Update

There has been an arrest in the case of the Auburn student who was murdered last week. The man charged in the case has been charged with, among things, attempted rape. According to the story in the NY Times, there appears to be no prior connection between the accused and the victim.

In another media report, a young woman, probably a student, was quoted as saying that students need to be more careful and that she'd seen women running at night with their iPods on, and how that just isn't safe.

I understand that we like to believe that we can control our environments and the people around us. We still cling the the notion that women hold responsibility for the behavior of men. We still assign to women more responsibility for their safety than men.

The fact of the matter is, you should be able to leave your personal belongings in your car, with the doors unlocked and windows open, and NO ONE should reach in and take them. Somewhere along the line, we forget that one of the first lessons we learn as children is to not touch what doesn't belong to us.

I feel this urge to, along with changing the messages we give men in the name of rape prevention, that we need to work on changing the attitudes women have about their own responsibility for the criminal actions of others.