My personal rant on the Richmond High gang rape
http://forums.insidebayarea.com/topic/sixth-suspect-arrested-in-connection-to-richmond-gang-rape?source=article
I feel like crying and throwing up all at once.
For many, many years, we've heard of incidents like this at fraternity parties and in bars. Some waste of skin gets a woman passed-out drunk or drops a tablet in her drink, and once she's helpless, a bunch of "men" line up to take turns raping her and sometimes beating her. Pictures are snapped. Friends are summoned to join in. So much fun! So much masculine camaraderie-yaaaay, we’re all getting LAID! Such a great story to laugh over for years afterward! Hur-hur-hur. Then news gets out, legal proceedings start, the perps are STUNNED to find themselves behind bars as gang rapists for “having a little fun”, and everyone who hears about it is so horrified that they….
…do nothing, for the most part.
It’s depressingly rare for other men, especially, to speak up or do anything when they hear about rape or gang rape, sometimes even if it involves someone they know. So many just...rationalize. "It wasn't really rape, it was just guys having fun." "We're not rapists, she's just an uppity [bleep] who needed to be put in her place." "She got drunk, so she deserved it." "You know she was totally into it." "I would have run in like a white knight had I been there-really-but I wasn’t so there’s nothing I can do." "Security-wise, the dance was a success.” Or, they stuff down their discomfort when the subject comes up, and make jokes, to avoid a confrontation with their fellow men. It's "unmanly" to stand up for women or empathize with our suffering, apparently.
And of course, rape is barely punished in this country at all. The victims are put on trial, shamed again by having their private lives dragged into the open, and questioned repeatedly about whether they might have "asked for it" somehow. The young woman in this story will be treated the same way. She’s already being viciously defamed around campus by heartless, disrespectful brats who don’t give a damn how they’re adding insult to injury. And her attackers? If any of them get over a decade in prison I’ll be very surprised.
Meanwhile, the mother of one of these gang-rapists gets press coverage bawling her eyes out because her "baby" is in jail. Where the hell is her shame? Where is her remorse for raising a son who physically and sexually assaults women for laughs? Where is her anger at him and his friends? And why is her grief getting any press at all? If she decided to belatedly take the “concerned parent” route, slap some sense into her little monster, disown him and then drop him off at jail herself, THAT would be news. But instead we always get the parents of young perps wailing about how their precious, perfect child would never do such a thing, and how this is so unfair.
I don't have any sympathy at all for the boys’ parents, for school administrators that call a dance featuring a gang-rape a “security success”, or for anyone else who wants to downplay this horror. Nor is it appropriate to shift the blame away from those responsible: the scumbags who raped this poor girl, the pathetic excuse for dance security, and the cowards who watched and did nothing. This happened. It was gang rape, it went on for hours, the girl did NOT deserve it in any sense and is now horribly hurt and violated, and the males responsible should be put away where they can never so much as look at a woman again.
We must work much harder to stamp out the idea that lining up to rape an unconscious girl is a “party highlight” instead of a horrendous crime. Apparently, some men and boys still have no problem taking advantage of an impaired woman. The only thing keeping this dangerous subset from raping, therefore, is their lack of opportunity thus far. How horrifying is that?
I just wish that more guys would help women stand up against those who think rape is OK. “Men” who rape do not listen to women; we’re not fully human to them, and they handily dismiss us as hysterical, shrews, [bleep]s, et cetera just for standing up for ourselves. It is, thus, OTHER MEN who are most likely to get them to understand that taking sexual advantage of a drunk, drugged or unconscious woman IS rape, and IS wrong. It is OTHER MEN who can most successfully intervene when a woman is being raped and guys are lining up “for their turn” with sicko-sadist grins on their faces. Men preventing rape is about a lot more than just choosing not to rape anyone themselves. They have to have the backbone to actually stand up against rape, whenever it happens or is talked about among men.
But where are the guys that care enough about women’s safety to do this? Where are the men who are tired of women HAVING to be so wary of strange guys? Where are the men who are fed up with male sexuality being perverted into a weapon? Where are the guys with the courage and compassion to say, “leave the lady alone”?
Are you out there?
