Mail Call #8: Men would like me to think about Bill Clinton

Catching up with emails in response to my recent article about Trump and rape culture. SO MANY men, all saying the exact same damn thing, like broken, paternalistic mandroids:

Emily not once did you mention Bill Clinton in your article? Something to think about.

...

I was reading your column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel regarding the treatment of woman at the hands of rich and powerful men and I notice something that was conspicuously absent. There wasn’t any mention of former president Bill Clinton.

...

Didn't see Bill Clintons name even once in your column. It's really sad that liberal journalists can bring themselves to cover an issue from both sides.

...there are a lot of people who can't tell the difference between reporters and opinion columnists, y'all.

These entries go on, and on.

Let me put this simply:

1. Bill Clinton is not currently running for president. Trump is.
2. Trump is on tape bragging about committing sexual assault.
3. Hillary Clinton is not personally responsible for any crimes her husband may have committed.

I will end on this incredibly on-point post made by a friend of a friend, because it should be the most important take away from all of this:

WE DON'T GET TO PICK WHICH VICTIMS WE BELIEVE BY WHICH CANDIDATE THEY SUPPORT

Liberal friends: you know what's not cool? Posting a link to allegations of rape against Trump and then trying to demonize Juanita Broaddrick et al for allegations against Bill Clinton. You're not forensic investigators. You're not gonna blow holes in decades-old rape cases, and you damn well shouldn't be trying.

Conservative friends: you know what's not cool? Defending Trump's harassment and rape and misogyny by pointing out someone else did those things, too. That doesn't make it ok! Two people doing rape just means both people are horrible! Also unfair: making Hillary culpable for all of her husband's sins. She certainly has things to answer for, but she didn't rape anybody. Keep that in mind, please.

Oh, are there inconsistencies in someone's story? Yeah, I bet if you ask me about my rape you'll find inconsistencies in mine; it was years ago and, you know, traumatic. Do these accusers have something to gain? Maybe, but I can tell you as a fact that they probably suffer a lot more than they gain by making up stories like this; look at the way all these women have been dragged through the mud for decades. Rape has a false reporting rate of about 4%, just like most other crimes. While it's possible these stories are made up, it's very very very likely that they are not, especially when so many women have come forward.

Listen up, y'all: WE DON'T GET TO PICK WHICH VICTIMS WE BELIEVE BY WHICH CANDIDATE THEY SUPPORT. If you want justice for rape victims (and you damn well better) then you need to accept that even someone you support might be a horrible person, even if this fact makes your decision making suddenly very morally fraught and messy.

So if you are outraged about Trump or Bill Clinton, that's good! It's good to be outraged about people who molest, demean, assault, and otherwise abuse others. But don't act like your opponent's accusers are all telling the truth while the ones accusing your team are all liars. Every victim deserves justice.

Taking sexual assault more seriously

Last week, the Badger Herald (one of two student dailies in Madison) reported on a young woman who was allegedly raped last October while attending a party at a local fraternity. You can read the article here, and the accompanying transcript of the interview with the woman here.

The story itself is horrifying: The young woman went to a party, blacked out, and woke up the next morning partially undressed and lying in a strange bedroom. Tests performed at the hospital after the fact show that she was likely raped by several men, and though she has since filed a formal complaint with police and an investigation is ongoing, there hasn't been so much as a peep from the frat involved.

But scroll down into the comments section of that original article for the massive insult to this already terrible injury. While a good few people chime in with words of support and reason, all too many (mostly anonymous) start in with the victim blaming.

(There's more commentary over at the Critical Badger's blog, too, including some further insight into the Greek system's private governing board, etc.)

For all our society's progress in dealing with sexual assault, incidents like this make it all too painfully clear what a long way we've still to go.

There is legitimate concern that this story will automatically paint every member of the fraternity as a potential rapist. As a few, refreshingly logical comments have already pointed out, it's of the utmost importance in cases like these to let the investigation play out so that the guilty parties can be properly brought to justice and those who've done nothing wrong don't get their names dragged through the mud along the way. Throwing bricks through frat windows doesn't help, either (though I certainly understand the impulse).

But, with apologies to all perfectly nice and moral members of the Greek system, our main concern in this sort of situation should be for the person making the allegations--not for the frat. Journalists and law enforcement should certainly do their best to keep the story from getting away from them and tarnishing the names of the innocent, but our primary concern should be support for the victim.

You always believe someone when they tell you they were raped. If the facts later turn out to prove something to the contrary, you deal with that then. Up front, it is incredibly important, as a friend or just someone in the community, not to cast aspersions and doubt upon the person who has had to come forward to tell a deeply personal and awful story. Statistically, only a very small percentage of those who experience sexual assault ever come forward and/or press charges. A major part of the reason for that is the social stigma they then are usually forced to deal with: people calling them liars, accusing them of trying to smear the "good names" of friends and family (because attackers are more likely to be someone you know), claiming that by being in a certain house at a certain time or drinking alcohol or wearing revealing clothing means they were just "asking for it."

As though somehow, some way, this was at least partially their fault and they should just shut up and move on.

Bull. Shit.

The only person who deserves blame in situations like these is the perpetrator. No one forced them to commit the crime. Too often, however, our society plays it off as drunken hijinks or "boys being boys" (which, quite frankly, I would be insulted by if I were a guy--insinuating that I had no control over myself).

