Echoing Footsteps: Rape, Victims, Survivors, and What We Can Do

Echoing Footsteps: Rape, Victims, Survivors, and What We Can Do

Rape is devastating to its victims. I feel as if this statement should stand alone, underlined and in bold typeface. It is crucial that we, as a society, come to a deep understanding and awareness of this message. For that reason, I will state it again:

Rape is devastating to its victims.

Thirty percent of rape victims will contemplate suicide. Slightly more will seek therapy. Slightly less will invest in some form of self-defense. The overwhelming majority, 82%, will tell you that their lives have been permanently changed. The way they view men will be permanently changed as well (Warshaw 66). Forty-one

percent of victims go through life believing every day that they will be raped again (Warshaw 64). Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we do what we can to spread knowledge of this crime, protect its victims, prosecute its perpetrators, and prevent it from ever happening again.

Acquaintance rape, sometimes called date rape, is the most common form of this crime. Yet, until the 1980s, it was virtually unheard of (Warshaw 2). We believed that rape was fairly rare. When it did take place, we wrongfully assumed that the victim was an idealized virginal school girl and that her attacker was a ruthless and depraved psychopath, armed and lurking in the shadows (Warshaw 14). This image needs to be destroyed. Rape is common. One in four women will be raped during her lifetime. Current statistics say that a woman is raped every four seconds in this country (Anderson 213). These women will be assaulted by people they know, most often by people they trust. They will be disbelieved when they tell their story. They will...

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...Violence 14 (1999): 62-79.

Dervarics, Charles. “Date Rape, Hate Crimes May Get Hill Attention.” Black Issues in Higher Education 15 (1999): 6.

Foege, Alec and Jennifer Mendelsohn. “Silent No More.” People 50 (1998): 185-188.

Henderson, Alan. “Study: Women Using ‘Date Rape Drug’.” Women’s Health Weekly (01/11/99): 8.

Koss, Dr. Mary. Arizona Rape and Sexual Assault Surveillance Project. December 1997. Online. Internet

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~sexasslt/text.html 28 March 1999.

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Warshaw, Robin. I Never Called it Rape: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994.