Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

One in five women will be sexually assaulted during college. It’s a scary statistic, but it’s just that; a statistic, until you realize that 63 percent of sexual assaults go unreported. You might be asking yourself, “Why are women so afraid to report sexual assault, especially on college campuses?” The answer is much more simple than you think. It’s us. It’s on us.

America’s violent misogynistic culture has glorified sex, normalized violence, and constantly showcased the stories of victims whose rapists "got away with it”. Women are still asked what they were wearing, how much they’d been drinking, or if they had been flirting with their rapist when they were sexually assaulted, despite social outrage and widespread advocacy for the rights of the victim. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know about any of my fellow college students, but when I get dressed in the morning, I’m not searching for the outfit in my closet that would be the most likely to attract a rapist, and I certainly don’t think that the point of drinking, whether it’s excessive or not, is to get raped. It’s a huge double standard, and it’s been systematically accepted into our culture.

Brock Turner, better known as "the Stanford rapist," will spend six months (probably less) in jail. The judge in his case, Judge Aaron Persky, a Stanford alumnus and former athlete, gave Brock Turner six months in jail for being caught mid-rape and convicted of three felonies (which could warrant up to fourteen years in prison), because he thought the rapist was “sorry” for what he did. Brock Turner’s father, who has been widely condemned for his letter to the judge regarding his son’s punishment, doesn’t mention his son’s victim in his letter. He succeeds in de-humanizing the woman that his son brutally and unapologetically raped behind a dumpster, and claims that his son "has never been violent to anyone including his actions on the night of January 17th, 2015.” His “actions," which aren’t specified in the letter, include brutally assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, raping her and penetrating her with a foreign object. It’s disgusting.

He continues that "As it stands now, Brock’s life has been deeply altered forever by the events of Jan 17th and 18th,” and that jail time would have been a steep punishment for “20 minutes of action." This is especially hard to digest, because I don’t care about Brock Turner’s life. Brock Turner’s future is irrelevant, other than the fact that I hope he has no future.

I hope Brock Turner's name lives in infamy and that he is unable to get a job or lead a normal existence for the rest of his life because he will always be known as “the Stanford rapist."

I care about Brock Turner’s victim. How is it fair that her life has been altered by her rapist’s “20 minutes of action?" Her choices, her achievements, and every day that she has lived up to this point is going to be forever altered, all without her consent. For her, I hope that she sees what an important impact her story has made, and that one day, hopefully soon, she sees justice for the horrible injustices done against her.

His offensive and painful argument is indicative of a bigger problem, one that is deeply rooted in a culture that has given monsters like Brock Turner and his father (not a typo) the permission to get whatever, whenever they want, and get away with it. In my mind, Brock Turner’s father is almost as much to blame for this sexual assault as his son. He’s instilled this ideal into his son’s head that because he was a successful, popular, intelligent young male, that he can get away with anything. That’s why rapists rape, because they think that their “20 minutes of action” will be forgiven. So let’s stop forgiving them, and anyone who stands by and lets them think that rape is equivalent to acceptable “action."

I’m normally pretty vocal about my opinions, but one area that I often stay silent, or at least quiet, is sexual assault. This is something I’m not proud of, especially because I know that staying silent isn’t going to solve problems, but it’s sensitive subject for me. But I can’t stay silent now, not when the actions of Brock Turner have reflected a much bigger problem in American culture. We need to stop giving rapists the benefit of the doubt. Rapists are just that, rapists. They don’t deserve a second chance, they don’t deserve six months (or less) in jail, and it doesn’t matter if they are “sorry." Rape is rape.