On Thursday, Edmonton radio station 630 CHED set off controversy by posting a poll to its Twitter account. Unlike most radio station polls — “What’s your favourite type of meat to BBQ,” “How much do you like the weekend,” “Which Dave Matthews Band song is the best one,” etc — this one dealt with a serious issue, and it did so poorly.
“It’s very controversial,” the tweet read, “but do you think victims of sexual assaults share any blame for what happens? Vote.”
The very idea of this poll existing is upsetting, but it’s even more upsetting that it was on the website and Twitter profile of a commercial radio station. Commercial radio is for reactionary talk shows, unlistenable pop music and mindless “entertainment,” and when it strays from those three pillars of the form it is playing a dangerous game indeed.
By Thursday afternoon, the station issued an apology (but left the offending poll up).
“We’re sorry,” the apology tweet said. “This morning, we tweeted a poll that lacked context. That was wrong, and people are understandably upset.”
Station manager Syd Smith echoed this sentiment later on-air, calling the question “ham-handed” and adding,
“That question, void of context, would make me angry.”
Both Smith and the station at large seem to misunderstand what’s offensive about the question. Asking if sexual assault survivors share blame for their trauma at least makes some more sense given that it was related to a discussion on sexual assault, but this context doesn’t make the question less wrong-headed or offensive.
What’s offensive about the question is the idea that someone — anyone, regardless of gender — might be to blame for being assaulted. And this idea is the crux of the poll. No “context” will make the essence of the poll question different, which means context won’t mitigate the offensive nature of the poll.
At least, this is how the people who were offended see it. Before the poll was taken down 35 per cent of respondents had answered that yes, a woman can be responsible for her own sexual assault if she drinks too much, dresses inappropriately or walks “in harm’s way.”
This kind of thinking is obviously not new. It’s also not the first time someone has stirred up trouble by posing such a question to online audiences. Dr. Phil made the same mistake last year:
If shit-stirring public personalities can’t accept that perpetrators of crimes are the ones responsible for said crimes, maybe we could at least ask them to stop posing these faux-introspective questions to their audiences.
[Edmonton Journal]