{"id":114108,"date":"2024-07-12T17:05:49","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T15:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=114108"},"modified":"2024-07-08T06:32:38","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T04:32:38","slug":"12-05-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=114108","title":{"rendered":"Before #MeToo\u2014and After"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"center alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.reunion68.com\/Biuletyn\/img\/tablet-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"35%\" \/><\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #000080;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #000080; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tabletmag.com\/sections\/arts-letters\/articles\/before-me-too-and-after\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Before #MeToo\u2014and After<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><br \/>\nJUSTINE EL-KHAZEN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\" \/>\n<div>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>What becomes of women who won\u2019t be defined as victims?<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/tablet-mag-images.b-cdn.net\/production\/89119fd33218324e92aefdc44c1e38fea789bdbc-3076x4600.jpg?w=1250&amp;q=70&amp;auto=format&amp;dpr=1\" width=\"100%\" \/><span style=\"color: #808080;\">RENE BURRI\/MAGNUM<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">On a night in early September of 1999, I found myself unable to sleep. I did what I always did back then when I couldn\u2019t sleep: padded to the kitchen in the dark, got a beer out of the fridge, and brought it to the living room where I turned the TV on, volume low. No lights, no sound, nothing that would violate the cocoon of sleep in which I was supposed to have been enveloped.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">I was curled up on the couch, the beer nearly empty, when I heard a strange sound. It was so faint I couldn\u2019t have said what it was exactly. The sound of someone somewhere doing something quietly. But it wasn\u2019t muffled by the walls or ceiling. I could hear it echoing along the hall that led from my bedroom to the kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">I stood up with the intention of walking to investigate, and had an epiphany: I needed to leave\u2014now\u2014which I did, in my flannel pj\u2019s with neither shoes nor contact lenses. When I opened the door of my building, I assumed there would be people walking by, a rescuer, but the streets were empty, not so much as a car passing by. Then, a man appeared at the end of my block. I should say \u201cperson.\u201d My vision is bad enough that, unaided, I wouldn\u2019t be able to tell the difference between a man and a woman, let alone the height or race or weight of the person I was seeing. Once he\u2019d moved fully into the circle of light cast by a street lamp, he stopped. I couldn\u2019t have said whether he was looking at me or away from me. Either way, he lingered there a minute, then walked on. I didn\u2019t call out or ask for help. I just watched him walk away, certain for reasons I couldn\u2019t explain that he was the one who had just been inside my apartment.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">I rode my bike, shoeless, to a landscape architecture party to find my roommate. I berated her: \u201cYou said you\u2019d be home by midnight!\u201d She, drunkenly: \u201cWhat are you, my mom?\u201d A fair point, I realized, chastened. She came home with me anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">While on line for coffee before class the next morning, I asked a mutual friend if I\u2019d been out of line. Was I acting like my roommate\u2019s mom? Yes, she said. She told me to apologize, so later that day, my roommate and I got deli sandwiches for dinner, and I said I was sorry. Then she left for work in the children\u2019s section of Barnes &amp; Noble, and I settled onto our ratty couch to study, only I couldn\u2019t focus, and before long, I heard our next door neighbor yelling at our landlord. She was demanding he put bars on her windows.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cHe\u2019s been here,\u201d she screamed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The hair on my arms puckered up. I knew that whomever she was talking about had been in my apartment the night before, so when she was done with the landlord, I rang her bell.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">She let me in and explained that a string of now infamous rapes, and one murder, had occurred in the area. Had I not heard of the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thedp.com\/article\/2002\/06\/center_city_rapist_gets_life_sentence\">Center City rapist<\/a>? He had broken into her apartment in the middle of the night earlier that summer, but a neighbor\u2019s dog began to bark, waking her up and chasing him away. The FBI had set up a stakeout of her apartment, but he never came back.