It's as if victim-blaming is the new fad across North America. From cases like Brock Turner's, where he received three months in prison for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, to the more recent case out of Canada, where Canadian Federal Court Judge Robin Camp asked a rape victim "why she couldn't just keep her knees together?" Camp is now facing removal from the bench and is rightfully in the midst of a judicial council hearing which will determine whether or not he stays.
In this particular case, a 19-year-old woman was raped over a bathroom sink during a house party. During the trial, Camp questioned the young woman and asked why she didn't "skew her pelvis" or "push her bottom into the sink to avoid penetration." It's statements like these and the ones of Judge Aaron Persky, the judge from Brock Turner's case, that make cases like these ridiculously more difficult for rape and sexual assault survivors.
According to the FBI, the number of false rape allegations ranges from 2-8%. And according to the Department of Justice, every two minutes another American is sexually assaulted. Additionally, according to the DoJ, during the three-month stint Brock Turner did in prison, an estimated 75,000 American women were raped. Rest assured, Stanford University, Turner's former college (before he was you know, kicked out for raping someone) has taken measures to ensure that another sexual assault doesn't occur on their campus. Measures like banning hard alcohol at parties, as well as providing a helpful graphic on their website explaining why drinking affects women differently in an effort to limit "high-risk behavior," which is a subtle way of blaming the cocktails, not the rapists.
From Judge Persky to Judge Camp and all the judges in between who've felt it's only right to limit the amount of time a rapist spends in prison (if any), make no mistake men and women of the Earth, these people aren't doing you any favors. Keep in mind that while these court cases turned news stories may not directly affect you, they very well may affect your friend, classmate, teammate, fraternity brother, or sorority sister -- because according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women will be sexually assaulted during her time in college, and one in sixteen men. We're all at danger here, and we're all at risk. In the often unforgiving world we live in, no one can comfortably count themselves out of being taken advantage of. And constantly hearing about assailants and rapists in the news who get little to no time for their crimes is not only disappointing and degrading to those of us who've experienced sexual assault firsthand, it's insulting. In a world that is even more unforgiving to victims, why can't we do the obvious and actually hold perpetrators accountable and give them the punishment they rightfully deserve? Or better yet, and perhaps the most obvious answer, teach people not to rape? Additionally, it'd probably be a great idea to stop protecting rapists inside and outside the courtroom, but hey, just my two cents.
I have a slew of questions I'd love to personally ask judges who decide a human who personally violates another human in the most disgusting and personal way deserves a lenient sentence for their crimes. But because I will likely never get to ask those questions, my hope is that I can ask the people who read this one thing — to look out for one another. On a basic human level, the least we can do for our friends or peers is to ensure that if something doesn't look right, we step in. We've been preaching the concept of "bystander intervention" since The White House introduced the "It's On Us" campaign in September 2014. But what they say is true. Bystander intervention could save your best friend, your brother, your cousin, or a random girl you see stumbling out of the party with a boy. When we choose not to intervene when we see something potentially threatening happening, we are actively protecting rapists, whether we know it or not. We have the ability to step in and help one another — let's use our abilities before it's too late. When a rapist rapes someone, it is not their life that is ruined; it is the survivor's.
No rapist deserves protection.
