While writing my column this week I struggled to find the right words to articulate what I was feeling, which was offended, shocked and saddened. This week, two football players from the athletically prominent Steubenville High School were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl. The arguments against rape and sexual assault don’t need to be made — most everyone realizes that both are heinous and unacceptable crimes. If this is true, though, how can we explain the disappointing and skewed news coverage of the trial? The Steubenville controversy disturbs me because it points to the larger societal problem of perpetuated rape culture. Society as a whole needs to work on changing attitudes towards rape and its victims.
Throughout the Steubenville trial, media outlets such as CNN almost exclusively played the role of rape apologists. Again and again the public was asked to empathize with the convicted boys. The New York Times used a photo of the boys crying to accompany their news story. CNN drew notable criticism for their coverage of the trial, which attempted to humanize the two convicted boys by focusing on their athletic talents and their academic achievements rather than their crime. CNN reporter Candy Crowley posed the question: “What’s the lasting effect … on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape?” CNN’s Poppy Harlow discussed how the boys had to watch their “lives fall apart” and CNN’s Paul Callan said being labelled as sexual offenders would “haunt them for the rest of their lives.” A better concern to raise would have been the emotional impact the crime and the highly publicized trial would have on the victim, and what the trauma meant to her future, but this perspective was rarely explored.
The central issue in this case became that the victim had been drinking prior to being assaulted by the boys. Despite numerous text messages written by the victim on the night of her assault, which read “I said no” and “[the boys] were taking advantage of me,” along with testimony that she had never been seen more intoxicated and photographic evidence that she was at one point passed out unconscious and being carried away by her eventual rapists, the victim’s credibility and honesty were constantly questioned. Had she been aware of what she was doing? Had she actually consented to the sex acts? For those who don’t know, rape wasn’t the only charge in the trial. The defendants also circulated nude photos and video of the girl and bragged about their sexual triumphs on social networking sites. Who would consent to that? The victim’s classmates can also be seen in the video laughing and taking no action to intervene.
Let me make something very clear: if a girl (or anyone) is passed out or clearly intoxicated at a party, the right thing to do is to call her an ambulance, a cab or at the very least leave her alone. Women do not invite rape, ever, and the fact that issues like intoxication level or choice of attire are even brought up in criminal rape trials demonstrates how twisted our view of the crime is. Those boys made a conscious choice to impose themselves upon a girl in a compromising situation. The girl should not be shamed; the boys should.
I am not condoning irresponsible drinking practices. The safest choice would be to go to a party, remain completely sober and be aware of your surroundings. But there is something unjustified in the fact that women are taught by their parents, rape prevention seminars in college, and other sources to anticipate rape if they happen to get drunk. Instead of sympathizing with guilty men so easily, parents and institutions should focus on teaching respect and decency.
Rape culture needs to be eradicated, and there are many ways we could do that. I am not saying all rapes are committed by men, or that the victims are exclusively female. That is not the case, and all types of sexual assault are abhorrent. Generally, though, parents, schools, and the news media should teach men to respect a woman’s space, privacy, and vocalized opinions instead of focusing on indoctrinating women with a constant sense of fear.
In sexual education classes, the importance of consent should be discussed frankly alongside things like birth control and STI prevention. We should focus more resources on funding PSAs and ad campaigns about consent and how to navigate difficult situations such as parties with alcohol. We also need to encourage media outlets to be more responsible with their coverage of delicate topics such as rape and to present a factual and unbiased, rather than emotional or sensationalized, view of the issue.
The Steubenville case effectively proves that rape culture is pervasive and yet almost unacknowledged in American society. There are resources available to educate oneself about issues such as these, but most people are not proactive or concerned enough to take advantage of them. Some people don’t think twice before labeling a girl a “slut,” making a rape joke, or feeling sympathy for a convicted rapist. We are all responsible for the perpetuation of unfair stereotypes, such as the mistaken conviction that victims, drunk or sober, could ever be “responsible” for their rapes or that boys are only being boys when they commit sex crimes. We need to be more conscious of our actions and words to combat this trend. We need to train ourselves to speak more delicately, reach out to victims, and sift through the biased coverage that news networks offer us until things change in a more permanent way.
Ashley Spinks’ column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.spinks@cavalierdaily.com.
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