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">I went home and pretended to read, absorbing nothing. Night fell. I didn\u2019t bother to turn on the lights. I just sat there immobile on the couch until it occurred to me to call my parents and tell them the story. I was by this point camped out on the couch, which was near the front door and out of range of the phone on the wall in the kitchen. Instead, I reached for our cordless, which I clutched to my ear as I explained the strange sound, my sudden flight from the apartment, the racially ambiguous passerby who appeared to have been staring at me from under a street lamp. Then, the line went dead. I assumed it was just that the cordless had run out of batteries. I mulled venturing deeper into the apartment to place it in its cradle, but somehow that seemed like a bad idea, so I left, this time for Barnes &amp; Noble.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">As it turned out, though I hadn\u2019t heard of the Center City rapist, everyone else had. He was big news, in Philly and beyond. He\u2019d assaulted one woman, raped four and then\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers.com\/article\/the-philadelphia-inquirer-philadelphia-i\/68157463\/\">gone on<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/crime\/shannon-schieber-troy-graves-people-magazine-investigates\/\">murder<\/a>\u00a0a Wharton graduate student, Shannon Schieber. The case was a\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/inquirer.newsbank.com\/doc\/news\/0EB32FF333595548?search_terms=Schieber\">mystery<\/a>: Either Schieber knew her attacker, or some sort of ultra stealth cat burglar had shimmied up to her balcony and slipped through the door, which was left standing open by the assailant, so there was no knowing if it was locked prior to the attack. Occam\u2019s razor pointed to the first theory. A year and a half later, police somehow became\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/inquirer.newsbank.com\/doc\/news\/0EB5CEA4C5459C81?search_terms=Schieber&amp;text=Schieber&amp;content_added=&amp;date_from=07\/01\/99&amp;date_to=10\/01\/99&amp;pub%252525255B0%252525255D=PHIB&amp;pdate=1999-09-03\">convinced<\/a>\u00a0of the second.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Around the time Schieber was killed, reporters at\u00a0<em>The<\/em>\u00a0<em>Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>\u00a0began\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themarshallproject.org\/2015\/12\/18\/rape-is-rape-isn-t-it\">investigating<\/a>\u00a0a rash of sex crimes in Center City, all with an MO: The rapist slipped into his victims\u2019 apartments via unlocked windows in the early hours of the morning, covered their faces with pillows so they couldn\u2019t identify him and slipped out just as quietly as he\u2019d come in. The series should have been easy enough for law enforcement to put together. Not only was the MO similar, but the victims all lived in the same neighborhood, only the police had systematically dismissed them,\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/jul\/02\/rape-philadelphia-investigation-crisis-crimes\">casting doubt<\/a>\u00a0on their credibility. Rather than investigating their claims of rape, the police placed their cases in a circular file titled \u201c<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.michaelmatza.com\/down-with-crime\">investigation of person<\/a>,\u201d a move that both improved rape stats for the city and saved police the trouble of investigating tougher cases. A serial rapist who slipped in and out of women\u2019s apartments quietly in the middle of the night would have required some real police work. Police would have first needed to believe the victims, take solid evidence and statements, see the pattern, and then confirm it via DNA testing, only they did none of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Their failure to link those early cases meant eight women would later be attacked in Colorado, where the Center City rapist moved after the media frenzy in Philadelphia became too great. It also meant that, a year after he committed his first crime, he was still at large and on the prowl, leaving Schieber, leaving all the women of Philadelphia, exposed. As Schieber\u2019s father\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/jul\/02\/rape-philadelphia-investigation-crisis-crimes\">put it<\/a>: The Philadelphia police set his daughter up for murder.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">They set me up too.