Blaming an 11-year-old girl for being gang raped - that’s the U.S., not the East Congo!

Marina DelVecchio’s post at the New Agenda on the Rape Culture and How it Betrays Women prompted a flashback to the days when I was a reporter for a community newspaper in rural southeastern Minn.

I was covering the monthly meeting of the county commissioners at the local courthouse that afternoon. The six male commissioners, all well to do farmers, were gathered around a conference table. I sat off to the side taking notes when the county social worker gave her report. She mentioned a recent increase in the level of sexual crimes against women in the area.

After the social worker left, I was the only other person present when the commissioners began grumbling amongst themselves, saying things like, “These women ask for it. Look how they’re dressed when they’re walkin’ down the street in town.”

At that point, I stepped out of my role as reporter and spoke as an advocate for women’s rights. I said, “You know, fellas, in those circumstances, you have a couple of options other than rape. You can go home and have sex with your wife; you can find someone else who is willing to have sex with you; or you can masturbate.”

The commissioners moved on to the next item on their agenda.

A rape culture indeed. DelVechio’s post, featuring the actions of the 18 males, ranging in age from 14-18 years, who gang raped the 11 year-old girl in Texas, reminds us yet again that the United States is still no safe haven for women and girls.

And as if the incident itself were not horrific enough, the national media continues to criminalize the female victims of sex crimes. DelVechio writes:

In the eyes of the world, the news coverage of our country, members of her own community, and perhaps even her friends all believe that she is “guilty of the crime/of having being forced (Rich 14-15). Not much has changed since Adrienne Rich wrote “Rape.” People continue to blame the victim, while finding reasons to excuse the suspects of their crime. They didn’t know she was 11. She said she was 17. She was willing to go “for a ride” with two of the suspects. She was always hanging out in the Quarter, dressing like she was 20. She didn’t fight. Didn’t fight back. Didn’t scratch, and scream, and try to flee the attack. No, she wouldn’t. She is a 6th grader. She found herself in the company of 18 males who warned her that if she didn’t take her clothes off, they would have her beaten. She is a 6th grader who found herself surrounded by male libido, machismo, violence, and their belief that they had a right to take her, rape her, use her little body up, pass it around, and then toss it aside as if it didn’t belong to a face, to a soul, to a human being who felt pain, fear, and panic. And above all that has been said about this case, this is what is most distressing, disheartening: that these high school boys and young men felt they had a right to do what they did, and that there would be no consequences. Their conceit, their sense of power is evident in the fact that they whipped our their cell phones and recorded themselves sexually assaulting a minor. No fear.

To read DelVechio’s post in its entirety, go here.