I’d Have Killed Them With My Bare Hands

You’ve probably heard about the arrest of 18 men and boys for (gang) raping an 11 year old girl in Cleveland, Texas. More men are thought to have been involved than the initial 18 arrested. The suspects range in age from middle schoolers to 27 years old. At a town hall meeting in Cleveland, supporters of the men blamed the girl for her own attack. A New York Times piece (that received much criticism and tens of thousands of emails and for which the Times recently issued a sorta apology) dwelled on quotes about how this incident would affect the futures of the men and why the mother wasn’t there. Others have said the girl dressed like a twenty year old. Some of the attackers claim they thought she was older than 11. A defense attorney used the term “willing participant” in reference to the young girl. And others have questioned the racial motives behind the prosecutions (the young girl is Hispanic and the accused men are mostly black). The attack was recorded on a cellphone and circulated at an elementary school. These are the facts.

And this is my opinion:

YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

DO NOT BLAME A 6TH GRADER FOR HER OWN GANG RAPE!

DO NOT BLAME THE MOTHER!

DO NOT MAKE THIS ABOUT RACE!

EVEN IF THEY THOUGHT THE GIRL WAS OLDER, WHICH I DOUBT, RAPING ANYONE IS STILL WRONG!

BLAME THE 18 (MAYBE AS MANY AS 28) MEN AND BOYS WHO ALL DECIDED THIS WAS OKAY!

I’m not a violent person. I won’t even let Dave bring a gun into this house, but if that was my daughter and I came across any of the guys who raped her, the news story would be “Mother Arrested for Murdering with her Bare Hands.”

I was going to stay away from well-publicized stories in these weekly Newsroom posts. My modest blog is not meant to be a place for breaking news, and I usually don’t have much to add if a zillion other blogs have broached the same topic. I also don’t want each of these weekly posts to descend into rants, but I can’t stop myself this time. I’m livid with rage and I hope most other moms are as well.

This was a disgusting crime that was publicized through sub-par media coverage. The rapists have received support in their own community because of how this may ruin their lives. Let their lives be ruined. The reactions to the incident did not jump from sorrow for the girl and her family to complicated questions about how this could have happened. No, they started with “she was a willing participant” (She was physically threatened and forced to have sex, so I suppose we have different definitions of “willing”) and “Where was her mother?” and “What was her mother thinking?”  and “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?” Those last few quotes were from the mentioned NYT article and by a Ms. Harrison. The Times reporter was obviously not the one speaking, but by deciding to include these quotes as the first opinions in the article, he was making a judgment on what source material should be valued, and this is why the NYT recently issued a statement about imbalanced reporting. It was imbalanced and it only took 40,000 petitioners to make them see that.

As a country, we obviously aren’t good at talking about sexual assault, and I don’t think we are any better at talking about race. However, this particular story isn’t about race.The history of racial violence, the stereotypes against black men, the image of the non-white seductress are still disgracefully simmering in our culture. I understand that. However, instead of taking this moment to talk about violence against women, many took this moment to talk about prejudice against black men. That is shameful. I completely agree with a recent Jezebel post about the issue of race and rape: “Even in the most heinous of circumstances, people are managing to redefine who the true victim is.”

I understand the need to analyze social tragedies. I understand race and gender issues all play roles in many complicated situations, BUT this situation isn’t a complicated warning about race in America, or about poverty in America, or about single motherhood in America, or about the sexualization of young girls in America. It is a decidedly uncomplicated story about violence against women. Women are not valued as highly as men are. There. I said it.

What do I mean by “women are not valued as highly as men are”? I don’t mean that all men devalue women or that everybody is to blame for this devaluation or that men don’t also occasionally get the short end of the stick in public discourse or that men are even the ones doing most of the devaluing. I do mean that a huge subtext of reporting about rape and sexual assault against women is that the women somehow brought this upon themselves or that they are exaggerating (e.g. the Lara Logan story) or that their standards of behavior somehow account for the violent actions of the men around them or that mothers are supposed to be the ultimate guardians of morality and what should we expect from young men anyway?

The reaction to this gang rape is an extreme example of this pothole in public discussion about gendered violence, but it is not the only. Has anyone wondered why all the conversations about Charlie Sheen only brush on his history of domestic violence? It’s like this part of his screwed up story is an add on because he’s only abusing bimbos. Something is very wrong about the way the media has talked about him.

This value problem isn’t limited to poor, minority, racially charged communities. Rich frat boys can also devalue women or make light of rape. Check out this confiscated email (proven to be real) from a USC frat. Women are supposed temptresses, even the youngest of us. Women, even when the victim, are somehow still the cause of their own victimization. This story of victim blaming is so old I want to scream at the inability of journalists and community members and commenters to get it. Yes, I would have killed those guys with my bare hands (and to state the obvious, no, I don’t think murder is actually in my constitution), but in writing this I now realize my anger isn’t only directed at the rapists. I’m angry that in 2011 we can turn an 11 year old girl or an 18 year old woman or a 38 year old woman or an 88 year old woman into the cause of her own disgusting victimization.