If you are anything like me, and maybe you're not, you've been reading "too much" about the Steubenville rape verdict/situation. The day that the verdict was handed down I stayed up late, not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't fall asleep. I felt sad, really sad, and really angry. I felt angry, like so many others, at all of the major media outlets for all of the egregious offenses they had committed that day in reporting on the "story," like naming the survivor and focusing on how the perpetrators of the crime would be impacted by the verdict. But I was also angry at all of the reactions I had read, written by well meaning folks that wished for harsher sentencing and spewed general hatred for the perpetrators, angry at all of the folks who equated justice to jail time and made big assumptions about how sorry the perpetrators were without actually knowing them. I know that opinions are like assholes, but assumptions aren't any better. And we can do better.
I'm no expert on the criminal justice system, but it's fair to say that most people would agree it doesn't really work. People know the system of punishment that is in place to deal with crime, but they still commit crimes, every day. Some people get caught, some people don't. Some people commit crimes after they've been caught and released, some people don't, but most do. We talk about being tough on crime and we talk about law and order and we talk about justice. But you know what? No matter how long a person sets in a jail cell, no matter how many people die from lethal injections, electric chairs or hangings, no matter how many people are put on parole or probation, justice still isn't served. Justice isn't the same as vengeance, and it's time that we acknowledge that. Justice comes in the form of making amends and accepting accountability. I don't see how sitting in a room eating up state and federal dollars can accomplish that. I don't see how being treated like a caged animal and working for less than minimum wage accomplishes that. I don't see how being removed from society and being socialized as a criminal accomplishes that. I think, if we tried, we could come up with better ways.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a whole lot of patience for perpetrators of physical or sexual violence. And by that, I mean I have no patience at all. But there should be a significant difference between my individual feelings and the structure of the institutions that we use to deal with issues of crime and justice. I know a person who has been a perpetrator of sexual violence, and I would like nothing more than to see him locked up forever. If I was honest I'd say that I would like nothing more to put a bullet through his skull. I don't know if he is typical or not, but I can also say that he is a person who has shown no remorse at all and has never worked to make amends, or even apologize for his wrongs. His family and social network has accommodated this. But what if that wasn't true? What if his family had instead shown kindness and concern for those who survived his attacks, and worked with them to heal? What if his friends had said, dude, not cool, you gotta get right. And then worked with him to heal as well? And what if the criminal justice system had provided counseling and opportunities for guided mediation and healing on the survivors terms? Had any of those things happened, I might be able to stand the sight of him. But it hasn't. And as things stand now, they aren't likely to happen in the future. So we are relegated to punishment instead of justice, and for no good reason at all.
So I guess we can't really help rapists not rape and we can't really help survivors heal, because that would take too much work right? I mean, prison is no deterrent from making people into harder "criminals," right? Rape never happens there, right? And the service providers to survivors of rape? Underfunded organizations that rely on volunteers to deal with the trauma is what we have. Underpaid and volunteer advocates that suffer the effects of vicarious trauma from the stories they hear. And that is assuming that a woman reports her rape or seeks out support. Which isn't terribly likely. I know the kinds of women, and actual women, who do this kind of work. For a short period of time I was one of them. We are the kind of women who are labeled as feminazi's, dykes, bitches and man-haters. But then again, the women who are raped are labeled as sluts, whores, bitches, drunk and easy. I'm seeing a pattern here. Are you? What do we call perpetrators of sexual violence? Rapists. I can't think of any other words.
