THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701250024
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: ANN SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 79 lines
I shed no tears over the playoff demise of the Dallas Cowboys, and was grateful for yesterday's Jerry Jones-less Super Bowl. But I'd rather have seen the silver-and-blue eliminated without the ``scandal'' that rocked Cowboy stars Michael Irvin and Erik Williams. True or false, rape allegations are ugly.
This latest celebrity rape case affirms for me a position I've long held: The press has to start identifying rape victims; and women have to start going on the record. As long as a conspiracy of silence exists about rape, this deadly serious crime will continue to be trivialized. It will continue to be about sexuality and titillation, about ``he said/she said,'' and not about violence and psychological scars.
Rape goes largely unreported in the press, thus creating a false picture of the frequency, nature and danger of the crime, to ``protect'' victims. What an irony.
After his client Michael Irvin was cleared of holding a gun to a 23-year-old woman's head while Williams and another man raped her, lawyer Royce West called for the names of suspects to be withheld, just like those of women who lodge such complaints. Wonderful.
West also announced that Nina Shahravan's false accusations against the two players set women's rights back ``years'' and could have a ``chilling effect'' on women who may (truthfully) allege rape by a celebrity. They will now be subject to more intense and more humiliating scrutiny, West argued.
Whither her credibility goest, goest that of all women, apparently.
Such thinking seems logical, but it is actually a vestige of the mythology about rape that still affects its criminal prosecution.
My own reaction to Shahravan's ruse was to expose, not to cover up. In withholding their identities, the press seeks to shield rape victims from further emotional harm. But such protection only hurts women. In the long run, it perpetuates the stigma and shame long associated with rape, reducing its seriousness as a crime, and keeps women mired in powerlessness and inequality.
It boggles my mind that not only can a rapist defile a woman's body and spirit, but, with the help of the well-meaning press, he can also steal her name. Her identity.
And in those instances where a woman is lying, the press may unwittingly promote the lie and harm the accused.
Yes, I know an already traumatized rape victim can experience even more trauma in a press and criminal-justice system where it's still believed that women usually lie and often consented when they say they didn't. But it seems to me that press anonymity, and the resultant underreporting, only slows progress in destroying long-standing myths, including:
(1) Women are vindictive and/or psychopathic creatures who frequently turn in innocent sex partners as rapists out of spite or revenge (sound familiar?);
(2) Women want to be raped, and ask for it by wearing suggestive clothing and walking around in strange places; and
(3) Only ``pure'' women can be raped (others really want it).
Since the early 1970s, there has been much reform of rape law, including the passage of ``shield'' laws that preclude evidence of a woman's sexual history and graduated scales of sexual crimes. Society, though not always the courts or the press, has moved past stereotypes of rapists as sexually frustrated and their victims as loose. Focus has shifted from sexuality to violence. Even marital rape has been recognized.
But rape cases still remain shrouded in secrecy, buried. We're more apt to hear about an arson than a rape in the press.
Last November Ames (Iowa) Tribune editor Michael Gartner made news when he published the name and address of a woman who accused an Iowa State wrestler and his friend of sexual assault. Gartner, who as president of NBC News aired the name of the woman in the 1991 William Kennedy Smith trial, said his decision was ``an issue of fairness and an issue of thoroughness.'' He treats rape like ``any other felony.''
But I wonder: Does Gartner report all rapes and all victims, or does he only seek to level the ``playing field'' in celebrity cases?
I, too, believe the press should treat rape like a violent crime, like a news event, not a personal tragedy. As long as the press puts sympathy for the rape victim ahead of outrage over the crime done to her, and ahead of informing the public of this outrage, the balance of power will not change. Women and this terrible crime will continue to be trivialized. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma, an attorney, is an editorial columnist and book
editor for The Virginian-Pilot.