Right-Wingers Don’t Care About Sexual Assault Unless They Can Scapegoat Non-White People

How we respond to bad-faith actors

6 min read

Just now

One of the most striking and indeed frustrating things we see in right-wing politics is the weaponisation of sexual assault and rape for their own divisive ends. What I mean by this is, the right will talk a big game about crimes such as sexual assault when it means they can use such a point to demonise certain minority groups, such as immigrants, but they will remain utterly silent on the issue in every other instance.

In Britain, we constantly see right-wing figures such as Tommy Robinson draw attention to sexual assault and rape when such crimes are committed by Muslims or immigrants, but this is the extent to which they cover it. You’ll never see people such as Tommy Robinson talk about the ways in which sexual assault goes unpunished or is enabled in various ways. One of the most obvious examples of this is when people try and blame a woman for her sexual assault by insinuating that what she wore means she bears some responsibility for being assaulted.

Arguments such as these are totally misogynistic, but they’re important to highlight as they show how, in mainstream culture and discussion, we see sexual assault enabled. Not only this, but especially in areas such as England and…