Victim Blaming and Roll Red Roll

  Why is it so common for people to rush to judgment of victims, especially in instances of rape? Is it because of our natural instincts to want to protect ourselves, to not want to accept that there are instances in which bad things happen to us that we cannot control? That seems to be a part of it. But as research done by Boston College professors suggest, it is also due to the influence of group-mentality. When the interests of a larger group are at risk, some might be inclined to go against their morals in order to protect them. The rape case in Steubenville is a prime example of this. Even when the football players knew that what happened was a felony, they felt that the rape victim, who threatened the strength and reputation of their football team, was less of a concern than the fact that they had lost a quarterback. The town of Steubenville was not the richest neighborhood and has had its share of drug use and job losses during the early 2010s. Yet they had a stadium that could house 10,000 of its 18,400 residents at the time, complete with a horse statue that spewed fire every time their team scores. With football being one of the town’s few sources of pride, any threat to it could also be seen as a threat to the community itself. It didn’t help that the team lost their season after the Trent and Ma’lik were removed. And blaming the victim allows the group to have someone to blame for ruining their community. Rather than the rape being the focus, the discussion surround maintaining the comfort of the town.

  This allows for the perpetuation of a culture where rape is simply ignored. In the case involving the star Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, the athlete was uncovered by two people behind a dumpster on top of a naked, unresponsive woman. The victim released her own account to the public. During the investigation, she states that her rape was referred to as “college campus drinking culture and the sexual promiscuity that goes along with that”. Such dismissive language shows a reluctance to see what happened for what it was. In the documentary we watched, the coach felt uncomfortable having to hear the word ‘rape’ from the police. People tend to refer to rape by many different names due to the stigma and bad connotation. But as the victim in the Brock Turner case urged, “The seriousness of rape has to be communicated clearly, we should not create a culture that suggests we learn that rape is wrong through trial and error. The consequences of sexual assault needs to be severe enough that people feel enough fear to exercise good judgment even if they are drunk, severe enough to be preventative”. By not forcing people to confront the severity of their actions, they are more likely to see rape as okay. The results of UCLA psychologist Neil Malamuth’s survey of college males on campus are a testament to this. Sixteen to twenty percent of male students responded by saying they would commit rape if they knew they would get away with it. And when he referred to rape as “forc[ing] a woman to have sex,” the figure jumped to thirty-six to forty-four percent. If we truly want to change the way rape is treated, laws need to be passed that require stricter sentencing and having a national discussion that addresses it rather than dancing around the subject. Those who break the law should be held accountable for their actions, but the stigma of rape has prevented this from happening.

Big Red Horse

Sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/the-psychology-of-victim-blaming/502661/

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/sports/high-school-football-rape-case-unfolds-online-and-divides-steubenville-ohio.html?

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/08/what-makes-a-campus-rape-prone/402065/