Here's Why Rape Survivors Suffer 'Second Assault' (trigger warning)

[niyad]

Here's Why Rape Survivors Suffer 'Second Assault'


When we speak up about the crimes perpetrated upon us, people blame us for wearing the wrong clothes, ruining the attacker's career. I think we are punished by a cultural belief that the world is just and only bad people have bad things happen to them.




(WOMENSENEWS)-- What happens when the public and media re-victimize women or men who are sexually abused or raped? Well, and I know the answer personally, it says to the victim, "Welcome to the second worst nightmare of your life."

. . . . .

When she turned to her commanding officers for help they threatened to charge her with adultery, telling her it must have been "consensual." In the military even if you are not married you can be charged with adultery if you sleep with a married soldier. So she backed off, but was soon transferred out of the unit, while the rapist eventually received his obligatory slap on the wrist. The rapist was assigned to 45 days extra duty and 45 days loss of pay. This was the only punitive action taken against him. Of the many "blame the victim" statements I heard during this episode, the one that stuck with me was when the commanding officer told another, "She is going to ruin his career. He's been in the army for a long time and is close to being able to retire, and this girl thinks she can just rob him of that?"
. . . . .


Why do people turn on rape victims?

During the 1960s, Dr. Melvin Lerner, a renowned social psychologist, championed his Just World Theory, which suggests humans have a need to believe the world is a fair and just place, and we get what we deserve. For instance, if your house is blown away by a tornado you deserved it because you chose to live in a storm-prone location. Or, if you are a single mother who works at McDonald's making $9 an hour, you deserve it because poor people like you are lazy. Bad things only happen to bad people is another way to define Lerner's theory. Americans have a deeply ingrained belief that "you reap what you sow," and in such a sexually charged society, it's so easy to blame the female who was simply dressed for the summer weather. Lerner believed blaming the victim is not cultural, but instead an ingrained defense mechanism to cope with an unjust world when we want to believe so much that it is just.
. . . . .




Rape puts the Just World Theory on its head. The predator was in control of his or her actions. Not the opposite way around. As much as Americans are conditioned to believe it, "she" didn't "ask for it."
. . . . . .

http://womensenews.org/story/rape/150818/heres-why-rape-survivors-suffer-second-assault

[peacebird]

1. When I was raped i did not report it to police for fear of that. A couple years earlier I heard a

Woman screaming for help outside my townhouse and called 911. She had been raped. The ensuing investigation had police camped out in my living room with night goggles on, and in the living room of a local nurse. The man broke into the nurses home and was captured.
I never really understood how the police came to believe the man was following both of us, but they told us each to change up our habits. Go out different nights, drive home different ways. Always get someone to walk us to our cars if we went out to the local pub.
But even knowing how good the cops in my small town had been, after moving to the city I did not feel safe reporting my rape.

[niyad]

2. I am so very sorry that you had to endure that, but am glad that you are here with us now.