Hi there! I’m Amanda of the blog The Undomestic Goddess (@TheUndomestic on Twitter), and I’ll be bringing you a weekly wrap-up of news on sexual assault that extends beyond the campus.
First, (trigger warning) this heartbreaking story of a 7-year-old girl in NJ who was gang raped by up to 7 men while her 15-year-old stepsister at the same party was having sex for money. According to the Daily News, the 15-year-old was charged with aggravated sexual assault, promoting prostitution and other crimes. Prosecutors plan to try her as an adult. Yup, because a 15 year-old in prostitution doesn’t need any counseling or emotional support or anything. Just time behind bars. Have they not seen Very Young Girls? (watch it – it’s on Netflix!) Nancy Schwartzman of The Line Campaign offered this response about needing to break the cycle of violence. Oh, but jk guys, cuz the lawyer of one of the 5 arrested men is doubting whether this “alleged” gang rape even took place at all! I mean, how do you even prove rape anyways, amirite? Sigh.
And following the power of group think, a 6-year-old girl was being routinely physically and sexually assaulted by her 23 classmates. How did anyone not notice this happening? You know that age-appropriate sex education the far right is freaking out about? It would help here to know that stripping and touching your classmate is not okay.
Next, what’s the matter with…DC? Metro officials say the reason information about sexual assault on their property was not made immediately public was simply because it got “lost in the shuffle.” Whoopsies! There goes your awareness! Plus this horrifying story of one woman unable to receive a rape kit because she did not know her attacker’s last name, and other infuriating roadblocks.
In pop/rape culture, Kiely Williams (I had to Google her – apparently she’s a former Disney Cheetah Girl) has a new song out glorifying date rape: “Last I remember I was face down/Ass up, clothes off, broke off, dozed off/Even though I’m not sure of his name/He could get it again if he wanted/’Cause the sex was spectacular.” Oh boy. I hope they play that at the next fake prom!
How to prevent rape, 101: If you see a woman passed out on a park bench, DON’T RAPE HER.
In victim-blaming 101, KBR says Jamie Leigh Jones asked for it.
But to end on a good note, a man suspected in two Brooklyn rapes was arrested.
Feel free to share other stories and news I may have missed in the comments below!
The import of Amanda Hess’s story on the DC rape kit atrocity is not that she couldn’t get a rape kit because she didn’t know her attacker’s name. That was a bullshit excuse. Taken as a whole, the story is that the DC police and the Howard staff did everything they could to keep this woman from pursuing a case. It was deliberate stonewalling.
Thomas, thanks for stopping by. I was actually just reading your post on the story when I saw this comment. It’s a really good breakdown of some of the dyanamics at play in the story and I recommend folks check it out: http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/rape-culture-aiding-and-abetting/#more-1494
[...] up from last week’s story on the New Jersey gang rape of a 7-year-old girl…the lawyers for one of the men charged [...]
[...] SAFER: Beyond the Campus by Amanda ReCupido I recently volunteered with SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape), where I’ll be writing a weekly blog post that collects news of sexual assault from “beyond the campus” (their mission is to improve college sexual assault policies). Below is my first post, cross-posted here. [...]