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"Divider Divider--dotted-rule overflow-hidden\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">When I got to Barnes &amp; Noble, I briefed my roommate. We decided I had not been out of line the night before. There was a maniac on the loose, and we were going to take action, the sort of hard-hitting action that clueless college girls take. Did we decamp for a friend\u2019s house? No. Once we got home, we rang our upstairs neighbors\u2019 bell and told them about the situation. Then we folded out the couch and went to sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">My mind lurched from one hellish dream to the next: There was a man with aviators and a windbreaker on, \u00e0 la the Unabomber, standing over us. Next I heard sounds emerging from the hall, a slowly approaching footfall, but couldn\u2019t move. Then there was the sound of an alarm: First it was inside the dream, and then I woke to find the doorbell ringing. My roommate and I parted the blinds to see two beat cops standing on our stoop.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">At this point, I began screaming. I did not want my roommate to open the door or let the police in. I can remember the confused furrow in her brow. I wasn\u2019t making any sense. I was screaming loudly enough that the neighbors came barreling down the stairs in their underwear. No one could understand what was going on with me, let alone calm me down. After a round of curious looks among them, the door was opened, and I fainted.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Upon coming to, I was told the police had been called because the phone line had been cut. What? That made no sense. By whom? The mutual friend I\u2019d run into getting coffee had done a little research and come to the conclusion that I was not crazy: I lived smack dab in the middle of the territory a prolific, nationally famous, and as yet unapprehended rapist hunted. She called to tell me I should leave, but she kept getting a busy tone. Finally, she called the operator and asked her to do a line break. The operator informed her she couldn\u2019t: The line had been cut.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d I told the police. \u201cThe cordless died. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">One of them walked to the back of the apartment. The line for the phone entered the apartment in my roommate\u2019s room. A few inches away from where it entered, the landlord had installed a split so that the line could travel in two directions: back into my room and forward into the rest of the house. The split was yanked out of the wall. It could have been an accident, I told the police. Never mind I\u2019d been sitting on the couch when it happened. There was some feeling I wasn\u2019t taking this seriously enough. It was agreed the FBI would come by in the morning. I didn\u2019t see the need. I\u2019d probably tripped on the line at some point. To leap to the conclusion that a notorious sexual predator had pulled it out was ridiculous. But in the 11 months that followed, it never fell out again.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">A few days later when I explained to my English professor why I was late with the paper I was still too distracted to write, she gave me an extension and told me to buy a gun.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">I laughed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"Divider Divider--dotted-rule overflow-hidden\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The case of the Center City rapist made something of a cultural splash. It\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pulitzer.org\/winners\/t-christian-miller-propublica-and-ken-armstrong-marshall-project\">spawned<\/a>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themarshallproject.org\/2015\/12\/18\/rape-is-rape-isn-t-it\">some<\/a>\u00a0Pulitzer Prize winning reporting, inspired an\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0543941\/\">episode<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0<em>Cold Case<\/em>\u00a0and a\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0629626\/\">two-part<\/a>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0629627\/\">episode<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0<em>Law and Order: Special Victims Unit<\/em>, starring Tracy Pollan. The TV episodes are unsettling. Certain details trickle in: the rapist\u2019s uncanny ability to slip into women\u2019s apartments. He puts a pillow over his victims\u2019 faces so they can\u2019t identify him. There are references to the Philadelphia police department\u2019s failure to take their complaints seriously. The denouement of the SVU episode reveals the rapist lying in a pool of his own blood. His victims got the trial thrown out of court on purpose, so they could band together and kill him themselves, by far and away the episode\u2019s most satisfying detail. They were on the same wavelength as my English professor, only they took a more liberal view of what constitutes \u201cself-defense.\u201d \u201cStreet justice is always bloody,\u201d Ice-T\u2019s character says.