Perspectives: #WhyIDidn’tReport: Rape Culture ‘Very Much At Play’ In America Today
Opinion writers weigh in on the complicated issue of reporting sexual assault.
Boston Globe:
I Am Chessy Prout’s Mother. I Know What Happens When A 15-Year-Old Sexual Assault Victim Speaks Out
As the parent of a child who reported her sexual assault at age 15, I am disgusted by the response to the sexual assault allegations brought forward by Christine Blasey Ford about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. My daughter Chessy was a freshman at St. Paul’s School, a prep school in New Hampshire, when senior Owen Labrie sexually assaulted her in a locked mechanical room in 2014. In spite of progress we have made with #MeToo and #IHaveTheRightTo, it appears that rape culture and its playbook are still very much alive in our culture. (Susan Prout, 9/26)
Los Angeles Times:
Why Don't Women Come Forward? Talking About Sexual Assault Is Excruciating And People Don't Want To Hear It
Does anyone remember how difficult it was to talk about sexual assault 40 years ago? I do.I was raped in 1978, four years before Christine Blasey Ford alleges she was assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. I was 19, on summer break after my sophomore year at UC Santa Cruz, helping my sister move across the country. Our car broke down. After the mechanic fixed it, I went for a drink with him. It was night by then and my sister and I had rented a motel room. I drank a Scotch, he drank a beer. On our way back, he swerved his truck into a cornfield. We fought. He broke a bottle of beer and held the jagged glass up to my face. I thought I would die, or be cut and disfigured, so I gave in. Then, he said, “I wouldn’t be embarrassed to take you anywhere,” as if this were a date. (Gabrielle Selz, 9/26)
Bloomberg:
Trump’s Raw Misogyny Lit the Brett Kavanaugh Fire
The #WhyIDidntReport is an outgrowth of #MeToo, a response to the criticism of Ford for waiting so long to come forward with her accusations against Kavanaugh. Of course, as users of the #WhyIDidntReport hashtag make clear, many women, not just (Christine Blasey) Ford, decide not to talk about an incident at the time it happened. Ford was young and scared. There would likely be social repercussions to accusing someone in her social circle. She didn’t have proof. Perhaps she feared being blamed for instigating the event herself, which remains a common occurrence for victims. But the main reason she waited is that, until now, (Brett) Kavanaugh wasn’t in the running for one of the most powerful decision-making posts in the nation. His nomination can only have led her to believe she had a responsibility to share information that, if true, would have a direct bearing on the judge’s character. But there’s another critical factor. The #MeToo movement has shown Women that they can hold powerful men to account. As Victor Hugo wrote, “greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.” (Kara Alaimo, 9/26)
The New York Times:
Brett Kavanaugh And America’s ‘Himpathy’ Reckoning
What the (Brett) Kavanaugh case has revealed this week is that himpathy can, at its most extreme, become full-blown gendered sociopathy: a pathological moral tendency to feel sorry exclusively for the alleged male perpetrator — it was too long ago; he was just a boy; it was a case of mistaken identity — while relentlessly casting suspicion upon the female accusers. It also reveals the far-ranging repercussions of this worldview: It’s no coincidence that many of those who himpathize with Judge Kavanaugh to the exclusion of Dr. Blasey are also avid abortion opponents, a position that requires a refusal to empathize with girls and women facing an unwanted pregnancy. (Kate Manne, 9/26)
