collective, we see the harmful double standard it presents. The tide across college campuses, including this one, is definitely changing, as I hear fewer and fewer instances of it. Hopefully, with enough momentum, changing trends can expand from the youth population to the population of the country as a whole.

Shruthi Deivasigamani is a molecular biology major from Cresskill, N.J. She can be reached at shruthid@princeton.edu.

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