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In addition to these cultural high- and low-lights, the case actually changed the way sex crimes are policed. The Women\u2019s Law Project, a public interest legal organization in Pennsylvania, worked with the Philadelphia police department and other advocate groups to reform the department\u2019s procedures and culture and correct past wrongs. The plan they came up with is called\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nsvrc.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2019-08\/The*2520Philadelphia*2520Model_NSAC*25202019.pdf\">The Philadelphia Model<\/a>. It has been adopted by\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/jul\/02\/rape-philadelphia-investigation-crisis-crimes\">police<\/a>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/url.avanan.click\/v2\/___https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/kitchener-waterloo\/unfounded-sex-assaults-waterloo-task-force-carol-tracy-philadelphia-1.4080309___.YXAzOnRhYmxldDphOm86MzZjMTU3Y2U1Y2ZkNTk0NGEyYjQ3ZTA1ZWJjODcyOGQ6Njo1Y2I4OjFiMmY4OWVkNjYyYjEzMTVkYzYyN2M1YzA0NzAwNGQ2NGFjYmNmYjkwM2RlMWFhNjYxZDQwNDhlOTQyMzk1N2I6cDpU\">departments<\/a>\u00a0around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">One of the most novel reforms involved inviting advocates to audit sex crimes files, not just cases that have been dismissed, but a random sampling of those that are open as well. The goal is to review police work to make sure it\u2019s thorough\u2014and free of anti-victim bias. Journalists in cities across the country have contacted the Women\u2019s Law Project to report similar failings in special victims units in their cities. The Law Project also successfully lobbied the FBI to change its woefully outdated definition of rape, a move that lowers the bar for how individual states define it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The advocates who came up with the model actually test-drove it by reviewing all cases from 1995 to 1997 marked \u201cinvestigation of person,\u201d an effort that resulted in the prosecution of 681 new felony rapes and 1,141 other sex crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Perhaps the greatest of #MeToo\u2019s failings is that it centers itself on a storyline in which women are violated and shamed with seemingly no counternarrative.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Another important element of the model is reforming police culture. Before the model, police did not assume the victim\u2019s credibility. They worked from a place of skepticism that required victims to convince police that the attack against them was real. This was a common starting point for rape investigations nationwide, part of a general law enforcement mentality about rape. The framers of the model called attention to this bias, inspiring a sea change in the way police approach victims across the country\u2014and a host of\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.certifiedfeti.com\/\">trainings<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/nij.ojp.gov\/events\/virtual-workshop-understanding-sexual-assault-trauma-and-considerations-conducting-trauma\">workshops\u00a0<\/a>designed to help police do better.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Once it became clear that the Philadelphia Special Victims Unit had failed to see the link between rape cases\u2014and that a woman had been murdered as a result\u2014the department\u2019s culture and commitment changed overnight. A task force, led by two homicide detectives known for being dogged when it came to difficult cases, was created. Sex crimes detectives worked with crime labs to disseminate the DNA evidence they\u2019d collected to police departments across the country and 1,200 tips were followed up on. Plainclothes officers sat in Center City bars on a nightly basis to survey the clientele in the hopes that a face in the crowd matched the one in the composite sketch. Plainclothes female officers walked the streets of Center City at night, in an attempt to lure their quarry. Detectives cast a wide net, even looking at clowns from a circus that had passed through town. All to no avail. The statute of limitations was in danger of running out on the earliest assaults, so prosecutors took the unusual step of charging the rapist\u2019s DNA. No one in Philly wanted to let this go, but they would have to, for a little while anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Then, in August 2001, a civilian dispatcher spotted an all points bulletin about a string of rapes in Fort Collins, Colorado. The MOs were the same. By September, the DNA had been matched.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Though the series had been discovered, the rapist himself remained elusive\u2014even as he became more daring. In one year alone, he attacked seven women. Then, a detective in the major crimes unit in Philadelphia built a database of men who had lived in both cities. He was able to whittle the list down to 40 names. Detectives in both cities worked to eliminate men from the list\u2014until they got to 34, and discovered a suspect whose movements and former addresses lined up with the string of attacks: Troy Graves. Fort Collins detectives got a court order for his DNA, but before the results had even come in, Graves confessed to everything. It took five years and untold man hours, but in the end, Graves was outmaneuvered.