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

[ifyourehoppyandyouknowit]

Not sure if you have seen, but an elderly woman was raped in Rochdale earlier this week and I'm just really about the way it is being described and represented on the news.

Lots of interviews with local residents describing how 'abhorrent' and 'vile' it is that an old woman was raped. As if her age makes the crime worse? It seems to imply that if she wasn't 90 years old they wouldn't be so disgusted by it; the implication being that rape is more understandable when it happens to young women? And then something else is bothering me too, some sort of implication that older women are somehow asexual or sexually off limits so sex crimes are infinitely worse when they happen to them? (The fact that rape = power rather than sex seems missing from all the reports I've seen).

It was on the radio this morning and I was muttering darkly to myself in the car and wanted to write it out.

Have I got a point?

Almond, did someone piss in your cornflakes this morning?

I'm not trying to claim top victim status. Are you even reading my posts? My point is that all sexual violence is horrific, but this particular case highlights how differently we treat victims depending on their age/sexuality/dress/location etc while ignoring the fact that all rape is rape. The publicity around this case would not be harmful if every single rape case was reported like this and if people showed so much outrage over every single one. But they don't. Why don't they? Why do people get outraged at this while not giving a shit about the thousands of women and girls who are victims of sexual violence every year?

A violent attack against someone who is less able to defend themselves will always get more press, and illicit more sympathy. I understand that. But doesn't that feed into this idea that women should be fighting back against their attacker if they are able?

Also, the way the perpetrator is being described at 'sick' and a 'pervert' is odd - as if we don't say that about people who rape 25 year old women, what are we saying about this particular case? You'd have to be sick and a pervert to rape a 90 year old?! When we don't say that about men who rape women who aren't elderly? It's implying that rape is about sexual attraction, rather than power and violence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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').

FairPhyllis I agree, and I think there is another conversation to be had there about the way we view women and their sexuality past a certain age. Probably not here though.

What she was wearing? Good grief.

I can't envisage a report where a person who is a victim of a different type of crime gets their clothing detailed, unless there is a reason for it ie did anyone see anything can they come forward.

I can only assume it's because it's received journalistic wisdom that any reports on a sex crime has to include what the victim was wearing. They don't tend to do it for children though do they. How do their brains even work.

I know what the Op is saying...
but take the rape aspect out.
I can think of cases were old people have been burgled/mugged etc and the perpetrators also get called sick and perverted...
It is our expectation as a society that we will protect and not harm the vulnerable - and it is perverse not to do so.

A 20 yr old getting mugged would also not get the same coverage as a 80 yr old.

Going into detail about what she wore would be like going into detail on whether a victim of a mugger was poor or well off. More outrage if an elderly poor woman had her life savings stolen versus a well off person who could afford the loss? It's still a crime either way, even if the former is more shocking.

But the difference in the level of shock is not the same.

An 80 year old getting mugged attracts less outrage than this crime.
A 20 year old being mugged will be treated in an entirely different way - they will feel able to report it to the police, police public and society will believe them etc etc. Unless there is good reason, no-one will assume or suggest that they are making it all up, or that they were asking for it etc etc

It's like when a vulnerable person - a "proper" victim - is raped it is treated as the worst crime possible (rightly so).
When a woman or girl of child bearing years is raped it is treated as just a standard occupational hazard of being female and really why make a fuss and she's probably not entirely "innocent" in the situation anyway. Unless of course there are other aspects that nudge it into the territory of "proper" victim eg being kidnapped by a stranger and brutally beaten as well.

Of course you are right that crimes against children / the elderly / animals even are seen as worse. But the disconnect here is larger than can be explained solely by that.

Good thread - I agree absolutely that the reporting has been completely different to if it had been a 20 year old or a 40 year old woman. And in stark contrast to the descriptions of the 'girls' in the Rochdale case and other similar horrific cases.

I guess rape apologists would describe this as a 'real'rape - grabbed off the street, frail and defenceless victim, hadn't been drinking or behaving in any way like a 'slag'etc etc. But then I read that some reports contain details of what she was wearing. What the actual fuck?

Yes, good thread, and I feel the same as the OP.

The Police are now saying - looking at the Guardian website here - that they have found no forensic evidence that there was a rape. This is all now far too uncomfortably public.

Oh I dread to think of the sort of comments that news will attract Line Runner

Why are the police putting out statements of this nature?

What she was wearing
How far they are getting with forensic evidence
All the rest of it

Well, exactly, Lotta. It seems like the Rochdale police have played this out far too publicly like some kind of media-seeking morality play and the people it'll mostly hurt are women.

Just read the Guardian piece.

WTF are the police thinking of here. They are mishandling this enormously. I am really shocked by their latest statement seriously taken aback. They are now basically making a statement to say "yeah we think she imagined it or something" because there's no forensic evidence?

I am boggling here.

I like the way they basically say she made it up and then sort of sigh and say but of course we have to investigate all reports as if, you know, what a bind.

Superintendent Alistair Mallen, of Greater Manchester police, I am looking at YOU, go on a fucking course or something why don't you.

I think the Rochdale police are trying to be seen to be acting on this, after the fiasco with the girls groomed and abused there.

And they still have the Cyril Smith scandal to explain.

Quite often there isn't forensic evidence after a rape though.