Literally Nothing We Can Do

[browngirl]

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.

Comments

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I realized, thinking this over as I drove to work, that I may also be a little arrogant (as my Korean-American students say) because I write reference articles in which accounts clearly conflict, and it's my job to sort them out to a best guess. For instance, I did an article on Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to hundreds of murders yet some say did none of them, and faced a similar issue with H. H. Holmes. So my natural tendency is to look critically at discrepancies. However, doing so for an historical figure is one thing and for a living person is another. Fortunately, I do think that as screwed up as our justice system can be, it usually does sort out things moderately well, and I hope some guys are charged & there is a trial.