AUDREY GILMOUR | COLUMN
D
uring October of my
freshman
year
of
college,
my
father
bought me a pink can of pepper
spray to keep with me at all
times. Starting college in 2015,
everyone
was
talking
about
sexual assault. The statistics
were circling, nearly a quarter of
women attending college would
be sexually assaulted. Across
the country, young women were
stepping up and sharing stories
about the ways their bodies had
been treated as objects. Young
women, like the student at
Columbia University carrying
her
dorm
mattress
across
campus from class to class, were
brave and inspiring in their fight
to create awareness. I struggled
to imagine why any victim of
sexual assault would keep their
story private in this time of
social change.
Reporting
and
charging
sexual predators was such a
simple concept to me at the time.
Perpetrators of sexual assault
deserve
to
be
charged
and
disciplined for their actions.
More importantly, they need to
be prevented from continuing a
pattern of harm. This was the
way I understood sexual assault
and society’s reaction to it. I
knew charging sexual assault
was never easy; I had seen plenty
of stories in the news about
men emerging with less-than-
appropriate sentences as the
legal system chose to put their
future over those of the affected
women. However, despite the
difficulties
that
came
with
legal action, I felt that it was
every victim’s responsibility to
act and ensure their assaulter
would never be able to harm
another. What I was not able to
comprehend at the time is that I
was one of the many women that
had been sexually assaulted and
chosen not to act on it.
As a young girl I was repeatedly
molested and assaulted over a
period of roughly two years. I
was a 10-year-old girl smitten
with the boy down the street,
certain
I
was
in
love.
He
was a 14-year-old boy taking
advantage of the power he knew
he possessed over me. It took me
years to realize that what had
conspired between the two of
us was not consensual, though
it may have felt it at times. No
matter the feelings I thought
I felt for this boy, I was in no
way capable of consenting to the
actions that took place in dark
corners of the park and empty
bedrooms. Despite eventually
coming to this realization, I
never considered myself a victim
of rape. I saw it as a chapter in
my past and tried to believe I
had left it firmly there.
Half a year ago I realized my
past was not stagnant. My sexual
assault is a fluid part of my
existence, affecting my mental
state to this day, and with this
reality came the understanding
that what happened to me was
significant. My assault was just
as significant as that of the young
woman at Columbia carrying her
mattress on her back. My assault
was significant and if I chose to
do so, I could take my rapist to
court. I began preparing myself
mentally for the battle ahead
and went through old Facebook
messages looking for evidence.
I met with a close lawyer friend
and
explored
my
options,
ranging from restraining orders
to a lawsuit. For a week or two
I believed this was finally my
path to closure. The process of
having my assault recognized
legally would force me to fully
accept what had been done to me
and move forward. I was sure
of my decision, until I returned
home for winter break and
found myself frozen at the idea
of telling my parents what had
happened to me.
I was acting, doing something
I
considered
to
be
my
responsibility by making sure
my rapist wouldn’t be able to
impact someone else’s life in the
way that he had impacted mine.
This was what I believed in. So
why couldn’t I tell my parents?
I told myself that I was being a
coward and with a bit of bravery
I would eventually be capable of
confiding in my parents about
this dark stain on my past. Every
time I contemplated telling them
I remembered things: the day my
dad bought me pink pepper spray
and told me that he would have
to kill someone if they ever hurt
me, the pain and worry in my
parents’ eyes and voices when I
struggled with depression and
panic attacks as a freshman in
college. I couldn’t bear to see
their reactions to one of their
worst nightmares coming true.
For months I lived with my
decision not to tell my parents
about my assault or pursue
legal action. I saw myself as
a hypocrite for not acting on
what I perceived as a personal
responsibility.
How
could
I
expect others who have had
similar
experiences
to
take
action when I couldn’t? The
thing about sexual assault is
that you are never fully healed;
it is never fully in the past.
Every day I make decisions
that are affected by my assault,
even though it happened over a
decade ago. It took me 10 years
to process what happened to
me and I am just now starting
to recognize the significance of
my experience. Right now, the
healing process includes sharing
my story with those closest to
me, including my parents. For
me, healing will probably never
include
taking
legal
action
like I might have thought six
months ago – and that’s okay. I
am slowly learning, no victim
of assault has a responsibility
to take outward action. The
only responsibility we have is to
become survivors and do what
is necessary to make ourselves
start to feel healthy again.
5
OPINION
Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Some may find discomfort
in this idea and view it as
a biased assault on news
media, which is guaranteed
the right of free speech—
up to and including false
statements.
However,
protection
of
the press does not excuse
an institution as large and
influential as the news media
from deliberately misleading
large swaths of listeners to
the scale and degree seen
with Fox News. The network
has shed contributors hostile
to Trump and tailored nearly
all of its coverage to the
president’s individual tastes,
singularly
aligning
itself
with a political figure and
in the process transforming
itself
into
an
executive
mouthpiece.
Especially
in a time when print news
is
in
decline,
television
media’s preeminence in the
information
realm
really
does matter, necessitating
honest
and
fact-based
coverage by the networks
who wield this power.
In addition to its content,
Fox
News’
interaction
with the president further
embodies the novelty of the
Trump problem. While all
news
sources
sometimes
distort facts in advocating
their political stances, the
nature of Trump’s reliance
on
and
his
supporters’
subsequent
attachment
to, his preferential media
sources is clearly unique.
That the president so heavily
feeds off of his coverage
on Fox News—all the while
his political brand strays
even
further
from
old
party ways—supports this
characterization.
Unfortunately,
this
alarming
relationship
is
clouded by boilerplate calls
for
intellectual
diversity.
While society should always
promote
willingness
to
consider conflicting points of
view, the seemingly magnetic
tendency to denounce “both
the left and right” of equally
vile partisanship amounts
to nothing more than false
equivalence (which brings
to
mind
a
particularly
misplaced
invocation
of
the “both sides” narrative).
Even if one could manage to
write off several prominent
anti-Trump
Republicans
jumping ship as a routine
political shake-up, George
Will calling for a Democratic
takeover
of
Congress
should sound some alarms.
Listening to the other side
does not mean ignoring signs
that things are clearly not
normal.
Trump’s power to lead
in a manner devoid of both
caution and beneficence lies
squarely in the constituency
he has cultivated. Nourishing
these new Republicans and
steadily
fueling
Trump’s
presidency – criticism of
his decisions be damned
– is Trump’s media corps,
epitomized by Fox News
and servile to the president
insofar
as
its
broadcasts
resound through the homes
of his devotees. This is a
dynamic as disquieting as
it is underappreciated, and
it
demands
a
newfound
scrutiny of our media. In
turn, this would promote
greater accountability of our
president,
something
that
should be appreciated by
Trump’s loudest supporters
and critics alike.
From victim to survivor: my path to healing
Audrey Gilmour can be reached at
audreymg@umich.edu
Ethan Kessler can be reached at
ethankes@umich.edu.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION
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Eyes wide shut by Ethan Kessler continued below:
“Young women,
like the student
at Columbia
University
carrying her
dorm mattress
across campus
from class to
class, were
brave and
inspiring in
their fight
to create
awareness.”