14 year old girl raped in broad daylight

[NoLoveofMine]

Not that any rape in any circumstance isn't horrendous but yet another horrific case, a 14 year old girl raped in a park in the middle of the day. That this kind of thing goes on and receives so little coverage is abhorrent. I'm so angry at the lives of women and girls being ruined like this, because these men choose to attack. I'm not articulating this too well but am just enraged.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/girl-14-raped-london-avery-hill-park-greenwich-teenager-a7949851.html

Thank you Quentin

Elendon of course it was horrendous and I'm sorry that you want through that.

Absolutely no one on this thread has suggested a hierarchy of seriousness.

Of course rape at any age, any circumstance is horrific, NoLove isn't disputing that, but .....

when we exclaim, outraged, that "but oh my god she is only 14 years old and it was broad daylight!" what we are doing is very understandably arguing according to the logic of the patriarchy and anticipating the victim-blaming that we know will inevitably follow.

We're saying that there is no way that rapist could have mistakenly thought she was a fully grown woman leading him on or what was she thinking, walking alone at night? There is no way the rapist could have thought he was doing anything other than wrong. No excuses, no ifs or buts.

We are arguing according to the logic of our oppressor and it's a totally natural thing to do.

ifyousee I disagree.

My outrage and shock is not to do with countering the inevitable victim blaming.

My outrage and shock is related to the fact that no one intervened, that literally no space is safe not even a public space in the middle of the day.

My outrage and shock is that a man would be audacious enough to attack a woman somewhere there was a high chance of him being seen and caught in the act.
That's very different to attacking someone in your family, in your house where you can control interruptions.
Also if women aren't safe in public parks in the middle of the day they aren't safe anywhere ever. Of course I knew that But this kind of story hammers it home .

By saying that I don't mean women can avoid rapists by only going out at certain times in certain locations at all.

retreat, I may have phrased it in an emotive way, but frankly I don't trust Dh to do that particular job particularly well .

My outrage has the following hierarchy:

• any rape
• any attack when there is a high chance of detection
• any attack on somebody young enough to deserve the protection of those older and more experienced than themselves

I think it is absolutely understandable that NoLoveOfMine would find it easy to identify with a person only a few years older than her - it makes it seem closer to home and I get that.
It does not mean that any other rape is somehow less bad or whatever.

Frankly, I am delighted to have a 17 year old actively seeing herself as a feminist. We need all the takers we can get IMO.

This is not an either/or.

Both women have points. One has serious history. The other is v young. Neither should be judged.

Pacific my comment might have come over as criticism, it wasn't meant to. More that I was shocked to realise the extent to which I was letting my own DH off the hook in that task.

Thank you Pacific and Assigned.

Thank you RitaMoreno x

I find it particularly shocking because of the audacity and won't apologise for that. It speaks to me of the lack of consequences of his previous actions, the security he had or felt he had to escalate into what would be classified as a high risk environment for an offender and of the innate power he believed himself to have. Brazen, and how do you become so brazen in flouting the law? Because the rewards are higher than the risks or the consequences are negligible compared to the gains.

I'm also a CSA survivor but my father never raped me where he could get caught. This is horrific, more than one thing and more than one situation can be horrific at a time. If you don't feel that brazen, audacious behaviour relates to wider societal beliefs and actions then that is absolutely your right but when your argument is that things are horrific on a grand scale to then berate someone for using a case currently in mainstream media as a focal point for wider discussion of that very fact seems misplaced. Some factors make any crimes more shocking because they highlight failures that have allowed such deviation from what we consider acceptable. That is not related to any 'value' or lack of of the victim. In this case if it transpired that he had escalated to this point due to a failure to be adequately punished previously (either not facing justice at all, being acquitted of one or more previous attacks or facing very light sentencing with inadequate rehabilitation or post release monitoring) that would add to the shocking value of the case, not to the worth of the victim, and not because I find it surprising but because it so clearly indicates the level of importance we place on violent men harming women and children both institutionally and societally.
And actually yes, I do find it a little bit more sad when I read these things about children and that is because I am an adult woman who, while largely content with her life, sometimes wonders if I am the person I could have been had my childhood been different, there is something intangible taken from children and not adults that is entirely separate from any individual amount of resilience, but just because the cost is different it doesn't mean either is lesser. That is a personal view though that I don't expect other people to agree with because it comes from a very personal and biased emotional place rather than a rational one.

Yes, I got what you meant - no worries.

I have posted this before and I stand by it: feminism is a broad church IMO and IME and that is one of its strengths. I don't think we should allow ourselves to be divided by age or experience or by what particular 'flavour' of feminism we feel most comfortable with.
Feminism is about the empowerment of women and if that were achieved IMO it would benefit all.

