Men are not listening to women.
Brock Turner, a former student and swimmer at Stanford University, raped an unconscious 23-year-old woman in January 2015 and received his sentence last week.
Turner was caught by two passers-by sexually assaulting the woman, whom he had stripped naked from the waist down behind a dumpster at a fraternity house.
Last Friday, BuzzFeed posted the letter that the victim read out to Turner as Judge Aaron Persky handed down an inexplicable jail term of just six months with the words: “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him”.
Turner, a convicted rapist, could be free inside three months.
To see the impact of that, and his crime, read the letter from his victim in full, or listen to this CNN broadcaster’s powerful reading of it. It will disturb you.
Also, read about how Turner’s father Dan pleaded leniency for his son on the basis that he was off his food. Read about how he distills his son raping a woman down to “20 minutes of action”. Those details are here, if you can stomach them.
https://twitter.com/mldauber/status/739320585222660096
Moreover, the reward of a cushy number on the college speaking circuit awaits Brock Turner, with his father insisting he was “totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity”.
Turner himself said he plans to show how “one night of drinking can ruin a life”; this is something his victim addressed in court last Thursday.
“Let me rephrase for you, I want to show people that one night of drinking can ruin two lives. You and me. You are the cause, I am the effect,” she countered.
Men are not listening to women.
Men are not listening, and they’re not talking to each other, and they’re not telling each other that sex without consent is not ok because “she was off her face drunk”.
Sex without consent is not ok because “she was coming on to me all night”.
Sex without consent is not ok because “she never said no or to stop”.
This is all about one thing: attitudes to women and our refusal to tell each other that sex without consent is rape.
There are no mitigating factors, least of all alcohol and a person’s sexual history. Irrelevant, and dangerous, and the kind of language that leads to victims being blamed or – worse again – not reporting incidents of rape in the first place.
Finally, read this from David Keeling. He writes about how “we’ve been conditioned to distrust women, to presume they’re overreacting, or hysterical”.
https://twitter.com/davidpkeeling/status/739828080349483008
He writes about how “it’s our duty to believe” women and not “to belittle or doubt or dismiss or negate those experiences”.
We can all do a lot better, and avoid a culture where the wellbeing and the future of a convicted rapist is put before that of a young woman whose life has been damaged forever.
It’s not just something that happens “over there”. It’s a culture of deflection and blaming the victim that exists everywhere while men refuse to take any responsibility at all. It’s worldwide, and we’ve all seen it.
