hi

…Then they put down a carpet, so that high heels didn’t clack on the floor,  and BOOM women were suddenly getting hired.

When it comes to rape /sexual assault cases, there is an especially high burden of proof.  Society has very misguided expectations of what would prove that a sexual assault has occurred.

Start with the people involved.  Statistically, a person is most likely to be assaulted by someone they know.  Because these people are known to the victim, it’s hard to prove that their presence at or near the time of the assault wasn’t just happenstance.

Move on to DNA.  Even if there is DNA evidence after a sexual assault, it only proves the presence of the person in question, not their motives or whether the activities involved were consensual. The DNA proof might be collected with a rape kit if the victim chooses to seek medical attention after the assault.  But this is of course provided the rape kit is ever processed.  The reality is that an astronomical amount of rape kits sit untouched for years or even decades.  You can find information about the backlog in your home state here

In the United States, it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of untested kits in police and crime lab storage facilities simply waiting to be tested. Each kit represents a survivor who courageously submitted to the four to six-hour rape kit collection process and reported the rape to the police. Many of these survivors never receive any follow-up information after filing the police report.

So what if the victim  is able to go to the police?   That should mean that something will be done, right?   Or at least that the police will take the report seriously?

Except they don’t.   Studies have proven time and again that gender bias exists in law enforcement response to sexual assault.   Police have biases that play into whether or not they believe someone who reports a rape.  These biases often guide how far they are willing to let a case proceed or if they choose to ignore the report altogether.  And these biases aren’t shaped by any evidence or data.  

Consider the following from this twitter thread 

"For victims of sexual assault who experienced penetration, reporting to the police appears to exacerbate the impact of the sexual assault and increase depression levels (Kaukinen & DeMaris, 2009)."

"Jordan...found that historically pervasive attitudes of mistrust in women’s testimony continues to be evident in police processing of sexual assault cases." "A few studies...found that police often do not perceive non-stranger assaults as rape."

The legal system also a major part: "Martin (2005) argued that goals, missions, policies, and procedures play an important role in how legal organizations and their employees socially construct sexual assault and sexual assault-related work."

Officers claim they treat rape reports similarly, reality shows otherwise: "they simultaneously describe the implementation of different responses during interactions with victims. For example, officers may conduct light interrogations when a case is perceived as false..."

In one study interviewing both victims and police officers, they found 40% of the victims were questioned about their sexual history—which is supposed to be banned thanks to rape shield laws—and 38% of the officers admitted to doing it.

"As a result of these secondary victimization experiences, many victims reported feeling dehumanized and blamed themselves. Many victims noted that they would not have reported if they had known what the experience would be like."

"victims who are younger, an ethnic minority, raped by an acquaintance, or who wait to report the rape even for a few hours are less likely to have their cases prosecuted because the CJS perceives them as less credible."

We can see proof of police negligence in handling of sexual assault cases in studies like the one ProPublica did involving Marie Adler whose harrowing story was turned into Netflix series.  

So let’s say there’s a case that has all the “right” info.  A passerby happens upon the scene while the rape is occurring and finds the rapist on top of the unconscious victim.  The rapist is held until police arrive.  The victim has bruises (internal and external) which are thoroughly documented .  SURELY in this case justice will prevail right?  Nope.  The rapist, Brock Turner, was sentenced to 6 months in jail but released after serving just 3 months.    His father would decry even that pithy sentence as  “ A steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action”  His victim, Chanel Miller, would be blamed for her own assault and have her actions that night and in general scrutinized.

And this is what victims can expect when they attempt to report a sexual assault or seek any kind of legal justice .  Until recently, victims in many places could also be expected to pay for the rape kits used to collect evidence despite the fact that the kits so rarely see the light of day after having been collected, let alone ever actually lead to a conviction.  

So the problem with asking for proof is that rape and sexual assault are crimes where the proof is often fleeting, can be all too eagerly dismissed as circumstantial or simply doesn’t exist because the assailant was careful not to leave any evidence.  Worse yet, bringing a case to trial means (as noted above) that the victim’s own life, sexual history and past choices are often found to be admissible evidence against them, even though these things are far less reliable than any proof of sexual assault.

The truth is that victims of rape and sexual assault are presumed guilty from the start.  And even when they conquer the insurmountable odds that make up legal standard of proof, their assailant will most often never see the inside of a jail cell at all.  That is the reality in which we live and the reason why rape and sexual assault are so pervasive.  

Survivors deserve better.  

And for anyone confused by “labor camps”

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/

Girls, taught to ignore their anger, become disassociated from themselves.

Anger is so successfully sublimated that girls lose the ability to understand what it feels and looks like. Is her heart racing? Does she feel flushed or shaky? Does she clench her jaws at night? Is she breaking out in hives? Does she cry for no reason? Laugh inappropriately during difficult conversations? Fly off the handle over something that seems inconsequential? You can see where I’m going here…those crazy girl hormones, right? Better to just think of it as a phase.

Girls learn to filter their existences through messages of powerlessness and cultural worthlessness. Girls might be more inclined to depression because coming to terms with your own cultural marginalization and irrelevance is depressing.

This doesn’t mean giving children, girls or boys, a pass for violent, disruptive, or entitled behavior.

—

from ‘I think the general mindset and culture of Tumblr is effecting what people choose to write about in fic’ (via fanlore.org)