But what about prevention? Can we work toward prevention? Can we talk about female sexuality and pleasure in a way that isn't shaming? Can we have men and politicians and institutions respect us as women? And yes, that includes making our own choices, and not just the choice about whether or not to have abortions. It means respecting our choices about sex and who we have sex with, and the kinds of sex we do and don't like to have. It means respecting our choices about family, social networks, our style of dress, the work we do and our rights to self determination. Respecting our right to say no but also our right to say yes, to be assertive and angry and happy and sad and powerful. Respecting our unique qualities that make us who we are, as equals rather than your mothers or sisters or wives or girlfriends. It means giving little girls options beyond barbie, polly pocket and cabbage patch dolls. It also means giving little boys options beyond war games and sports and can include barbie, polly pocket and cabbage patch dolls. It means talking to children about sex and safety and the differences between secrets and surprises. It means talking to girls about masturbation and pleasure and orgasms, it means having a steady stream of dialogue about sex instead of one big awkward sex talk after it's too late. Because kids with IPods, laptops, cell phones, and friends have the opportunity to see porn before you can talk to them about penises and vaginas, and by that time ideas about pleasure, pain, slut-shaming, power, and body image have already set in. And part of this conversation, a significant part of this conversation, has to do with consent, and understanding what that looks like. While it is so important for young men to know the importance of asking, it is even more important that young women know how to answer authentically. Sometimes that answer will be no, but sometimes it will be yes. How young people will deal with the responsibilities that accompany these answers is largely up to their preparation, and the best prep will start at home.
But that's a lot to ask right? That we are honest with young people and prepare them for the realities of being a teenager or young adult. It might feel weird. You don't want to encourage them to do this or to do that? I made many decisions about my sexuality as a young person, decisions I made with very little information that I sought out on my own. But I also watched my uncle die of AIDS as a young teenager, and that taught me safety above all else. And I watched my mother struggle through years of poverty, impacted by the reality that she was a mother at 19. Because I saw the truth, I was able to make decisions that made sense for me, and for the most part that decision was to wait. And not because it was right by God, or right by the rules, but because it was right by me.
I spent plenty of time as a teenage girl being drunk, but I set rules for myself that I didn't bend and they were intended to keep me reasonably safe. When I say drunk, I mean really drunk. Puking drunk, blackout drunk, sloppy fucking drunk. There was never a single time that it would have made sex, or any kind of sex act, okay without my consent. Ever. I also spent a fair amount of time as a teenager smoking weed. Most weekends I smoked weed and got drunk. I was a very moderated wild. And you know what? Puke on my shirt, where are my pants, when did I take off my bra, what the fuck happened after I passed out would have never made sex okay without my okay. Period.
Now I didn't spend a lot of time around athletes or popular kids in high school, but the little bit of time I did grossed me out. I remember being a junior in high school and smoking pot in my friends room when some of her younger sisters friends came in. They were senior boys who were in a totally different social group than me, pretty boy athletes that were used to girls drooling over them. I remember feeling nervous, mostly that I was going to be made fun of, and I mostly stayed quiet. At some point it came out that I didn't know who one of them was. The boy looked at me and said, "You don't know who I am?" I shook my head and kept passing the bong. He was shocked and asked me a couple more times, just to be sure. I didn't like his attitude, and when I think about that sort of arrogance, I think about the kind of boys who don't think twice about putting their fingers inside of a girl who is passed out and video tape it. And put it online. And laugh about it. And blame her. I don't mean to suggest that the arrogant sports guy of my story ever raped anyone, he just did plenty of slut shaming at his time at Franklin. And the system of valuing his abilities as an athlete allowed him to do and say what he liked without reproach. Portland is no Steubenville, but rape and sexism perpetrated by athletes is excused every day. Just ask Kobe.
The adults in Steubenville had numerous opportunities to work toward justice in the aftermath of the sexual assault. Coaches and parents could have come together to address the needs of the survivor, and they could have also instantly stripped the players of their roles on the football team. But do do that would have disrupted their own privilege, so they stayed quiet. They let a young girl, who we know nothing about other than the fact that she was drunk the night of the attack, suffer and be ridiculed in order to maintain their status. Don't tell me that this mentality can't be addressed. Oh wait, there is an entire industry being propped up on holding athletes to lower standards which relies on coaches, teachers and parents giving them a pass? Right.
So...Where does that leave us? Maybe as a society we can't do better, because that would mean fighting patriarchy. But for those of us who actually care, who are committed to justice and equality and the rights of women, we can do better. It is our job to think outside of the here and now, and to think about what could be, and to work towards that. We get to be angry, and we get to want more. But when we can, when we have the space, let's try to be more angry at this system than the victims of that system, so that we can be more prepared to dismantle it.
No comments:
Post a Comment