We wouldn't have known about the Steubenville rape case if it weren't for the fact that the victim and a blogger refused to be silenced. The crime blogger, Alexandria Goddard, and her commentors had been sued by the Steubenville football player and his parents for defamation. Party-goers filmed and photogrpahed the girl's abuse at the party. They posted their photos and videos to social media websites via their phones. Before many of the party-goers could delete their posts, Goddard took screen-shots and posted them to her blog. If the football player and his parents sued for defamation, they would have had a difficult time proving the information false. Defamation, as define by dictionary.com , is the act of defaming; false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another, as by slander or libel; calumny.
It's awful when one's children are convicted of a crime as deplorable as rape, but the truth hurts. The parents of the football players would not want the "good" reputation of their sons ruined by accusations of rape. No matter what the cost is to the victim, the parents would want their sons to get off scot-free because their offspring can do no wrong in their eyes. However, the truth, as far as anyone knows, is that the boys did rape the girl. Their attempts at suing the blogger were attempts at silencing a girl who their sons victimized. They wanted to silence all possible outlets that would lend the girl a voice.
Jessica Valenti, a blogger for The Nation, writes that Steubenville, a town that puts its prized football team before the justice of a young woman, and the football players' parents are not the only ones guilty of complicity in the case of rape. Steubenville happens every day in the United States, and everyone is responsible.
There are numerous examples of conservative white male politicians that want to silence the victims of rape because it makes men look bad. These elected officials want to silence women who are rape victims. One politician claimed that pregnancies resulting from rape are "a gift from god". While this is an anti-abortion argument, it is still meant to silence rape victims. The meaning behind this statement is that if a woman is raped and impregnated by her rapist, she should shut up and live with the child.
Our government and judicial system refuses to acknowledge this country's rape problem. When women are raped, society wants to find a way to blame the victims or label the rapists as "sociopaths" instead of holding ourselves accountable as a nation. We would rather tell ourselves that only the rapists are flawed instead of acknowledging the conservative white male culture that promotes victim blaming and rape. As blogger Valenti says, "It's time to acknowledge that the rape epidemic in the United States is not just about the crimes themselves, but our own cultural and political willful ignorance".
Here is another example of the conservative white male "rape" culture: Wisconsin state Rep. Roger Rivard, claimed that his father once told him that "some girls rape easy". His quote was in the context of a discussion about a teenager charged with sexually assaulting an under-aged girl. Rivard explained that his father meant a woman will willingly have sex with a man and then say that he raped her.
The very same week that the Steubenville rape video was released, House Republicans let the Violence Against Women Act expire. House Republicans claimed it was too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community and Native Americans.
I don't understand why the bill had to expire. There are women in the immigrant, LGBT and Native American communities. Apparently House Republicans are sexist, racist and homophobic (as if we didn't know that already). What bothers me is that they would use that as an excuse to let the Violence Against Women Act expire. This goes to show that there are men even in the U.S. who want to see women silent and compliant. Women like Goddard and the Steubenville rape victim were only "complicating things". If we just kept our mouths shut and our legs closed, our country wouldn't have these problems.
I'm not saying that the U.S. is the only country with violence against women. There are countries, such as India, Syria, Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East, where women's rights are not protected at all. However, we pride ourselves as a progressive and Democratic nation. If we take a moment to compare our rape problem to those in other countries, we will see that ours is just another variant of all the others. We cannot excuse the actions of these football players by saying that we have less rape than India. or Syria. Those men cannot be excused from their actions because their parents think they can do no wrong. There is violence against women everywhere. As a nation that prides itself on women's rights, I think we should be ahead of the game when it comes to lending an ear and strength to women.
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