Can any of us completely shed the influence of our formative years? I ask this question in the wake of the outcry following Chrissie Hynde’s remarks about young women, rape and blame.

In looks and style, Hynde defies the date on her birth certificate but the rock star’s comments about rape suggest her attitudes remain true to her generation.

Hynde is 63 and was raised “to be a nice little 1950s suburban girl in Akron Ohio”. She left home in her teens and famously went on to embrace the drugs and rock ‘n roll lifestyle she describes in her new memoir, Reckless.

One of the events she recalled was being attacked by the members of a motorcycle gang when she was 21 while off her head on drugs. Instead of taking her to a party, as she expected, they brought her to an empty house and made her perform sexual acts under threat of violence.

She wrote: “However you want to look at it, this was all my doing … ”

When I read that I thought I could hear an echo of 1950s Ohio. Back then women lived in two categories: good and good-time. Good girls didn’t mix with rough men and didn’t therefore get assaulted.

At least that was the theory, one which seems to live on in Hynde.

She went on: “I take full responsibility. You can’t f*** about with people, especially people who wear ‘I Heart Rape’ and ‘On Your Knees’ badges.”

In a newspaper interview, she elaborated, talking about some women who end up in trouble. “If I’m walking around in my underwear and I’m drunk? Who else’s fault can it be?

She added: "If I’m being very lairy and putting it about and being provocative, then you are enticing someone who’s already unhinged – don’t do that. Come on! That’s just common sense.”

Let me tell you that an awful lot of women of her generation will be nodding in silent agreement, or partial agreement at least. It’s how they were conditioned to think in their formative years.

I know because I am one of them. Like Hynde, I was raised to believe that men were not really in control of their instincts and that it was incumbent on women to look after themselves and to guard against danger.

I have even tried to pass this wisdom to my children’s generation and I have the scars to prove it. Instead they re-educated me.

So whom do I think is to blame when a young, drunk, scantily clad young woman is sexually assaulted? Where does responsibility lie?

The answer is different to each question because there can be a vast gulf between blame and personal responsibility.

If I leave the door of my car wide open and the keys in the ignition, I am being irresponsible. If a thief steals the car, he is to blame.

Like many others I have seen young girls in wisps of clothing lying blind drunk in doorways in the early hours of the morning. And like many of my age I want to shake some sense into them. It is more protectiveness than disapproval. I fear for them. I think they are putting themselves at risk. And it’s true that I also think they are letting themselves down.

It’s a pathetic sight; to me a picture of despair. I can imagine what has preceded it; the excited shopping for the (almost) dress and killer heels; the trip to the hairdresser, the hours spent transforming from wage slave to goddess. I can see her setting out for a night of pleasure, excitement and romance.

The doorway then is the resting place of disappointed dreams and rejection fuelled drunkenness. It is bleak enough without being topped off by rape. But what if she is raped? Is Hynde right in thinking her recklessness makes it her fault?

It is important to be clear about this. It is important to separate personal responsibility and blame. Scotland registered a 24 per cent increase in rape and attempted rape between 2112-3 and 2013-4. Some of the rise might be attributable to historic cases and greater reporting but even so it makes sorry reading.

Reported rape and sexual assault are on the increase across the UK. Jeremy Corbyn’s response to women being harassed was to ponder the reintroduction of women-only carriages on public transport. It made me wonder about two things. First, would a sexual predator be stopped by a woman-only notice if his potential victim was alone in a carriage? Secondly, what if a woman was raped in a mixed carriage? Would she be "asking for it" because she didn’t choose the woman-only option?

Isn’t the challenge to finally shed the implication that somehow women are to blame for the violence that is far too frequently visited upon them?

Rape is not confined to scantily clad young women. Just last week in Edinburgh a man was raped at 6.30 in the morning near Greyfriar’s Bobby. Those who heard concert pianist James Rhodes speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Sunday evening know that he was first raped when he was five years old. Pensioners are sometimes raped as are wives or ex-wives and partners.

If we return to the days when we examine the clothing of a rape victim before apportioning blame, how far do we go towards an imposed cover-up? (We know that parts of the world insist it is head to toe). If, as Hynde suggests, a woman who is being "lairy and putting it about and being provocative" is "enticing someone who is already unhinged", how soon might we return to examining a victim’s sexual history in court?

There is a fine line here. I would have women act responsibly so that they don’t end up drunk in a doorway. But I would never blame them if their failure to do so rendered them a victim of attack.

I wonder if there isn’t another strand to Hynde’s approach? I wonder if she finds it unacceptable to see herself as a victim?

It must have been humiliating as well as terrifying to be threatened into performing sexual acts by the bikers. She says herself that she was naïve to believe they would take her to a party. Maybe self-blame offers her a loin cloth of self-determination.

But she wasn’t at fault. Like so many of the women she describes, she was just out to have a good time. Her substance of choice – the sedative Quaalude – was illegal but that is irrelevant here. What matters is that the only person she was likely to harm was herself.

I don’t care what slogan her attackers had on their T-shirts or what vehicles they used. They were just a bunch of blokes. They could have taken her to a party as promised. They could have taken her to a place of safety or even left her where they found her. They decided to abuse her instead. It was their decision, their crime, their fault.

So isn’t it time that Hynde, and all of our generation, finally shed the conditioning of our childhood and accepted that, while every sentient adult carries responsibility for their own self-protection, none carries blame when violence is visited on them.