The Steubenville rape case has been a painful story to watch unfold in the media – I have tried three different times to write about it, and get overwhelmed and stop. My heart aches for the victim and how she continues to be victimized. And for the girls that never told, because they were afraid that exactly this would happen.
We have made girls objects and have put boys in charge of punishing them for it. We are a society that will encourage boys to measure their masculinity by how much and how often they score, and then hold seminars and hand out flyers on campus to teach women how to not get raped. And then we shame them for it when they fail to stay safe. And then the parents of the rapists – hungry for attention and fame – go on TV and defend their sons, while the parents of the victim begs – anonymously – for privacy and prayers for their daughter.
Even after he apologized in the courtroom, one of the convicted rapists father said “The evidence they had against Ma’lik was minimal, Ma’lik was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
And today we learn that the Steubenville conviction will be appealed because 16 year old boys can’t possibly have a brain that is developed enough to know that rape is bad.
While she has no appeal and no convenient one-year-minimum-sentence that will end when it ends and be over.
This is where I lose the words to describe what this does to me as a girl, a mom, a woman, a daughter. This is where I get overwhelmed and stop.
“If it’s a man’s world as they say, then men, your world is a poorly run carnage fest.” – Henry Rollins’ take on the Steubenville case – if you have not read it, you need to.