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"Divider Divider--dotted-rule overflow-hidden\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Eighteen years later, when #MeToo launched, it dawned on me for the first time in my life that, technically, I meet the definition of a victim. It was a moment of total cognitive dissonance for me: I\u2019d never even thought of myself as a survivor, let alone a victim. I was simply someone who had stayed ahead of the currents of sexual violence running through the cities in which I lived. I\u2019ve never felt cowed by danger or wounded by its manifold existence in my life. As a result, I had no interest in joining the chorus of #MeToo because I knew that if I did I would turn events that were, for me, anecdotes into episodes that defined me. And I knew that whatever social currency I scored by doing so would come at the expense of my power to tell my story on my own terms.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Back then, I actually thought Alyssa Milano invented it. What better way to burnish a fading star than to become an activist, acquire a few million followers and let the puff pieces rain.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">But the truth was so much more cynical. Activist and educator Tarana Burke coined the phrase \u201cme too\u201d in\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biography.com\/activists\/tarana-burke\">2006<\/a>, before there were hashtags, to raise awareness of how common sexual assault is, and to give survivors a sense of community around experiences that can be shameful and isolating. It was meant to shine a light on women whose stories are invisible to the culture at large. Sexual violence affects all women. Around\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nsvrc.org\/statistics\">20%<\/a>\u00a0of all American women have been sexually assaulted\u2014but not all victims are created equal. The case of Girl X, a Black child who was brutally assaulted in a Chicago housing project just a few weeks after JonBen\u00e9t Ramsey was killed, received\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/politics\/1997\/02\/22\/race-as-chicago-cases-x-factor\/8341154a-dc4e-42be-b741-f25fec33aaee\/\">almost no<\/a>\u00a0media attention. Meanwhile, Ramsey\u2019s murder set the pre-internet world on fire. All that attention didn\u2019t make Ramsey any less dead, but it did make her more visible. Burke developed \u201cme too\u201d through her work with\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/justbeinc.wixsite.com\/justbeinc\/home\">girls<\/a>\u00a0whose stories will never be splashed across the pages of\u00a0<em>People<\/em>\u00a0magazine. How fitting, then, that the Rose McGowans of the world should co-opt it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The problem with #MeToo wasn\u2019t just that it served one demographic: powerful, rich, mostly white women. Movie stars recounted the lurid details of their encounters with Weinstein. Women in media cataloged the transgressions against them in a\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thecut.com\/2018\/01\/moira-donegan-i-started-the-media-men-list.html\">spreadsheet<\/a>, and therein lay the real issue:\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainn.org\/statistics\/scope-problem\">55%<\/a>\u00a0of sexual assaults occur at or near the victim\u2019s home. Only 12% of assault victims report that they were working at the time of the assault. #MeToo went viral as a workplace harassment movement\u2014among the most well-heeled workers in America no less\u2014when it was created to bring attention to the problem of sexual assault in our society as a whole. On the basis of age alone, #MeToo was out of step with the problem it purported to point up:\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/cachouston.org\/prevention\/child-sexual-abuse-facts\/*23:~:text=Most*2520are*2520unaware*2520that*2520children,under*2520(Snyder,*25202000).\">70%<\/a>\u00a0of sexual assault victims are under the age of 18, too young to find themselves stuck in an office cubicle.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">#MeToo\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/msmagazine.com\/2023\/12\/05\/me-too-legislation-forced-arbitration-sexual-assault-harrassment-work-women\/*23:~:text=As*2520a*2520precursor*2520to*2520Speak,with*2520their*2520employer*2520to*2520court.