Monday, June 06, 2016

This is rape culture

The statement by Dan A. Turner, the father of Brock Turner, after his son was convicted of three counts of rape, is an amazing example of the justification for male privilege - the assumption that a man who has raped an unconscious woman did nothing wrong and deserves no punishment.

It's all about "him" - the son - nothing about the woman who was raped.

It's also an example of white privilege - if the rapist had been a Black or Latino man, does anyone believe that he would have gotten only a six-month sentence in country jail, especially if the victim had been a white woman? Could a Black man have depended upon the white judge showing him leniency because he thought he wouldn't be dangerous to anyone else?

And it's also an example of the old boy's network - the judge is also a Stanford graduate, and Brock Turner was a star athlete at Stanford, with a chance of being on the American Olympic swimming team.

And also an example of the leniency given to college or professional athletes, who all too often are not harshly punished for their sexual violence against women (or other men).

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