Real Shit: Why This Rape Case?

• June 10, 2016
• Real Shit

This post was supposed to be about chickens. This blog is supposed to be about our chaotic little life on the farm as we struggle through parenting so I was going to tell you about our hilarious journey into poultry.

But, then Brock Turner happened. My mom rarely cussed when I was a kid but the first time I heard her say, “fuck” she explained that it was the type of cuss word saved only for very special occasions. Occasions so bad no other word would do. This entire Stanford rape case feels like a fuck moment.

I told Derek I wanted to write about it. How could I write about chickens in a bathtub when this was happening? “You’re going to lose all your subscribers. People don’t want to read about rape. They’re on your blog because it’s happy and they care about Ellie Jo’s life. That’s what they want to read about it. The funny everyday stuff. Real shit.” He is right. I know he is right. So if you are one of the few people who has put your email address into that little box at the bottom of this page to subscribe, I promise we will return to regularly scheduled programming soon. But today this is the real shit.

One of my friends asked what made this case so different and so much more worthy of attention. A rapist being let off too easy is hardly new. Why is this one getting so much more press than any other one?

I can name nearly ten close friends who have been sexually assaulted (myself included) and never pressed charges. The process is emotionally grueling and guilty verdicts in rape cases are rare. Our judicial system is built around “beyond a reasonable doubt” on the premise that it is better to have five guilty men go free than it is to put one innocent man in jail and there is almost always reasonable doubt in rape cases. I whole heartedly believe in the system so I accept that guilty verdicts are few and far between and likely many guilty men go free. Most are never prosecuted at all, so why bother pressing charges?

This case felt different because Brock Turner was found guilty. There was no reasonable doubt. Twelve jurors unanimously found him guilty of three felony charges. There were witnesses and statements to police and hospital documentation. Everything  typically missing from rape cases was there. We, not just the victim but women who have been assaulted, could win this one. He was guilty. He would apologize, he would serve his time, and then we would all move on. It would finally feel like justice had been served.

But, he didn’t apologize. Fuck. Then the judge said he wasn’t going to follow the mandatory minimum and was instead only giving him six months instead of six years- with the option of release after three months for good behavior. Fuck. Just when it seemed it couldn’t get any more absurd, his dad’s letter to the judge was released and somehow there was a heavy emphasis on Brock being the victim because he no longer enjoyed snacks. What the actual fuck?

We were all left wondering what the hell just happened. That is why this case feels different. We were so close to justice. And then suddenly we took ten steps backward.

(In related things that make me say fuck: I genuinely believe the punishment would have been much more severe, certainly the minimum upheld, if Brock had been a black kid with a GED working at McDonalds. And it is absurd and sick that a heinous crime committed by a white kid at Stanford somehow isn’t as heinous because he is pretty and he swims fast. But that is another post for another time.)

The precedent this sets for rape cases matters. This matters because I am a woman and I have friends and cousins and nieces who I care about and worry over. But it matters more because I have a daughter. It matters because I am going to teach her not to get black out drunk because it’s bad for her liver. And because she might drown in a lake, or say something she regrets, or lose her favorite pair of shoes, or get alcohol poisoning. There are lots of good reasons to teach my daughter about responsible alcohol consumption. “Because a stranger might decide to put his hands inside you behind a dumpster” is not a reason I want to have to give.  

This case drew so much media attention because of the strength and eloquence of the victim in her closing statement. She says she isn’t disclosing her name because she represents all women. She represents us well and so we were all hoping for justice to be served. It makes my heart hurt because a guilty verdict, a unanimous guilty verdict, should have mattered more. And it makes my soul hurt because if we are all the victim, none of us got the closure we deserved. We are all going to have to learn how to accept apologies we have never gotten. This is the real shit.

P.s. Next week I’ll write about chickens.