\">inspired<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/hollycorbett\/2023\/11\/16\/the-metoo-movement-six-years-later-whats-changed-and-whats-next\/?sh=6ed4d7502a16\">wave<\/a>\u00a0of sexual harassment legislation, culminating in the Biden administration\u2019s\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbar.org\/groups\/labor_law\/publications\/labor_employment_law_news\/fall-2022\/new-law-limits-mandatory-arbitration-in-cases-involving-sexual-assault-or-harassment\/*23:~:text=Share:,),*2520went*2520into*2520effect*2520immediately.\">Ending Forced Arbitration Act<\/a>, which prohibits employers from forcing female employees to arbitrate disputes related to sexual harassment. The impact of #MeToo on the workplace is clear and unequivocal, which is something, but the gains all went to the top. Its effects didn\u2019t trickle down to help the victims of sexual assault.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Today, only a fraction of all rapists will do time for their crimes, around 0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainn.org\/statistics\/criminal-justice-system\">.25%<\/a>. There\u2019s still a 99.75% chance their attackers will go free, and sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes there is\u2014only around\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainn.org\/statistics\/criminal-justice-system\">30%<\/a>\u00a0of rapes are reported\u2014so the chance that a rapist will be incarcerated is actually much lower, along the lines of 0.0075%.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Women were on their own before #MeToo, and they\u2019re on their own now. If anything, the system is even more stacked against them than it was before.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"ArticleView__content-switch bradford text-article-body-md font-300 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In 2018, the number of rapes reported in New York City\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/1307298\/nyc-number-rape-offenses-committed\/*23:~:text=Number*2520of*2520rape*2520offenses*2520committed*2520in*2520New*2520York*2520City*25202000-2022&amp;text=In*25202022,*2520the*2520City*2520of,Crime*2520Reporting*2520definition*2520of*2520rape.\">jumped<\/a>\u00a0from 1,449 to 1,794, a bump of\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminaljustice.ny.gov\/crimnet\/ojsa\/Crime-in-NYS-2018.pdf\">18.5%<\/a>. It seems reasonable to attribute this to #MeToo. The consensus is that at the very least it destigmatized coming forward. For the three years prior\u20142015, 2016, and 2017\u2014the number of reported rapes hovered in the 1,440\u2019s, so the rate was stable going into 2018. 2018 and 2019 saw a sharp spike in reported rapes, likely due to #MeToo, but by 2020, the number returned to just below its previous level, at 1,427. After that, a wave of violent\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/03\/05\/us\/new-york-city-crime-wave-2022\/index.html\">crime<\/a>\u00a0took hold in New York City. As a result, rape stats have climbed to their highest levels since 2005.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">In fact, since 2017, the rate of prosecution for sexually based offenses has\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/07\/18\/nyregion\/manhattan-da-rape-cases-dropped.html\">actually fallen<\/a>\u00a0in New York City. In 2021, the Manhattan DA declined to prosecute a whopping 49% of cases, up from 37% in 2017. The citywide rate of\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/data.manhattanda.org\/\">arraignment<\/a>\u00a0for felonies fell modestly, by 5%, between 2018 and today.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">But the total number of felony cases\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/data.manhattanda.org\/\">sentenced<\/a>\u00a0to incarceration in 2018, 5,740, plummeted to a disturbing low in 2020, around 1,151. The number has rebounded slightly, up to 2,180 last year, but that\u2019s still a drop of 62%. Lest you imagine that those numbers mean crime is somehow down: Reported felonies are up by\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/assets\/nypd\/downloads\/pdf\/analysis_and_planning\/historical-crime-data\/seven-major-felony-offenses-2000-2023.pdf\">25%<\/a>. So felonies are up, but the rate of incarceration is down.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Why?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Incredibly, there\u2019s now a contingency of #MeToo feminists who want to see rates of incarceration for rapists go down. The good women of the Law Project in Philadelphia represent the basic disposition of Second and Third Wave feminism toward sex crimes: They worked to get police to hold sex criminals maximally accountable, work that still seems vitally necessary today\u2014though not to Fourth Wave, #MeToo inspired activists.