My favorite female columnist brings the funk today....

agreed buck.

and nobody is insisting any person who's physically assaulted name names. but, at the same time, i'd like to believe these douchebags should pay for their crimes and not be allowed to fuck up another person's life.

 

On one hand, you've got yet another football fratboy who got away with rape. In a perfect world he would be called out and punished accordingly.

On the other, Hnida knows that any charges she brings won't stand up because of the "he said/she said" element. Not even worth going down that road, because we've all seen how it turns out. The Duke stripper and the Kobe accuser had their lives opened to ridicule, but it goes back even further: Anita Hill.

 

It goes back much further than Anita Hill. The stigma and fear that women have faced when it comes to rape is as old as humankind.

I happen to know that there are several men on here who have told me that they think Hnida's only doing this for attention, that she wasn't raped. That speaks volumes about why it's so hard for a woman or girl to come out and name her attacker and press charges.

Yea, it'd be great to see the jackass in jail, but Hnida coming out saying "Look I was raped and I'm doing alright now" is an incredibly powerful message for girls and young women who've been assaulted to hear.

 

chick - by no means am i arguing a point, instead i elicit your point of view. as stated, i'm a guy, but i'm also a dad. if it were your daughter, wouldn't you want her to help stop a rapist from becoming a serial rapist?

again, not arguing ... just want your opinion.

 

Hnida has suffered and endured. And it is true that accusers can be victimized a second time in court. Nevertheless, naming her accuser is what she should have done then, and should do now. If it happened, it happened. If he did it, he did it. Circumstances, however difficult, do not change that no one was ever brought to trial for her assault, and that perpetuates the cycle of violence in some small way.

I concede the system sucks, that some men pursue their lust with a viral cruelty, that women, who should be glorifed, are often dirtied and exploited instead. What the lot of men have done to the lot of women, from the jump of time, blots out every other atrocity that any group ever committed against another with exception of man to God.

But it doesn't change what she should have done then, and should do now.

Quite honestly, I don't think people "who have been through it," whether male or female, are necessarily the best authorities to determine how one proceeds in a situation like this. Exposure to shame and victimization is not a requisite for righteousness, and so to say "she's been through enough" merely feeds, however indirectly, a demented, ugly patriarchy of "I'll take what I want" thinking. It's a mistake to ascribe to the "gotta walk a mile" philosophy of community, where everybody makes decisions based on their experiences, good or bad, rather than discerning the truth of a situation, and deciding based on that. It's crucial to listen, understand, appreciate and sympathize - men especially - but we don't create rules for behavior and decision-making solely based on experiences and the emotions that come from them.

Because of that, I applaud Hnida's efforts and activism, but can not give her latitude to pursue these initiatives while she continues to tacitly suggest that it's not particularly important that a name and a face be put to the crime committed against her.

It is important. Repeat behavior is real. Hnida's survived enough slings and arrows to suffer whatever indignities would come from taking her assailant to court.

 

I will add that by saying a member of the football team raped her, a teammate, and not going forward and naming him, she indicts the entire football team, both the guilty and the innocent. If I said, "I was raped by a member of SportsJournalists.com" that's a pretty powerful charge to throw around. And unless I'm going to stand up and say, "It was (blank)" then you're all under suspicion. And regardless of what awful thing happened to me, it's unfair to indict an entire community, or an entire team, by association. I believe Hnida's story, and I think what happened at Colorado is despicable, but as a former college athlete, I don't believe it's ok to indict an entire football team with that kind of awful charge. Not everyone who puts on a helmet is a jerk, a coward and a rapist.

It's a complex issue. I definitely acknowledge that. Three times when I was in college and working for the student newspaper, a student on campus said she was attacked and sexually assaulted. Three times she later confessed to the police that it did not happen. Now, were there, at minimum, 25 other sexual assaults that took place and were never reported? Absolutely. And did some of them decide not to come forward because of false sexual assault claims? I'd say there is a good chance, yes. And that's all the more reason why Hnida needs, or needed to, persue a legitmate case against this person. It would take courage and guts (which she's obviously got), and far be it for me to suggest that I should get to decide how she deals with her life, her trauma and her pain, but it's still the right thing to do.

The Duke lacrosse players, whether your believe they are guilty or innocent, will get their day in court. The Colorado football players who were teammates with Hnida did not. And while guilt by association isn't comparable to what Hnida went through, it's not right either. There are 90-plus ex-Colorado football players walking around who did not rape Hnida. Many of them may be loathsome human beings, but many of them, I'd bet, are not.

There is no easy soloution. But Alma is right in more ways that some of you are willing to acknowledge.

 

Well, it seems as I was typing that post, rape charges were dropped against the Duke boys.

 

This is one of those moral/ethical questions that seems to have obvious answers, until you're the one having to answer.

Intellectually, you name your attacker...do whatever you can to drag him as low as he dragged you, fight the battle, stand up and demand justice.

Emotionally, you've already been through hell....you've been doubted and humiliated and excoriated and excommunicated and now you're famous for something no one wants to be famous for.

I understand both sides of that quandary.

But here's where I get lost: I can understand completely why someone would want to walk away from the whole event, put it in the past...but if you're going to keep it alive, it seems somewhat disingenuous to walk away from the real battle. If you still have the strength to write a book and do the publicity and the interviews and tell your story over and over....it's reasonable for people to expect you to tell the whole story.

 

Personally, I think anyone who tries to judge what a rape victim does or doesn't do is treading on VERY shaky ground. It's like trying to tell someone how to mourn. It's their business, no one else's ... even if it is a public figure.

 

Can they kill themselves? Start cutting themselves? Starve themselves? Abuse others? Become a recluse? Start drinking? Popping pills? Overeating? Change sexual orientation to spite the attacker? Blame it on their parents? On their kids? Blame themselves? Take it out on their spouse by refusing to make love to them? Quit their job?

All of these, and others, have been and will continue to be reactions some abuse victims have to their attackers. Considering these aren't particularly suitable things to "do", and you mean your "judging" line as a "within what I think to be reasonable" standard, you're always welcome to recant.

Again, you have to listen to victims, appreciate, understand, grieve and sympathize. And then, despite the considerable pain, it's time to do the right thing.

 

Luckily, your examples are the purest straw.
The question, as I understand it, is whether or not Hnida should have/should name (d) her attacker. The "right thing" in that case is hardly clear cut.

 

You really think it's murky?

Mind you, I'm not saying I don't understand why. I'm saying that, despite all of that, do it anyway - that to do it, regardless of the cost, is more valuable than saving oneself the emotional cost of doing it by letting somebody like that go free.

But I also believe if you're accused of a crime that you didn't commit, you shouldn't plead guilty because no one really believes you.