Blame the attackers, not the booze
The conversation about sexual assaults in Wellington’s party zone looked promising this week. Young women were banding together online, and in some cases recognising for the first time that what they’d experienced was, yes, actually an assault. It’s a crime in itself if we’re not getting that message through to young people before they hit their teens (but more on that later).
They were then hustled off social media by police, who launched an investigation.
As has happened before, social media was both saviour and patsy; posting images and names of the accused circumvents the police-prosecution-court path and can even harm the complainant’s case. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible the investigation – called Operation Emerald – would never have been, had the allegations not been posted and widely discussed.
At least at that stage, we were still talking about the behaviour itself – young men who allegedly feel so entitled to women’s bodies – and their alleged victims, who are left wondering what the hell just happened and whether it is serious enough to bother the police (or anyone) with?
A day later, a data crunch of police figures branded Wellington’s party precinct ‘‘the most dangerous place in the country’’ with a violence rate 10 times the national average.
That’s where the ko¯rero began to go downhill. It’s hard to tell whether the figures from Dot Loves Data muddied the water or whether we would have fallen back on that old chestnut anyway, but suddenly it’s the alcohol – and not the creeps doing the creeping– that is taking the blame.
It’s such an easy trap to fall into: alcohol is the drug most-often associated with harmful sexual behaviour. Some of Wellington City Council’s efforts to stamp out assaults (in 2018 the council hardwired a commitment to the elimination of sexual harassment into its 10-year plan) are directly targeted at drink; it bought a van for the Take 10 initiative, which has free water for Friday night punters, for example. I can’t and won’t criticise that initiative – anything that helps on the midnight streets has got to be a good thing.
But we cannot keep blaming alcohol for sexual assault. In fact, we should be deliberately minimising its role in this story. Why? Because when we allow alcohol to be the villain, two things typically happen.
Number one, we talk about alcohol consumption in sexual violence cases in a completely skewed and gendered way. In a sexual violence court case, you often hear the (woman) victim’s evidence questioned and undermined according to the number of drinks she admitted to having on the night she was raped. Conversely, if the (man) accused was drunk on the night, this is used as some kind of mitigation for his actions.
And number two, it minimises the culpability of these lowlife scum who are prowling the bars and groping OUR DAUGHTERS. (I hate to shout, but some of you just don’t seem to get it – or care – unless you’re reminded that there are women in your life being preyed upon.)
This is proved by training bar staff are given by Wellington’s RespectEd, where they’re told to look out for men asking for two shots ‘‘but make one water’’.
That kind of order is a clear indication of predatory behaviour – you can bet the water is for the predator, and he’s the one staying sober.
Perhaps all this will be the giant kick up the butt that central and local government, and the police, could use. Police culture has changed since the Louise Nicholas case, but the number of cases that get to court remains stubbornly low. Part of that is about the evidential threshold that needs to be met – but sector experts also worry it’s part of a death spiral effect where investigators assume they won’t win in court, so they don’t even try.
It’s not easy to tell even the closest friends or wha¯nau something awful – sexually awful – has happened to you. It’s just not like a stabbing, a brawl, or any other kind of assault. If you were mugged and your wallet stolen outside a bar in Cuba St you’d be off to the cops with a big dose of outrage and not a shred of shame; what would there be to feel shame about?
You certainly wouldn’t minimise the assault. ‘‘Oh yeah, well, I had my wallet in my hand in plain sight, no wonder the dude knifed me and grabbed it’’, is not something you hear from victims of non-sexual crimes.
We’ve heard some of the brave young women who’ve spoken up this week say they didn’t report their alleged attackers because they didn’t know whether their case was serious enough to report. Screw that. I don’t want young women being denied justice for mere lack of the correct information.
What Wellington needs is a mass public education campaign about rape, assault and consent, with posters on every bar door and in every toilet cubicle – as soon as humanly possible.
Police culture has changed since the Louise Nicholas case, but the number of cases that get to court remains stubbornly low.