\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2020\/10\/survivors-agenda-me-too-racial-justice\/\">Their<\/a>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/url.avanan.click\/v2\/___https:\/\/medium.com\/academica-feminista\/non-carceral-approaches-to-metoo-12a4479e0406___.YXAzOnRhYmxldDphOm86MzZjMTU3Y2U1Y2ZkNTk0NGEyYjQ3ZTA1ZWJjODcyOGQ6NjowMjc5OmJkZmVlNTVjMDJiOWE5MzYxYTI0ZGExZjRhMzNjODRhNjBmZmUwOGE3ZjU4MWQ5ODkyZWNmYTkwMWI5Mzk2Yjk6cDpU\">agenda<\/a>\u00a0is to\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-big-idea\/2018\/2\/1\/16952744\/me-too-larry-nassar-judge-aquilina-feminism\">promote<\/a>\u00a0\u201cnon carceral feminism,\u201d meaning they want to limit the power of the criminal justice system to prosecute sex offenders. Instead, they want mandatory sex ed nationwide and guaranteed mental health coverage. It\u2019s hard to say what they think this will achieve. Do they think men rape women because they have no idea how sex works or they\u2019re having an off day? Either way, not only is this agenda misogynistic; it represents a total failure to understand how little the criminal justice system does for victims of sexual assault. Women were on their own before #MeToo, and they\u2019re on their own now. If anything, the system is even more stacked against them than it was before.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"Divider Divider--dotted-rule overflow-hidden\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">When I was growing up, feminism came in the form of Riot Grrrls. Two decades before the Silence Breakers, they talked about sexual violence. They confessed their experiences angrily, made fun of misogyny, exuded a fuck-you attitude and were awesome on their own terms. And I idolized them, which may have been why I never doubted my ability to outfox or outfight anyone who crossed me.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Perhaps the greatest of #MeToo\u2019s failings is that it centers itself on a storyline in which women are violated and shamed with seemingly no counternarrative. Even before its viral takeover, psychologists and sociologists were chattering about the rise of what they called \u201cvictimhood culture.\u201d I shudder to imagine what that will mean for girls who carry their image of themselves as victims out into the world. Because the world loves to victimize women, and I can\u2019t help but wonder if #MeToo hasn\u2019t primed them to meet it halfway.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">A year after the Center City rapist episode, I found myself riding the New York subway during the midmorning lull. I was one of just a few people in the car, my nose buried in an issue of\u00a0<em>Granta<\/em>. At some point when the train was screeching under the river to Brooklyn, I felt someone\u2019s eyes on me. I looked up to find a man with a teardrop tattoo next to his eye, exposing himself to me. I could tell by the way he was staring at me that this was a prelude to something. He stood up, so I stood up. He stepped toward me, so I stepped toward him. He seemed about to pounce, so I lunged at him. He dodged me and made for the door. I actually laughed, as he ducked into York Street station and sprinted toward the stairs.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">I know that laughing in the face of a sexual predator isn\u2019t normal. I\u2019ve learned to dissociate when faced with a threat, which is useful for remaining calm and in control, though it\u2019s not the greatest coping mechanism to carry with you through life\u2014but it kept me safe. It spared me from seeing myself as a victim. And I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"AuthorBioBlock col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 w100 mt6 mxauto\">\n<div class=\"AuthorBioBlock__container graebenbach mt1_5 text-section-details-sm font-300 color-red\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em><strong>Justine el-Khazen<\/strong> is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\" \/>\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"content-alignment\">\n<div id=\"watch-description\" class=\"yt-uix-button-panel\">\n<div id=\"watch-description-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><em>Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion&#8217;68,<\/em><em><br \/>\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion&#8217;68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.<br \/>\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:<br \/>\n<\/em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em><a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"mailto:webmaster@reunion68.com\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr style=\"width: 100%;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before #MeToo\u2014and After JUSTINE EL-KHAZEN What becomes of women who won\u2019t be defined as victims? RENE BURRI\/MAGNUM On a night in early September of 1999, I found myself unable to sleep. I did what I always did back then when I couldn\u2019t sleep: padded to the kitchen in the dark, got a beer out of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114108"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114128,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114108\/revisions\/114128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}