Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard something about the Stanford Rape Case within the last week. To keep it short, on January 17th, 2015, a 23-year-old woman who was unconscious was raped behind a dumpster by student Brock Turner. This case has gone viral after a powerful letter read by the victim in court was published by BuzzFeedNews after the judge decided to give Turner a lenient sentence of only six months despite the fact that he was found guilty of three felony charges with a minimum sentence of six years. The judge stated that a longer sentence would have had a "severe impact" on him.
Turner's father also released a letter stating that he believes his son deserved probation because,
"That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of his life."
Brock Turner's case is the perfect example of why we need to change the way sexual assault on college campuses is handled.
It is normal to be a college student and know someone personally who has been a victim of sexual assault or rape, and that is not okay. It is also very normal for a majority of these instances to go unreported because of cases like Brock Turner's. Even with an overwhelming amount of evidence in her favor, the victim will still be attacked for ruining her attacker's future and see her attacker receive a slap on the wrist—if that— for his crimes.
How is it that in the case of sexual assault, the victim's past is always examined for clues that would explain their behavior and their actions during the attack, while the attacker's future is examined to see what it is that they have to lose?
How is it that in almost every basic sexual education/alcohol education course that is required for many freshman students, they say that consent cannot be given if the person is incapacitated, but in this case, the victim was told that because she could not remember the events of the attack, there was no way to prove that his sexual advances were unwanted?
The media has frustrated me time and time again, stating that Brock didn't look like a rapist. We are given the image in our youth that a rapist is an old man in a white van— a stranger. When you go to college, you realize that image is completely false since studies show that, more often, the attacker is someone the victim knows. Brock Turner looks exactly like a rapist on a college campus.
The victim also experienced an incredible amount of victim blaming during her trial, recalling the assault of questions she had to answer about that night including,
"How old are you? How much do you weigh? What did you eat that day? Well what did you have for dinner? Who made dinner? Did you drink with dinner? No, not even water? When did you drink? How much did you drink? What container did you drink out of? Who gave you the drink? How much do you usually drink? Who dropped you off at this party? At what time? But where exactly? What were you wearing? Why were you going to this party? What’ d you do when you got there? Are you sure you did that? But what time did you do that? What does this text mean? Who were you texting? When did you urinate? Where did you urinate? With whom did you urinate outside? Was your phone on silent when your sister called? Do you remember silencing it? Really because on page 53 I’d like to point out that you said it was set to ring. Did you drink in college? You said you were a party animal? How many times did you black out? Did you party at frats? Are you serious with your boyfriend? Are you sexually active with him? When did you start dating? Would you ever cheat? Do you have a history of cheating? What do you mean when you said you wanted to reward him? Do you remember what time you woke up? Were you wearing your cardigan? What color was your cardigan? Do you remember any more from that night? No? Okay, well, we’ll let Brock fill it in."
And this case is not an exception. In the CNN film The Hunting Ground, countless women recall their experiences with school administrators.
"They kept asking me like, what were you wearing? What were you drinking? How much did you have to drink? Did you pregame?"
"He kind of just lectured us on how we shouldn't go out in short skirts and we shouldn't drink because, like that's our fault"
"Did you say no? How did you say it? Okay, what were you wearing?"
"They told me I should just drop out until everything blows over...out of school."
"She said, uh, you don't know what he is going through right now and neither do I; he could be really having a hard time"
There is no other crime where we victim blame like this. This fantastic video shows what it would be like if a house robbery was treated like a rape case and it is disturbing to see what so many victims of rape and sexual assault have had to deal with.
Women have been taught for years to keep an eye on their drinks, to dress modestly, to never walk home by themselves, and to even carry pepper spray in the case of an altercation.
But there is so much that is wrong with that logic.
There is always going to be a girl who is less careful with her drink, who is less sober than I am, who is wearing less than I am, and I want her to be just as safe as I am.
When we tell women that the way to stop rape is to take precautionary measures, we tell them that because they made the right choices, they might not get raped that night, but someone else will.
The unnamed victim in the Stanford case explained this perfectly.
"I was the wounded antelope of the herd, completely alone and vulnerable, physically unable to fend for myself, and he chose me. Sometimes I think, if I hadn’t gone, then this never would’ve happened. But then I realized, it would have happened, just to somebody else."
Rather than telling our girls to wear longer skirts and always, always watch their drinks, we should be teaching our sons to respect women. Brock Turner felt that he was entitled to sex that night, no matter what it took. When you read the letter from his father, it is crystal clear that these ideas of entitlement had a foundation in his family life. This young man also refused to take responsibility for his actions, saying that it was the alcohol that influenced him to behave this way and his father mentioned in his letter that Brock is "committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity." Alcohol and sexual promiscuity were not what caused your son to rape this girl, he did that on is own and just happened to be drinking that night. Ideals like these are what keeps rape culture alive and well. Instead of finding excuses for our son's actions, we should be raising them to be like the two young men who stepped in and stopped the ordeal.
In cases like this, it does not matter if the attacker is a collegiate swimmer, a promising NFL player, a scientist on the brink of discovering the cure to cancer, or just your average Joe. Actions have consequences. That is something we grew up learning in kindergarten. A prison sentence is supposed to have a severe impact on a criminal, with the hopes that they won't commit future crimes. The judge, Brock Turner, his family, and some of his friends who have supported him are in the wrong to think that because someone has a "promising future", they don't deserve to be treated like the did something wrong; that he doesn't deserve to be treated like the rapist he really is.
Hopefully, because this case has stirred the waters so much and brought campus sexual assault into the spotlight, change will occur. Hopefully, college campus administrators will realize that silencing these victims for so long and letting criminals off easy is doing more harm than good. Again, actions have consequences—that's the way the real world works. Brock's father has stated that this experience has "broken and shattered [Brock] and our family in so many ways," but he is completely missing the point. While, yes, one's behavior is bound to change after being charged with raping an unconscious woman, his father fails to comprehend the effect this experience has had on the victim. One of the most powerful quotes from her letter is this:
"You have dragged me through this hell with you, dipped me back into that night again and again. You knocked down both our towers, I collapsed at the same time you did. If you think I was spared, came out unscathed, that today I ride off into sunset, while you suffer the greatest blow, you are mistaken. Nobody wins. We have all been devastated, we have all been trying to find some meaning in all of this suffering. Your damage was concrete; stripped of titles, degrees, enrollment. My damage was internal, unseen, I carry it with me. You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today."
Maybe, these "20 minutes of action" could spark a revolution. Only time will tell.
