Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Julia Barnes, the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party.
On March 27, the Vermont Democratic Party sent out a press release asking Sen. Joe Benning to discontinue his repeated and deliberate use of the word “rape” in political rhetoric. I must continue to hope that as an elected official Sen. Benning will understand that “rape” has a very real and personal meaning to the many victims of sexual assault across our state and across our nation. (Editor’s note: Sen. Joe Benning’s op-ed on the subject can be found here.)
Since then, a lot of people have contacted me to share their sentiments on the issue. There is disagreement, but many men and women had the same response I did. I am a true believer in civil discourse and my intent here is not to score political points — rather to open the discussion of how powerful language can hurt. From the responses I have received, people seem to understand that you cannot separate the word “rape” from the cultural context to which it belongs and feel that purposefully ignoring this is wrong. They, like myself, believe our elected officials have a responsibility to be conscientious in their speech and recognize the impact their words can have on victims and their allies. Each time “rape” is used as a violent metaphor in a public forum, it can lessen the reality of the act. It can send a punch straight to the gut of those who see their victimization as something that should not be diminished.
The word “rape” doesn’t belong to politicians. It doesn’t belong to a dictionary. That experience belongs to the victims.
You don’t have to look far to see public and elected officials using the word “rape” as a misplaced impact statement on a variety of issues, trivializing the human consequence and personal cost of that experience to real people. Last year’s election alone saw how uneducated many candidates were, both about the prevalence of rape in our country and the consequence it has to our society. In a world where too many men, women and children experience sexual assault, where rape is underreported and under-punished in our military because of institutional pressures, and where high school students witness a classmate’s rape and feel it is acceptable to defend not stopping it, we should take it upon ourselves to combat any instance of the misuse of this terminology.
The word “rape” doesn’t belong to politicians. It doesn’t belong to a dictionary. That experience belongs to the victims.
To put things in a real life context, every two minutes someone in the United States is sexually assaulted. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, one in six women has been a victim of attempted or completed rape. Of those women, most are low-income and minorities. Victims of sexual assault and rape are three times more likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and 26 times more likely to abuse drugs. According to the Center for Disease Control, 12.3 percent of women and 27.8 percent of men who were raped were under the age of 10.
I, like many, have been close to victims of rape and sexual assault. I have friends and family whose lives have been forever altered by sexual assault. I know far more people than I should have to. You probably do, too. I firmly believe, after my experiences, that the best way to serve these people is to unequivocally and without hesitation acknowledge that “rape culture” really exists in our world and that it behooves all of us as advocates, family, friends and victims to stand up and to educate those people who do not realize the impact of trivializing the word “rape.”
So, to that end, I ask that all advocates for victims of sexual assault, including Sen. Benning and our other elected officials, consider demonstrating their support of these individuals by thinking critically about their choice of words.
