Rape culture in action. Massive Trigger Warning

So... what came of this? Everyone seemed disgusted at her being questioned. What happened?

They retracted the 'she's a big fat liar' bit, but didn't tell anyone they had. She also begged RS not to publish, realising what the backlash would be, but the forged ahead.

Yeah, I saw it. The wanker that outted her details online and called her father is still gloating about it.

Funny how they keep missing out salient facts, isn't it?

Sickening. They should be spending the rest of their lives in prison, not protected by the university. Shame on all their enablers and I hope they get their comeuppance someday.

Garlic I'm sorry I'm so late in coming back to this, but this As I continue trying to raise awareness about sexual exploitation - of adults and children - I am struck by how much easier it becomes to discuss, year by year. Disgust and outrage at perpetrators and their protectors, rather than victims, becomes a little more widespread each year. Insistent demands for correct justice don't go away like they used to. really rang a bell for me. I think you are totally right. Thanks for pointing this out, it was a relief to be reminded of it.

I think it's a bit hard to tell "how feminism is doing," so to speak, these days. One minute I'm shocked by regression or lack of progress and then the next I see something that makes me think hey, that's really great. Maybe this is just b/c there are so many dialogues to be heard now, so many conversations happening at once, basically b/c the internet has created so many opportunities for conversation -- I think maybe it used to be easier to identify which convictions were most loudly and commonly held, on both sides of a debate.

The other very depressing thing that has occurred to me is that perhaps in fact the current culture re: male privilege, sex, and rape isn't really that different at all from how it used to be. Maybe the only thing that's different is how openly we celebrate institutionalized misogyny now. But then I think, no, that can't be right; it's been openly celebrated in various spheres for fucking ever. The last time any broadly effective cultural progress feminism achieved was in the 1990s, imo., and I think we have paid for that progress so dearly since then that in some ways we have actually gone backwards.

I agree wholeheartedly. There's another thing, too, though. As I continue trying to raise awareness about sexual exploitation - of adults and children - I am struck by how much easier it becomes to discuss, year by year. Disgust and outrage at perpetrators and their protectors, rather than victims, becomes a little more widespread each year. Insistent demands for correct justice don't go away like they used to.

I think there definitely are backlashes, scallops, and they will continue because no body likes to relinquish (some of) its power & control. But I see real improvements, and want to keep on seeing them. This is why it's so important to keep talking, keep bringing abuse out of the shadows, and keep pressing for realistic justice.

Most news organizations in the US don't report the names of sexual assault victims unless the victim is willing to be publicly identified. But obviously in the world of the internet, that is certainly not anything close to an absolute protection. All it takes is one person willing to name the name, and it can spread fast, especially in a high profile case.

Zazzles - only just started reading the follow-up Rolling Stone article you linked to, but one thing just jumped out at me: "For privacy reasons (I didn't want future employers to Google me and see that I brought forward rape charges)"

Fucking hell - do they have no anonymity for victims in the USA? So victim blaming and rape myths mean if your rapist is found not guilty, you're automatically tarred with "she's one of those nasty wimmin who makes up malicious rape charges" and no employer will look at you. Words fail me.

The other very depressing thing that has occurred to me is that perhaps in fact the current culture re: male privilege, sex, and rape isn't really that different at all from how it used to be. Maybe the only thing that's different is how openly we celebrate institutionalized misogyny now.

But I think that, and then I think, no, that can't be right; it's been openly celebrated in various spheres for fucking ever. The last time any broadly effective cultural progress feminism achieved was in the 1990s, imo., and I think we have paid for that progress so dearly since then that in some ways we have actually gone backwards.

Sorry these posts were so rambly, I can't seem to organize my thoughts very well on this.

I went to a university very similar to UVA. I do think the fraternity culture at many of our universities is absolutely vile. It's blisteringly, cheerfully misogynist, and it's also very depressing how the sororities support and help to legitimize it. (I don't mean the sororities are to blame.)

