In eighth grade, Sister Coralita told us we were never to sit on a boy’s lap unless the Manhattan phone book was between us. Such measures were serious, a girl’s responsibility, she said.
Throughout the adolescent years, high school, and college, women in my generation were warned against all the ways we could arouse natural male instincts that would send the wrong message. Long sleeves, high collars, skirts below the knee were recommended, and if one were the object of catcalls, groping, or even a sexual attack, she must have been “asking for it.”
Articles in the magazines we read – Seventeen, Mademoiselle, Glamour, etc. – offered advice about surviving rape. Sometimes experts suggested it was best to submit and not struggle; other times the recommendation was to fight hard, scream loud, and endure serious injury, because it was easier to prove rape when there were bruises, blood, and broken bones.
(Image used under Creative Commons)
In 2006, as the #MeToo movement began to gain traction, stories of sexual assault by prominent men began to emerge. Harvey Weinstein and others were held accountable for their actions, or at least publicly accused and forced to withdraw from their high-profile jobs, leading some of us to believe that the landscape was changing.
Nevertheless, mind-boggling situations continue, showcased in events like last week’s testimony at a Senate hearing by elite women athletes who had been sexually victimized by the USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar. Despite scores of women coming forward with their accusations over a multi-year span, the Justice Department made false statements and failed to properly document complaints by accusers. A scathing report from the Justice Department Inspector General finally shed light on the wrongdoings.
Hearing the young women chronicle their experiences was a reminder of the old days and a quick look at current data reveals somber reality.
RAINN, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network, reports that everyone is affected by sexual violence:
• Every 68 seconds another American is sexually assaulted.
• 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed, 2.8% attempted).
• About 3% of American men — or 1 in 33 — have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.
• From 2009-2013, Child Protective Services agencies substantiated, or found strong evidence to indicate that, 63,000 children a year were victims of sexual abuse.
• A majority of child victims are 12-17. Of victims under the age of 18: 34% of victims of sexual assault and rape are under age 12, and 66% of victims of sexual assault and rape are age 12-17.
Closer to home, west Kentuckians reported some of their own experiences, including an attorney from the region who wrote about young women hired into a large county sheriff’s office, where a photocopy of a woman’s breasts was prominently displayed. The women were verbally degraded and suffered physical fear from the men they worked with.
“One barely avoided being raped by her supervisor,” the counselor reported.
Another woman from our region recalled her abusive first husband, who unloaded a pistol in her direction with no reaction from neighbors or even his father, who “came over to dig the bullets out of the wall.”
“Black eyes were not questioned,” she said. “So much was done behind closed doors.”
A woman from McCracken County outlined sexual abuse that escalated over the first two years of her marriage. “At the end, before I escaped, he was regularly raping me,” she said.
The crimes occurred in the same bed she shared with their toddler son. “I could feel my baby’s feet on my arm the last time it happened,” she recalled.
After she escaped, she went to the police. She wanted to press charges and hold him accountable.
“I had a hand-written confession,” she declared. “In his handwriting. He admitted to raping me in a custody hearing, under oath.”
Nevertheless, the prosecutors would not take the case because it would be tough to win. “Even if I had gone to the hospital right after the rape, there was ‘no way to prove the sex wasn’t consensual’ and it would be my word against his—and I would lose. They didn’t want to take a case they weren’t sure they could win. So I walk with the scars of a survivor and a predator walks free,” she concluded.
She credits the Merryman House for saving her.
The popular TV series CSI: Special Victims Unit spotlights cases of rape and abuse, often relying on scripts “ripped from the headlines.” Despite the stark realities exposed, most SVU cases are won and the perps don’t get to walk, the way they often do in real life.
The wise SVU sergeant, Olivia Benson, reassures victims saying, “You survived the abuse. You’re gonna survive the recovery,” but one has to wonder who can survive when institutions like the FBI misrepresents the facts when complaints of sexual abuse are brought by elite Olympic athletes.
How can regular, everyday people survive when the governor of Texas says things like, “Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets”?
Is he really unaware that rapists attack in bedrooms, boardrooms, schools, churches, barracks, etc., and they are often known to the victim?
Some good news, according to End the Backlog is that, as of 2021, Kentucky, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington, D.C. have cleared their backlog of untested rape kits. In addition, to ensure the backlog never happens again, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Michigan passed laws that require law enforcement to submit rape kits to labs for testing within certain time frames.
Nevertheless, one does not have to talk to many women (and some men) to discover that many rapes are not reported or prosecuted because the burden of proof is on the victim. What were you wearing? Why were you out at that hour? Did you have anything to drink? Any drugs?
How does one recover from that?
