Don’t claim to know why sexual assault victims fail to report their attacks
Brett M Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, is accused of sexual assault by Prof Christine Blasey Ford, a charge he denies, which is the subject of an FBI investigation. Donald Trump, patron of beauty queens, doesn’t believe Ford. He tweeted last week: “If the attack … was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents.”
Twitter replied, as it does, with a global hashtag giving Trump a lesson he won’t bother to learn – #WhyIDidntReport. Women shared their stories of assault, and the reasons they said nothing when they happened. “Because I felt ashamed of what happened and didn’t want to publicly ruin someone’s life, even though they privately ruined mine,” said the model Cara Delevingne.
There are so many others – some from women who were children at the time.
I have lost patience with much of what is called “feminism” nowadays because it feels so trivial. I don’t want a former boss to lose his job because he tried to kiss me when he was so drunk he had forgotten who I was. I don’t respect work Queen Bees who use the tag of feminism as a disguise for all their sins, most of which are committed against other women. Rather, I think they have stolen a movement. The women who feel “assaulted” when men flirt – and I mean flirt, not coerce – are absurd. If it isn’t about childcare, sexual assault, or pay, I’m not that interested.
But #WhyIDidntReport is essential, and has come much too late. Here is my own story. A young man – an acquaintance
of a friend – attached himself to our group and followed us home. He said he had missed the last bus. He was lying. I closed the door to my room in his face and sent him to sleep in the next room. Soon I woke, and his hand was between my knees. In his other hand was an unwrapped condom, which I found on the floor the following morning.
I didn’t report it because two male friends – a journalist and a barrister – told me not to bother. They said it would be painful for me. Of the pain of any subsequent women he might attack with more success, we didn’t speak. But the main reason I didn’t report was because I had kicked him several feet across the room and threw him out the door by his collar. He left his wallet and had to walk the long miles home.
It felt good, but after reading #WhyIDidntReport, I know that I was lucky.