It is surprising how women who come out into the society and tell people their experience with sexual assault are either quickly dismissed as liars or face huge amounts of criticism over it. These women are undergoing a process of healing from an incident that can shake them to their roots, emotionally, and it seeps into many aspects of life. Any romantic relationship in the future will be haunted by this incident, there will be many things in day to day life that remind one of this incident. These crimes are worst when they are done by people that the victims trust and mostly this is the case and this is exactly when coming out is even harder. These people need support and understanding, not criticism.
“I was ready to admit to the ways being sexually assaulted has shaped my sense of self as a woman entering adulthood, compromised my emotional security, and haunted me even during the most joyful periods of my life…Since coming out as a survivor I have gone from an intellectual sense of the ways in which victims are doubted and debased to a bone-deep understanding of this reality.” – Lena Dunham
It has been the case with Lena Dunham, Madonna and many other entertainers who are looked at merely as entertainment even beyond their areas of work. Many also consider each of them as limelight hogger who would do anything to remain there, thereby taking away their power to be heard when they have real issues that need to be understood. Particularly, because these people are famous the receive a lot more backlash as the ones who are actually considerate of what happened to them, choose to remain silent and not support the person.
Victims are now preparing to face attack on them for speaking up about the injustice done to them before they speak up. They know they are going to blamed because someone attacked them and that they are going to be treated to misogynistic comments, disbelieved and have their privacy violated by people who simply want to keep knowing more and find it all very entertaining. I find it very hard believe that the society works so counter-intuitively. Logic and reason suggest that both the persons involved must be investigated with due respect to the delicacy of the situation should the accused be innocent and with due care to the victim for they might be needing a lot of emotional support and reassurance. But such precautions are rarely taken and the authorities involved are either slacking off or are too rash.
There is also, noticeably, much resistance to victims speaking out in public. It is almost as if the society wants to move on without knowing such details about itself, unless it is portrayed as high-profile case on television where the condition of the victim are rarely considered. But to know such things are commonplace is fundamental to our society so that it can move forward and improve. These flaws in our society can point direction and can help if taken well. And directions are absolutely necessary for growth. After all, as Edward Abbey said, Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
Sexual assault is now, gender neutral, many men and boys have been abused too. Given the situation and the apathy with which we react to the voice of the victims, one only sees the flaws that the society does not want to see, blatantly and without regret.
Sadhana Srinivasan 