Rape.
It is a word that makes me cringe every time I hear it.
It is not because I am some sheltered young adult that doesn’t feel comfortable about discussing hot-button issues. In all reality, I am far from that. My own father was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and sent to prison on three counts of rape. It is a subject that I am very familiar with and have spent many hours in court rooms having to listen to attorney’s battle against it to the end. Even that is not why I cringe.
I cringe at the word rape because of the fact of how horrific and heinous the act is. The fact that someone could attack and invade another human being without questioning whether it is right or wrong at the time, is beyond me. The fact that the victim of this terrible crime would rather be dead than have to live another day knowing a part of them was taken by their attacker—they will never be whole again. The fact that for so long now, society has been telling the victims of this crime that, because of their gender and actions, it is their fault.
Over the past few weeks, my Facebook feed has been covered in stories about the Stanford rape case. Reading the 7,200-word letter that the victim read directly to her attacker, Brock Turner, broke my heart. (Here is a link to it if you haven’t gotten the chance to read it yet, on buzzfeed.com) It was hard to sit and read. I had to read chunks of it days at a time because what happened to her was not only a tragedy, but a miscarriage of justice. Her life is now forever altered. She will never be the same person that she was before that night. He took a part of her that she can never get back. I was taken aback by the short sentence that was given to Brock Turner. Six months, three on good behavior, seems too short for a crime that has altered the life of an individual forever.
The only positive, for lack of a better word, that I have seen come out of this atrocious situation is how people are stepping up and finally saying, enough is enough. People are shouting at the top of their lungs saying that rape should no longer be tagged as the victim’s fault. The fault of rape lays in the hands of the attacker—the rapist. Hear me out when I say this—I am fully on board with this movement! It has been long overdue.
I realize that women AND men are victims of rape, but in this instance I am really focusing on women and the ignorant statements that are made towards them after they have been attacked. People ask questions like, “did you like it,” or say, “It was just sex.” Some people go as far to say, “It wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t dressed like that,” or “you deserved it because you were promiscuous.” Statements like this should never be made.
But, what if we continue to encourage and remind the victims of our culture that rape isn’t their fault, but also share a new message with those women that are not victims? What if we started sharing the message of prevention to them? Why have we become so passionate about speaking out for women after rape has happened, but are silent about prevention to our daughters, best friends, and the lady next door? Why has the characteristic of being insensitive being tagged to people that want to talk about ways to prevent rape?
At no point is it okay for someone to speak prevention to a woman that is a victim. They do not need to hear what they should have done to try and prevent what happened to them. They question themselves daily on what they could have done differently. Why not think about ways that we can avoid things like this from happening? If we start speaking out to women and encouraging them to take precautionary steps maybe, just maybe, there is a less likely chance of them becoming victims of something so awful.
It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I, along with every other woman, has to worry about being attacked and violated. It’s not fair that we feel as though we need to find ways to prevent rape from happening to us. It’s not fair that men can assault women and only get a few months of punishment because a long term prison sentence could severally alter his life. But, just because it is not fair for us does not mean that we should sweep it under the rug and not worry about it. We need to stand together as women and create ways to not become victims.
I don’t know how to stand up in front of a group of ladies and speak on prevention for any kind of assault. I do not even know where I would need to start. What I do know is, if someone was willing to sit-down and have that conversation with me, I would listen. I would take in every piece of advice that I could get, because I am too scared of what might happen.