Dobby

MyDobby thank you for that excellently put post

Poor kid

I started a thread about this because I was very angry and upset by this attack. I am by all rape, sexual assault and male violence against women and girls and sadly often read of attacks I want to express outrage at but as has been suggested can't post about every one. I find all these attacks horrifying and am so enraged at the misogyny in the minds of those who carry them out, the complete disdain for women and girls, lives, thoughts, feelings irrelevant because they belong to females such is the hatred and disregard for women and girls. Again, not sure I'm articulating this well but I'm continually horrified and enraged by all this and I think about it very regularly (probably too regularly). I post about it here because there's nowhere else I feel I can discuss it - it's not something I feel I can keep talking to friends about, and this is the best place I've come across to discuss feminism which is why I enjoy and get so much out of posting here. I should have titled this thread differently, didn't mean to suggest it being in broad daylight made it worse, far from it, I just didn't know what else to write in the title other than a description of the attack. I abhor the notion women and girls should try to avoid male violence, am enraged by any advice not to walk alone in the dark (ridiculous, unhelpful and impossible anyway) and post about attacks like these in part because they prove we can't - the only responsibility lies with the men who perpetrate such attacks to stop. Every woman and girl should be able to exist everywhere, go anywhere, walk anywhere at any time, be in their own home or anyone else's, be absolutely anywhere in any circumstance and not suffer male violence. It hugely upsets me this isn't the case because of violent misogyny. Sorry if all that was garbled or didn't make much sense.

I totally understand what you mean NoLoveofMine

You make sense.

My gripe is that when it comes to prosecution of rape, which is just as horrific as the actual rape itself.

Raped in broad daylight at the age of 14? As the perpetrator, if caught, you are likely to get a prison sentence. BUT, this isn't confirmed. What was she wearing, why was she on her own at 14? Don't these young women know how much they attractive? Any fucking excuse!

It was even suggested by a judge, that a 12 year old girl was complicit in her rape because she looked older. He was 21. Sorry, Guardian link.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/17/man-who-pleaded-guilty-of-raping-12-year-old-freed-by-glasgow-high-court

I agree Elendon. I remember that horrendous case and posted quite a bit on a thread about it on another section of MN where there were a fair few horrendous victim blaming posts (though thankfully a lot of people rebutting them as well). That even a 12 year old girl is blamed and a man excused for his actions displays the misogyny inherent in society.

Everything around this is horrific; the misogyny and contempt for women and girls in the attack then the continual judgement and blaming of victims after them, the lack of justice, the majority of rapists going free (not even being arrested or charged for the most part), it's enraging. I also think that on the rare occasions there's actually a conviction the sentences handed out are often woefully inadequate.

Maybe we should let women (and only women) carry guns?

Aren't we generally more upset when horrific things happen to children rather than adults though? I think of my daughters facing this kind of risk as they start to become independent and of course it hits home more than if it had happened to a 50 year old. Not that that isn't horrific too, obviously, but it's the added layer of vulnerability.

I do think that the fact it was so brazen, and the fact that it was a rape of such a young girl, is particularly disturbing/distressing. My eldest dd will be 13 at Christmas. The thought that something like this could happen to her twists my insides into a knot. No-one is disputing that all rape is horrendous, but the rape of a young girl/child is the absolute worst.

Self defence lessons protected me from an attempted rape at age 19.

I was interviewed by police and Dame Janet Smith as part of operation Yew tree 4 years ago and was genuinely shocked when I realised that, upon reflection, In all likelihood I escaped a predator because of 6 PE lessons 4 years previous. Dame Janet repeatedly asked why I had lain on the floor and screamed - why didn't I just go with him? It was because I was told never to let myself be taken into a private place with any one who I suspected might be a predator.

We weren't taught to fight, we were taught to, and practised screaming, crumpling to the floor and 'being floppy' so you can't easily be carried away, to bite anything possible (again practising). It sounds ridiculous but it was quite fun at the time and it worked when I needed it, and felt second nature.

I have taught both my kids the same techniques.

This wouldn't help anyone attacked outdoors/away from other people but it is useful in some circumstances.

My outrage and shock is related to the fact that no one intervened, that literally no space is safe not even a public space in the middle of the day

There is nothing to suggest there was a failure of intervention. The location is described as secluded.

My outrage and shock is that a man would be audacious enough to attack a woman somewhere there was a high chance of him being seen and caught in the act

I agree. The "in broad daylight" aspect relates to that. He took a chance where it was a probability he would be seen.

Also, I never quite get why referring to relative risk of attack is necessarily seen as suggesting that the victim should not have been in that place at that time, or had any responsibility their ordeal. A young man is unquestionably more likely to get beaten up on a Friday night in a town centre than on a tuesday afternoon, but nobody suggests that young men should not go to town on Friday nights. Likewise, a woman is probably more likely to get raped at 1am in a secluded alleyway than in the middle of the day on a commonly-used route. That doesn't mean that she doesn't have the right to be in either place. But the latter is more shocking because, as people have said, it is more audacious. And ultimately, perhaps it does hit home more not just because the victim is vulnerable, but because she was doing something which we assume was pretty much risk-free. We all walk through parks in the daytime without a care in the world. Late at night we are more aware of the risks. Just like we are more aware of pickpockets in the middle of Leicester Square than in Littlechurch-on-the-Wold. But to repeat, that is NOT to say that we don't have the right to go out alone at night - I do it myself - and NOT to say that any blame attaches in any case.