Do you exist?
Right now, I could really use the reassurance. I’m sure a lot of women could.
I feel like crying and throwing up all at once.
For many, many years, we've heard of incidents like this at fraternity parties and in bars. Some waste of skin gets a woman passed-out drunk or drops a tablet in her drink, and once she's helpless, a bunch of "men" line up to take turns raping her and sometimes beating her. Pictures are snapped. Friends are summoned to join in. So much fun! So much masculine camaraderie-yaaaay, we’re all getting LAID! Such a great story to laugh over for years afterward! Hur-hur-hur. Then news gets out, legal proceedings start, the perps are STUNNED to find themselves behind bars as gang rapists for “having a little fun”, and everyone who hears about it is so horrified that they….
…do nothing, for the most part.
It’s depressingly rare for other men, especially, to speak up or do anything when they hear about rape or gang rape, sometimes even if it involves someone they know. So many just...rationalize. "It wasn't really rape, it was just guys having fun." "We're not rapists, she's just an uppity [bleep] who needed to be put in her place." "She got drunk, so she deserved it." "You know she was totally into it." "I would have run in like a white knight had I been there-really-but I wasn’t so there’s nothing I can do." "Security-wise, the dance was a success.” Or, they stuff down their discomfort when the subject comes up, and make jokes, to avoid a confrontation with their fellow men. It's "unmanly" to stand up for women or empathize with our suffering, apparently.
And of course, rape is barely punished in this country at all. The victims are put on trial, shamed again by having their private lives dragged into the open, and questioned repeatedly about whether they might have "asked for it" somehow. The young woman in this story will be treated the same way. She’s already being viciously defamed around campus by heartless, disrespectful brats who don’t give a damn how they’re adding insult to injury. And her attackers? If any of them get over a decade in prison I’ll be very surprised.
Meanwhile, the mother of one of these gang-rapists gets press coverage bawling her eyes out because her "baby" is in jail. Where the hell is her shame? Where is her remorse for raising a son who physically and sexually assaults women for laughs? Where is her anger at him and his friends? And why is her grief getting any press at all? If she decided to belatedly take the “concerned parent” route, slap some sense into her little monster, disown him and then drop him off at jail herself, THAT would be news. But instead we always get the parents of young perps wailing about how their precious, perfect child would never do such a thing, and how this is so unfair.
I don't have any sympathy at all for the boys’ parents, for school administrators that call a dance featuring a gang-rape a “security success”, or for anyone else who wants to downplay this horror. Nor is it appropriate to shift the blame away from those responsible: the scumbags who raped this poor girl, the pathetic excuse for dance security, and the cowards who watched and did nothing. This happened. It was gang rape, it went on for hours, the girl did NOT deserve it in any sense and is now horribly hurt and violated, and the males responsible should be put away where they can never so much as look at a woman again.
We must work much harder to stamp out the idea that lining up to rape an unconscious girl is a “party highlight” instead of a horrendous crime. Apparently, some men and boys still have no problem taking advantage of an impaired woman. The only thing keeping this dangerous subset from raping, therefore, is their lack of opportunity thus far. How horrifying is that?
I just wish that more guys would help women stand up against those who think rape is OK. “Men” who rape do not listen to women; we’re not fully human to them, and they handily dismiss us as hysterical, shrews, [bleep]s, et cetera just for standing up for ourselves. It is, thus, OTHER MEN who are most likely to get them to understand that taking sexual advantage of a drunk, drugged or unconscious woman IS rape, and IS wrong. It is OTHER MEN who can most successfully intervene when a woman is being raped and guys are lining up “for their turn” with sicko-sadist grins on their faces. Men preventing rape is about a lot more than just choosing not to rape anyone themselves. They have to have the backbone to actually stand up against rape, whenever it happens or is talked about among men.
But where are the guys that care enough about women’s safety to do this? Where are the men who are tired of women HAVING to be so wary of strange guys? Where are the men who are fed up with male sexuality being perverted into a weapon? Where are the guys with the courage and compassion to say, “leave the lady alone”?
Are you out there?
Do you exist?
Right now, I could really use the reassurance. I’m sure a lot of women could.