Features Editor Imogen Watson shares and explores her view of the apparent troubling culture surrounding rape and rape victims.
“I’m going to get in trouble for something I should be getting thanked for taking care of you.”
“It’s on YouTube. I’m not stupid. Stop texting me.”
A sixteen-year-old girl was the victim of rape, and above are two of the text messages between victim and culprit.
I speak specifically of the case in Steubenville, Ohio, which took place in August 2012, and for which two male juveniles – a sixteen- and seventeen-year-old – were prosecuted in March but, unfortunately, rape, and underage rape, is not as uncommon as it should be. We live in a rape culture.
Neither, does it appear, are the attitudes which went with this case. From the perpetrators themselves to the news broadcasters reporting it, the world seemed to have gone mad. An underage girl had been violated in such an appalling manner when she ought to have been looked after in that vulnerable state and coverage seemed more bothered about the boys convicted than the struggles the victim would have endured and would be yet to endure.
Because the case was so reliant on text messages and social media not only when it came to taking place, but also in prosecution, the evidence of the disrespect from Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond for women and the lack of knowledge or care for their actions is evident. They are not alone. Their friends and peers are equally unaware (in court, the party’s host Evan Westlake says “I didn’t know exactly what rape was,” when asked why he did not stop the digital penetration of the girl) and equally unbothered. Mays says in a text message, “I shoulda raped her since everyone thinks I did,” and he and other high school students – apparently friends of Mays – repeatedly refer to the girl in her inebriated state as “a dead body” rather than a living human being. Many adults could not be trusted either, with the football coach apparently became aware of the situation and “was joking about it”, according to the text messages.
One of the USA’s Big Three cable news channels, CNN, amongst others, did little better in their portrayal of the case, focussing on the end of the rapists’ future football careers rather than the girl’s future in getting over a rape. Referring to Richmond and Mays, CNN reporter Poppy Harlow spoke of “These two young men who had such promising futures — star football players, very good students”, who “literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.” Few seemed to think of, or be willing to report on, the effect on the victim’s life.
It is a taboo subject in mainstream media: the feelings of the victim. Yet if the media were brave enough – as in so many other situations like war, politics – they could use their influence to change these attitudes. Because rape is sufficient for anyone to have to deal with, but this time, and I suspect it is not a unique case, it was a rape about which she had to discover through text messages, pictures and video footage shared between supposed friends and much of the school, and one for which she was name-called and received death threats.
Regardless of anybody’s state of sobriety, and there is little condoning a culture which encourages teenagers to get blind drunk, these kinds of acts must be automatically considered a no-go area. Our culture still is one where football means more than human decency (as long as you delete the evidence, you won’t get caught for your wrongdoings), where people are taught not to get raped rather than not to rape, and where we encourage those on the receiving end of rape to not come forward or face a barrage of disbelief and accusations. Moreover, it still neglects to teach people what actually constitutes rape – as seen in this case – and that taking photos and videos in the first place, let alone sharing them is a vile manner in which to behave. All in all, the end result is a huge lack of respect for both women and for each other more widely in society.
And where exactly does that leave us?
Imogen Watson, Features Editor
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