Rape of elderly lady in the news *potential trigger warning* title edited by MNHQ

Interesting that the Guardian, Mail and Telegraph have all included in their reports what the victim was wearing. Presumably to allow their readers to form an opinion on whether a 90 year old woman was 'asking for it' or not.

One comment on the Mail site last night said something to the effect of 'what was she doing out before 7am?'

Just awful.

I think the problem is that rape is seen by many as having something to do with sex, rather than power/violence, so the rape of a very elderly woman is seen as particularly sexually deviant in a way that the rape of a younger woman isn't (because those rapes are 'understandable'/'normal'/'not really rapes').

Rapists get away with it in this country mostly anyway. In fact in most countries around the world.

If this rapist gets caught he'll get convicted.

If the victim was 20 he probably wouldn't.

IMO 20 year olds are actually more vulnerable to rape because rapists know they will probably get away with it so they target them.

Almondcakes is merely trying to close down the discussion in this thread.

'Nuff said.

OP I hear you and I agree; I found it hard to word precisely why the reporting is so shit but some of the responses above have helped me clarify my thoughts, so thank you.

almondcakes I think maybe this thread is affecting you disproportionately. I don't see what you are seeing.

The way this rape is being reported is a stark contrast to the way that rapes of women & girls in their childbearing years are viewed / treated by those in authority and the public / reported by the media.

To ask why that is, is not to diminish this crime, but to ask why society and the media act to diminish the same crime when it is carried out against girls and women who are in their reproductive years.

Maybe a girl of 13 being passed around a gang of men who control her isn't so bad. But it is still pretty bad, surely. And yet people in authority fail to act, use words like "child prostitute", and society talks of "out of control girls".

The disconnect is more than can be accounted for by a difference in levels of vulnerability. And I guess it's physical frailty which is the point, as the girl in the example above is clearly vulnerable.

Really Almondcakes? really?

You think there some sort of grading of rape?

First all space should be safe for all people,no matter what their age.

And then who are you to judge vulnerability? Is there a system I should know about?

Not every 30 year old is a fit able strong person. And even if they are why does that matter.

The only thing that is important is that no matter what the age and/or physical/ mental health status of the victim nothing gives anyone else the right to rape them.

What this thread is saying that thanks to reporting like this it reinforces that idea that some victims are more worthy of belief than others.

And that is wrong.

I don't believe you OP. I think you are just trying to use rape victims'. experiences to trivialise and ignore the very real differences in vulnerability, power and safe access to public spaces between you as a 30 year old and an elderly person, presumably because you are trying to claim some kind of 'top victim' status in some kind of oppression Olympics over elderly people.

Or maybe you just like to start threads on very distressing topics because you get a kick of upsetting people on the Internet.

I’ve always wonder how the rape apologists deal with cases like this.
After all they can’t find a way to blame the victim.

She wasn’t drunk and out on the town.
She wasn’t wearing a mini skirt.
She didn’t flirt and lead him on.
She didn’t have a one night stand and then regret it and lie to cover up.

Reading the observation above this is portrayed as the work of a sick pervert, while rapes on teenagers/women are not usually. So it is made to seem different from 'normal' rape when actually it isn't. I had a light bulb moment.

So that’s how they manipulate it in their heads.

Though the headline I saw still refers to it as a rape claim. .

I remember reading that there was some kind of study showing that young women are more psychologically traumatised by rape than elderly women. The implication being that the fact that older women are believed and younger women aren't is part of the problem.

Rapes are reported differently. It all comes down to our cultural assumptions about consent, sexual desirability and the desire to believe that rape is something which happens down dark alleys.

Almondcakes...I think you are misunderstanding the intention of our posts. It is simply to highlight the inconsistencies of the media snd not intended to diminish the awfulness of this crime against this poor woman.

A rape of an elderly woman will always be a top news story while a rape of a younger woman is largely ignored.
I totally understand the horror of this story. But i feel it every time a rape is reported.
If each and every rape made the news we might see the true scale.

I am simply using this thread now as a list of posters in this section who I will no longer have any respect for because they seem to have not a shred of basic human empathy.

I was also uncomfortable with the reporting of this when I heard it one the radio. My reasons (I think) were that

• It was presented as much worse than a younger woman or even a child being raped, maybe the same as a baby or toddler. Of course there are reasons for that and I feel them too, yet surely all rape is a terrible thing so why is it only reported this way when the victim is paticularly vulnerable. People don't have the same visceral reaction of disgust when a person between around 12 and 60 is raped. Why is that? Is it because females that age are deemed to be sexually active/available or because it is "normal" to want to have sex with them? There is something there

• I have not seen any reports in print yet but I would be willing to bet that the woman will have been raped, not "raped". It will be reported in such a way that it has actually happened, not with an air of "of course she might be making it up" as rapes on women between say 12 and 60 so often are

I think people are getting the wrong way around about this thread. It's not to reduce the horror of what has been done to this victim. It is to say why the fuck are all reports of rape not met with a similar level of disgust. Why are they instead met with a shrug and a general feeling that the victim/s might well be making it all up.

I can totally understand (and also feel it myself) why people have such a reaction to this crime. It is horrendous. I'm sorry if my posts came across as not caring about this woman because that is so far from the truth. The media however pick and choose their the victims of rape that they care about. The stuff on the Moral Maze last night is a good illustration of that. Plus in this report the police are asking people to imagine that it was a relative of theirs. Because clearly a 90yr old woman being raped is not enough for people to view her as a human being and worthy of compassion in her own right.

Having said that though and thought about it some more, my reasons for being uncomfortable is mainly with how the perpetrator is described. Not how the victim is portrayed. I agree that isn't what is in the OP though.

OP, no, it isn't enough of a warning, because as you are quite aware as it is the actual point of your OP, many people do think that a crime against an old woman is worse. As many people find it worse, they are going to find it more upsetting and triggering.

The fact that you think morally people shouldn't find this more upsetting doesn't change the fact that they do.

Well the first thing I thought when I read this is that it will probably kill this poor woman, so I do think age is relevant in that respect. I agree about the wider problem with people thinking there are shades of rape, but I don't think this is the best example to give to argue about that. My appalled reaction to this crime wasn't due to minimisation of sexual violence against younger women, but a human reaction to a 90 year old woman being so brutally attacked.