I don't think the Greek system was ever progressive, obviously actually that makes me laugh to even imagine and it certainly always reinforced sexist gender norms, including what young privileged men should be able to get away with, in all sorts of areas, but I also don't think it used to be this extreme. Hearing/reading accounts of what Greek life is like now, the ever-reinforced expectation that everyone will drink and do drugs and have random sex just constantly, and casually ... it feels incredibly hardcore to me. I went to a big state university and I don't think I'm that shockable re: ordinary student behavior; I don't expect college students to be angels; I wasn't. I just also don't expect them to embrace what really looks to me (okay yes this does sound prudish) like depravity. I wonder whether rape has become more common as our entire sexual culture has become more extreme.

I really don't think mainstream or Greek university social life used to be like this. There's no reason for it to be like this, this was genuinely not the original point of fraternities/sororities/eating houses/etc. So I wonder -- is it that each generation has the natural impulse to find new extremes, and so our young people go further and further just to find the edge? Or is our entire culture more fiercely and/or more openly misogynistic than it was 100 years ago? Is this an unconscious or semiconscious sort of furious backlash assertion of white male privilege against the advance of equal rights for women, people of color, gay and transgendered people, etc.?

A couple of things found on google:

www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/rape-at-uva-readers-say-jackie-wasnt-alone-20141121

Recounting of a UVA rape case and how it was handled MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING

UVA Suspends Fraternities

it's a far wider and deeper problem than just getting more victims to report sexual assaults - Totally agree with this, and that it's a good thing this stuff is starting to make its way out into the sunlight. Attitudes will not change as long as they're silently tolerated.

I had a friend tell me 'you've had loads of boyfriends...what do you expect?' She was lonely - had never had a serious boyfriend at the age of 25 - and told me that on balance, I probably had it better than her, since I've had the chance to experience sex and all, and you got to take the good with the bad.

That was probably the worst response I got, but of all the friends I told, only the men were outraged/encouraged me to report. Women are far more likely to either victim-blame or make some bland comment along the lines of 'well, that's terrible, but you gotta move on'.

I know the thread has moved on but just had to respond on that point. I don't know how friends would respond now but when we were all early 20s I looked to male friends for support, on the whole, the girls didn't want to know.

That article is so horrific on so many levels. My heart goes out to all the women who've been victimised. And I have no words for what I'd like to do both to the perpetrators and to those in positions of power engaged in a shocking institutional cover-up. I think Caillin's absolutely nailed it when she points out that the men now in positions of power were once undergraduates at those very fraternities where rape is part of the hazing rituals - there are very obvious conclusions to be drawn as to why they are so invested in a massive cover-up.

I know it stems from the US paranoia (born out of the political conditions under which they fought for freedom from the Brits) of centralised power and state oppression - but I think a major part of the problem is this whole weird business of having campus police and campus disciplinary procedures, instead of just reporting this sort of crime to the real police. I'd like to see a poster in every women's toilet cubicle on every campus in the US saying "Been raped? Been sexually assaulted? It's not your fault. It is a crime. Phone 911 and talk to the real police."

I know there is a big problem with sexual violence at UK universities, particularly within sports clubs, but does seem to me that there's an extra dimension in the US - the whole culture of "omerta", the weird business of encouraging victims to rely on internal university discplinary proceedings, the way it's entrenched in frat culture as part of the hazing rituals. It's just vile.

Amethyst yes that puts me in mind of an article I read about men being raped in the US military. It was utterly harrowing. One of the men who told his story was put in with Jeffrey Dahmer and was locked in with him every night for months - ages I forget how long - and he reported it and nothing happened. Apparently he is the only man to survive being assaulted by Dahmer.

It's a toxic mix of stuff really isn't it. And how these institutions cover up and close ranks as a matter of course. Look at all the stuff around Deepcut.

All of these institutions all around the world where this is happening or has happened - this turning away, victim blaming, covering up - whether it's religious organisations, universities, police forces, the BBC, political parties, social services, whoever it is it needs to be exposed and fixed.

I suppose that we are starting to hear about all of this stuff is good in a way as it's coming out into the open,the next step is to excise the problem and ensure it stops.