Bad reaction

For the past three days, a story that has been popular in the news and on social media involves singer Solange Knowles - the younger sister of Beyoncé - attacking producer and rapper Jay-Z in an elevator at a party. Beyoncé, who is also Jay-Z's wife, was in the elevator as was a bodyguard; the latter held back the younger sister from Jay-Z for the duration of the elevator ride, although she was able to break free a couple of times to continue to strike him. At present, it is not known why Knowles attacked Jay-Z; only speculation and wild conspiracies have been presented as explanations.

The actions of Knowles, which are bad enough by themselves, are not the most disturbing part of this incident, in my opinion; rather, I'm more worried by the apparent reaction of the public via social media and comment threads. I wrote the following to a friend who was talking about the incident and the reaction to it:

"What really bothers me is the amount of people who seem to believe that if one person starts hitting another for seemingly no reason, the victim should be asked what they did for someone to hit them rather than the perpetrator be asked why they started hitting."

The narrative has focused on what Jay-Z might have done to provoke Knowles, rather than what Knowles' reasons were for hitting him; this reaction implies that a recipient of violent behaviour should be the individual under scrutiny instead of any aggressor. The extent of this line of thinking can be evidenced by the prevalence of the hashtag #WhatJayZSaidToSolange on Twitter. With a current lack of any evidence to the contrary, Jay-Z is the victim in this incident and it is wrong to assume that he has done something to cause another person to attack him. This is obvious victim-blaming and this mentality needs to stop.

The poor reaction has been exacerbated by all the people who find the incident hilarious (cue the endless "100 problems"/"Solange's first hit" jokes) and the countless Internet memes that have been generated to mock the event. One person attacking another is not funny at all. It is irrelevant that Jay-Z is a larger and stronger person than Knowles and that she might not have managed to harm him even without the intervention from the bodyguard: there is no humour in violence and no one should be laughing about it.

I can only hope that the people who have engaged in victim-blaming, laughed about/mocked what happened or otherwise been dismissive are a minority, albeit a vocal one. Victims of violence - regardless of gender or social status - are often reluctant to speak, usually because they are afraid of not being believed or, worse yet, of being laughed at or outright blamed for any abuse that they have received. When the general public takes a light-hearted approach to incidents such as this, that reluctance intensifies and people continue to suffer.

On the word "frape"

For the most part, I am fairly relaxed about vulgar language. Rude words don't usually offend me unless they are said to excess, to which I then find them boring. That being said, there are certain words that do bother me - especially terms that are racist or sexist - with one in particular being "frape".

A "frape" is defined as when someone has their Facebook profile modified without permission by another person (hence, a portmanteau of "Facebook" and "rape"). It can refer to a person having their account broken into, but for the vast majority of the time it's when someone forgot to log out, their friends use their computer, and those friends change the person's profile around in a humorous manner.

I object most strongly to this frivolous use of the word "rape". Having your Facebook profile picture changed to a balloon or having nonsense written on your timeline is nothing compared to a woman having her body violated. A rape mentally and physically scars a woman for life; a couple of friends messing about with your profile will temporarily make you look foolish and ensure you remember to log out in future and/or increase your account's security. At the end of the day everyone will understand, laugh at, and move on from a non-hostile (if initially unwelcome) practical joke between friends; a rape is not at all humorous nor are its consequences merely fleeting.

The originator of "frape" probably came up with the term in good faith, but they and other people who have used it since don't understand that when we cheapen the word "rape" we risk trivialising how serious and disgusting rape really is. One could argue that editing a profile without permission is still a violation in itself - it is! It's an invasion of a person's space - but it's not rape. Even if an unrelated person hacks into an account it still cannot be likened to rape; it's both wrong and condemnable, but it's still not rape. I'm sure nearly everybody would object to having their accounts hijacked - and in no way am I playing down the importance of account security - but those same people would be further opposed to themselves and others being raped.

The solution to dealing with the usage of "frape" is to firmly explain why modifying a friend's Facebook profile is not comparable to the violation of a woman's body and the loss of her dignity. Say how offensive the term is to women who have suffered rape or how rape-related humour only serves to enable rapists. You could even say it comes across as misogynistic! However you decide to put it, make it clear that the word they are using is unacceptable. If we don't take action, nothing will change; I freely admit that I have made the mistake of letting the use of the aforementioned offensive term go unchallenged, and I am ashamed by that.

Rape is one of those topics that I refuse to take lightly. If we joke about rape we harm those affected by it, we encourage the rapists; and we do nothing in preventing others from becoming victims of such a violent, disgraceful act.