victims versus assaulters versus the media
This morning on the radio, I heard Erin Andrews talk about her stalker a little bit. She mentioned that some people said that she “asked for it” by being in the role she is in. if you don’t know how mad that made me, you do not know me at all. If Erin Andrews was asking for it by doing her job, then we’re all asking to be killed in an accident by getting in our cars every day.
I feel badly for her. Sure, some people have harped on the fact that it brought her into the limelight and gave her lots and lots of media attention, but trust me, that is not the type of attention that most professional and self-respecting women want. She’s not happy about it, she didn’t want it, and if anything it was horribly degrading and sickening to her. I cannot imagine how horrifying that had to be for her – on so many levels.
Today, I’m just mad that someone said she asked for it. I’m tired of hearing that sexual assault victims are “asking for it.” My goodness, how naïve do you have to be to make that kind of statement?
Furthermore, professional athletes can and DO sexually assault women. Big Ben, I think you’re a prick. For some reason, the average person believes that a woman who claims to be assaulted by a famous person (Kobe, Ben, etc.) was actually consenting to the act, and then just begged for some media attention. Wrong.
A lot of these men will never fit your idealization of them, nor become the role models we’d love for them to be. And most of these men are not used to hearing the word “no.” In their mind, who wouldn’t want them? The fact of the matter is that not every woman wants to sleep with someone because of their social, economic, political, power, (etc.), status.
True, many of these men who are rich and famous who pursue a woman are not used to hearing “no.” And it doesn’t surprise me at all that something like this would happen…. They don’t believe it themselves that someone said no to THEM. As many of you know, I have outright refused an advance by a professional athlete on numerous occasions. He didn’t want to hear no, and he didn’t believe me when I told him no.
I’m not denying that some women do, in fact, accuse famous men of sexual assault for media attention. It happens, probably a lot. But we absolutely cannot accuse every one of these women of lying. Sadly, because of the attention and subsequent investigations into very personal details of their lives that they do not want exposed, these women drop the charges or settle, which just encourages the behavior even more from the high profile offenders, and gives the media and general public more fuel to the fire that sexual assault victims of famous people are just liars.
Trust me, the women who cry wolf make me just as angry as the assaulters themselves.
You are probably going to hate me for this, but I am going to say there is a lot of inequity in a justice system that gives a peeping tom a 27 month prison sentence, and a someone convicted of vehicular manslaughter 30 days. I won’t even bring up a certain athlete who received 18 months. I think it is pretty piss-poor that whether a celebrity is the victim or the suspect, the system tends to sway justice in his/her favor.