The Runaways’ Jackie Fuchs Criticizes Chrissie Hynde’s "Dangerous" Comments on Rape

Over the weekend, the Pretenders‘ Chrissie Hynde drew criticism after giving an interview in which she blamed herself for an incident of sexual assault that occurred when she was 21 years old, and made further comments saying that rape can sometimes be the victim’s fault.

“If you don’t want to entice a rapist, don’t wear high heels so you can’t run from him,” she said. If you’re wearing something that says ‘Come and fuck me’, you’d better be good on your feet.”

Today, the Runaways‘ Jackie Fuchs—who recently came forward with her story of being raped by Runaways manager Kim Fowley when she was a teenager—criticized Hynde’s comments in an interview with Yahoo, characterizing them as “dangerous.”

“I found myself being surprisingly angry,” she said. “But I don’t want to cast a stone at Chrissie Hynde — just at that one particular statement. Because it’s a really dangerous message.”

She continued:

It bothers me, because I don’t know that she’s gone out there and talked to [other] rape victims. If you had seen the messages that people sent me, so many of them were about ‘I’ve always thought it was my fault.’ We already think that anyway. So this is just telling people who’ve recently gone through this experience of being raped or abused, ‘Yeah, you’re right, it is your fault.’ But there’s no such thing as asking for it. And poor judgment is not an invitation to rape, nor an excuse for it. I know so many women who were raped while they were drunk or high, and they all blame themselves. To say that a woman can’t misjudge how much she’s drinking, or dress in a way that makes her feel good about herself for fear that men aren’t going to be able to control themselves, or that she has to be able to know who is dangerous and who isn’t, is asking an awful lot of men and women — especially young people.

Fuchs added:

Maybe, we’ll just say maybe, for women who came up in rock in an era when there weren’t a lot of women in it, they just thought they really had to act tough. And they’ve carried that with them. And I have no idea whether she really is that tough. If she is, good for her. But you can’t expect everyone to be that way. If you want to, for your own-self-empowerment, take personal responsibility because you feel like you need to for something you did, that is one thing. But you don’t get to make that statement for everybody else.

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