It hasn't helped that the UW Dean of Students, Lori Berquam, apparently dropped the ball when contacted by the victim. She is now trying to make up for that by holding a forum on sexual assault--which is good--but I'm a bit suspicious of anyone who would say that "We do take [vandalism] very seriously, the same way we take sexual assault seriously." Which one of these is not like the other?

I don't doubt her sincerity in saying that sexual assault should not be tolerated, and in wanting to help provide support for those who've been affected. What I do doubt is a real understanding of what victims often go through, and what they need in the aftermath. My own alma mater had serious problems dealing with this very issue, as they were seemingly more concerned with the appearance of being pro-active than actually being pro-active. Cases involving students from prominent, wealthy families were swept under the rug. And those that did go public were often dealt with incompentently and slowly (for instance: the perpetrator of one sexual assault was allowed to continue living in the same dorm as the victim for months after the case was reported).

Certainly, it's no easy thing for anyone to deal with sexual assault. But we must all keep in mind that the person having the hardest time with it all is the person who was attacked. Taking care of them should be our number one priority, right next to finding the individual(s) responsible and making sure they spend a hefty amount of time behind bars.

Women in arms

It's interesting that this issue should crop up so soon after my post about Civil War reenacting and the women who actually dressed as men so they could fight that war. Over at dad29's blog, he's posted a piece that's raised a lot of hackles and interesting issues. Specifically, it would seem that the post appears to link the high rate of sexual assault of women serving in the military with the idea that they shouldn't be there in the first place.

Talk about a can of worms.

Reading the ensuing comments has been fascinating. There are many opinions on the matter, of course. It's a complicated issue, and one that we as a country have been dealing with for, well, since we first became a country.

First, here are some statistics:

• According to a report by the Department of Defense, there were 2,688 sexual assaults reported in (fiscal year) 2007 that involved Military Service Members. (links to previous years' reports)
  
• The Military Services completed a total of 1,955 criminal investigations on reports made during and prior to FY07. There were 759 (28%) pending investigations that will be reported on in FY08. The following is a breakdown of the total investigations that were referred to the commander for action in FY07 and the status:
  • 1,172 subjects were referred for commander action.
  • Commanders took action on 600 (51%) subjects, which included 181 (30%) courts-martial.
  • There were 572 (49%) subjects pending disposition as of September 30, 2007.
• According to the 2006 Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members, 6.8% of women and 1.8% of men report unwanted sexual contact.
• In the general population of the United States, 1 out of every 6 American women have been the victims of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape).

It's fair to say, too, that a great many cases of sexual assault/rape go unreported, especially so in the military where it may be more difficult to confront the command structure, and fears of repercussions may be greater. And from the looks of it, seeking punishment for the perpetrators can be difficult, at best.

According to a recent article in the Las Angeles Times:

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated, the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was because of "insufficient evidence."

This is in stark contrast to the civilian trend of prosecuting sexual assault. In California, for example, 44% of reported rapes result in arrests, and 64% of those who are arrested are prosecuted, according to the California Department of Justice.

Sexual assault and rape, whoever it targets, should never be acceptable. Neither should the attitude of blaming the victim, as seems to be the insinuation when people start suggesting that a woman's mere presence in the military will lead to assault, and we shouldn't be surprised by that. It does a disservice to both women and men to assume that people, men especially, can't be expected to contain themselves.

The military holds its members to high standards of discipline and skill, and doles out fairly severe punishments in the case of various derelictions of duty. I see no reason why this shouldn't be the case for sexual assault.

No woman (or man) serving in the armed forces should have to fear their own comrades more than the enemy they may be sent to fight. But this doesn't seem to be the case: women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

That is, simply put, unacceptable. Period. Proper, thorough training should be required for all service members, both in preventing and punishing cases of sexual assault and rape.

The DoD has taken some laudable steps to fight this problem: "The Defense Department has made some efforts to manage this epidemic -- most notably in 2005, after the media received anonymous e-mail messages about sexual assaults at the Air Force Academy. The media scrutiny and congressional attention that followed led the DOD to create the Sexual Assault and Response Office. Since its inception, the office has initiated education and training programs, which have improved the reporting of cases of rapes and other sexual assaults."

But there remains a great deal more work to do.

Part of the problem may be the continued resistance by some members of the public and the military to women being allowed to serve outside of clerical and administrative duties (or at all). First of all, I don't believe the issue of sexual assault has much of anything to do with where and how women serve. It's wrong and should be treated as such wherever and for whatever reason it occurs. The debate about women's place in the military should be separate from this, even though some people insist on conflating them.

That said, I feel compelled (I know, you're shocked) to say that I believe women absolutely should be allowed to serve in all parts of the military, dependent on two factors: they want to, and they qualify, fair and square, to do so.

I understand that in certain branches/jobs of the military, there are physical requirements that are necessary for the safe and effective execution of said job. Women wishing to enter these positions should be made to pass the same tests as men, but they shouldn't be barred outright from even trying.

Women have proved themselves over and over again--in various times and places. Not all women are cut out to serve in the military, but neither are all men. It doesn't matter if the percentage of women to men serving is different. What matters is allowing qualified people to do the jobs they want to do.

If women can lead the life of a soldier and all the hardships that entails, all while either maintaining a convincing facade of being a man, fighting against rampant harassment and discrimination, and/or against any number of other harsh odds--and they can--I don't think a person arguing against women's military service has a leg to stand on.


(h/t folkbum)