I often say that this country has become a circus but there are times when tragedy would probably be a better-suited descriptor for where we are as a people.

Amid the prime minister pulling a Jean Paul Sofia U-turn and finally asking the now former tourism minister to resign as another scandal related to him broke (I suppose we should feel fortunate that there was a last straw in this case and saying ‘sorry’ wasn’t enough anymore), and the same former minister’s grinning wife paying back the alleged €16,000 difference she owed (if I had known that being a secretary were so lucrative I would have switched jobs years ago), a shocking survey about sexual violence was published.

Following a report published just a few days ago, which showed that Malta has the highest rate of domestic violence reporting in the European Union, a new Eurobarometer study was published.

Surveying 537 people across the Maltese islands, the results showed that 20% of the Maltese believe that women are partly to blame if raped while drunk, 55% think that women are partly to blame if nudes get leaked after they’ve shared them with a partner, 25% feel that women should

accept sexist replies online when posting their opinion to social media, and, perhaps most damning of all, 32% believe that women often make up/exaggerate rape claims.

Apparently, education and evolution haven’t done much to erode victim blaming and the old Maltese proverb about men always being the holders of the white flag.

I suppose when you’ve enjoyed hundreds of years of privilege, you’re not exactly going to relinquish all the power you were born into and willingly take the blame for things you yourself cause.

And with a good chunk of the society you’re living in backing you up, why would you? Lest we forget the growing movement of young men being told by toxic online presences that they have some divine right over someone else’s body because they were born with a different set of chromosomes.

If there’s one thing that these statistics scream loud and clear, it’s that misogyny is well and truly in the house. I want to make it clear for the cheap seats at the back.

Rape is no one’s fault but the rapist’s. No one is going around “asking for it”. If they did want it, you would know. And someone, anyone, drunk should be looked after, not exploited.

If an infirm person were robbed at the roadside because he was too weak to fight their perpetrator off, I guarantee that no one, male or female, would say he was to blame.

Why should I or anyone else have to live in perpetual fear of not only being raped but then being made to feel like I somehow deserved it because I should have been hyper-vigilant? How about we teach our boys not to rape instead of trying to find excuses for it?

As for the individuals who believe that women often make up rape claims, there simply are no words. Maybe those 32% should be court-ordered to hear survivor stories and cast their vote again.

This country really needs to do some soul-searching about the standards it continues to set for itself and others. If you’re still okay with robbery and rape, you are very much the problem.

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