Who's the Real Victim?

In Roxanne Gay's essay, "The Careless Language of Sexual Violence" she begins by talking about the gang rape of an eleven year old girl. News headlines speaking as if the entire town had been raped, and how this act of violence will affect the lives of the men who committed the rape. There's not much talk about the victim, besides the fact that she was "dressed like a twenty-year-old" (128). Rape dialogue is extremely frustrating, it is only taken seriously by those in which it has personally affected. In the Brock Turner case, news casters spoke about how his Stanford swimming career will be ruined. It is so often that the victim is forgotten about, because what happened to them, has already happened, it's now time to focus on whether the attacker will be punished or not. It is spoken as if the attacker is the real victim at hand. There's never any talk about how the victim's life is forever changed. The topic of rape dialogue, goes into the casual ways it is featured in everyday conversations. An acquaintance of mine regularly says how he's scared that one of the "ugly girls" at a party will most likely rape him if he has too many drinks, then proceeds to laugh it off. Speaking as if the fear of being sexually assaulted isn't a reality for most college aged adults. Rape dialogue is something that is often overlooked until it becomes a personal problem for an individual.

Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 7, 2017 at 5:23 PM

    that happened years ago, and it's crazy to think how news/ media hasn't changed at all. This is what we see when student athletes and when it's discovered men/women who were reputably good, or had promising futures have "their" lives ruined when they are tried for sexual assault/ rape. It's weird how the narrative will get twisted so that the victims never really get justice.

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  2. Chelsea MannDecember 8, 2017 at 6:08 PM

    I'm so glad that you mentioned the Brock Turner case because that is all I could think about when reading this piece. When this case was occurring everyone heard Turner's side of the case, but very rarely had people taken the time to read his victim's statement in which she mentioned how he ruined her life yet the court system was only concerned with how his life could be ruined with jail time. This shows how little our society thinks of the victims of rape and sexual abuse because they were "asking for it" or could have avoided it by drinking less or not leading them on. This is why many cases often go unreported and is something that has to be stopped or it will continue to happen forever.

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