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Literally Nothing We Can Do
The warning I want to put on this is "don't read this if you have daughters, because it will make you want to hide them from the world," but that warning is rather too emotional to be useful. So: this is about sexual assault and is potentially triggering, and considerably distressing.
To attempt a coherent summary: Melissa Bruen, a senior at the University of Connecticut, was walking in a public place on campus when a man grabbed her and sexually assaulted her. She fought him off as several bystanders gathered. They stopped her from hitting her assailant, restrained her, and as one man said, "You think that was assault?", pulled her top off, and groped her breasts, others cheered and shoved her around until she fought her way free.
Campus police say that the number of people who travel through that area makes it unlikely to impossible that they will ever arrest any of the men involved.
Melissa Bruen's article.
An article about the reaction to her article, which describes how respondents have called Ms. Bruen a liar and fame-seeker and criticized her appearance.
The Shakesville article which I first read about the case, which among other ideas discusses how this is not even the first sexual assault Ms. Bruen has suffered, and how that is sadly not unusual.
And now, a little of my personal reaction:
This young woman used her knowledge of self defence to fight off her attacker. The men passing by then decided to stop her and to punish her for doing so, including perpetrating another sexual assault upon her. Then when she made her story public she's been called a liar (and of course criticized for her appearance, and discussing how women's appearances are ALWAYS used to determine our worth is a whole other rant.) What does that say about the usefulness of stressing self-defence for women as the solution to the problem of sexual assault? And yet people resist as strenuously as they can the idea that the men who assault should ever change their behavior, that it is men's responsibility and opportunity to refrain from sexual assault.
As a woman, this fills me with despair. There are stories in my life and stories I have been told that Ms. Bruen's report reminds me of, not in magnitude but in kind. Recently a man I like and respect suggested that the solution to sexually harassing behavior at conventions is for women to stay home. Ms. Bruen beat her first attacker, so the surrounding men decided to punish her for it. It seems to me that no matter what we do being sexually assaulted is our fault, and if we stand up for ourselves people will just shove us back down.
Progress is not unidirectional, and there are times I worry that the status of women in the US is not improving. Such as now.
To attempt a coherent summary: Melissa Bruen, a senior at the University of Connecticut, was walking in a public place on campus when a man grabbed her and sexually assaulted her. She fought him off as several bystanders gathered. They stopped her from hitting her assailant, restrained her, and as one man said, "You think that was assault?", pulled her top off, and groped her breasts, others cheered and shoved her around until she fought her way free.
Campus police say that the number of people who travel through that area makes it unlikely to impossible that they will ever arrest any of the men involved.
Melissa Bruen's article.
An article about the reaction to her article, which describes how respondents have called Ms. Bruen a liar and fame-seeker and criticized her appearance.
The Shakesville article which I first read about the case, which among other ideas discusses how this is not even the first sexual assault Ms. Bruen has suffered, and how that is sadly not unusual.
And now, a little of my personal reaction:
This young woman used her knowledge of self defence to fight off her attacker. The men passing by then decided to stop her and to punish her for doing so, including perpetrating another sexual assault upon her. Then when she made her story public she's been called a liar (and of course criticized for her appearance, and discussing how women's appearances are ALWAYS used to determine our worth is a whole other rant.) What does that say about the usefulness of stressing self-defence for women as the solution to the problem of sexual assault? And yet people resist as strenuously as they can the idea that the men who assault should ever change their behavior, that it is men's responsibility and opportunity to refrain from sexual assault.
As a woman, this fills me with despair. There are stories in my life and stories I have been told that Ms. Bruen's report reminds me of, not in magnitude but in kind. Recently a man I like and respect suggested that the solution to sexually harassing behavior at conventions is for women to stay home. Ms. Bruen beat her first attacker, so the surrounding men decided to punish her for it. It seems to me that no matter what we do being sexually assaulted is our fault, and if we stand up for ourselves people will just shove us back down.
Progress is not unidirectional, and there are times I worry that the status of women in the US is not improving. Such as now.
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Maybe the men could be identified by bruises, which might lead us to asking why the police aren't trying to do so, instead of wondering if that makes her a liar. And, maybe they can't be; there are many ways for a man who, say, plays touch football every so often, to be bruised. As for discrepancies in her story, I am not a professional analyst of eyewitness accounts, but I've read in reputable sources that they tend to have certain kinds of discrepancies due to the nature of human recall. It's possible that her story is a carefully crafted fabrication, but I don't think it's probable that it is. Lies tend to show themselves in certain kinds of details; based on my experiences with sexual assault and with other people's stories, I found her story to ring true.
Besides, why is the first impulse so often to disbelieve? Why, after all, is it so prevalent that whenever women report sexual assault someone insists that it must be proven to standards that no one would expect of telling of, say, being mugged? Having been disbelieved myself and knowing many, many stories that involve disbelief, I may have a tendency to believe her because I'm biased, or because my experiences indicate that victims of sexual assault are disproportionately disbelieved. I do appreciate the reminder of the former, but I do rather think the latter.
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Suspecting false accusation is far from my default. I remember feeling outright crushed when I read convincing evidence that Tawana Brawley had faked her assault. Even so, when I first heard about the Duke lacrosse team, my first thought was, "Yeah, that's Duke jocks alright." One reason I read the whole damned book about it (which annoyed me in many ways) was because I felt I needed to be fully convinced one way or another, and my emotional weight was strongly on the side of thinking the guys had done it. I'd say they definitely acted like jerks, but the specific accusations were clearly false.
Also, note I am not saying that it didn't happen, just that after some of the factual comments I wonder. If I had to bet, like with a gun to my head, I'd bet that she was assaulted but that some aspects of her account are exaggerated, actually less the men taunting her than her fighting back so unremittingly. But I don't know; I'll be watching the news to see what else comes out.
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