Why are women always doubted?
By: Laura Vanessa Flores
Tags: Rape

Why are women always doubted?

How women are always seen as a false accuser, because their words are not good enough.

For many women and girls, we are taught from a very young age that there is nothing to fear more than a rape or a sexual assault. The idea is scary and unimaginable for most, we see ourselves living in fear of people and places, we are scared of the neighbor next door, we are scared of walking in a parking lot alone, and we do not even fathom the fear that would go through us if we walked more than a mile at night alone. Living as a woman is a tough thing to do, our bodies are seen as weak and easy to take over. So, when something does happen to us, as it is likely to because 1 out of 6 American women have fallen victim of an attempted or completed rape, we are interrogated and treated as someone who is only making a false accusation. We have only come out with this story to enact revenge on someone or protect ourselves, it is never treated as an act of violence that occurred and the victims are not shown sympathy, instead they are labeled as a liar and every precaution is taken to not understand the story of what has happened but to try and discredit her story. The United States’ rape culture is astonishing, the number of women who are susceptible to this sexual violence is one to many. Women are not free to express their stories, our own sexualization at a young age has left many of us to see ourselves in a different light.

The Sexualization of Young Girls

As young girls, many of our own family members have used their voices and actions to make girls seem like a problem that needs to be fixed. Our own mothers, and grandmothers tell us to cover up because they do not want their little girl to be seen as slutty, not only for their reputations but for the fear of sexual assault. But in our culture, it cannot be so black and white, the sexualization of girls at a young age also allows for girls to see something wrong with themselves, add a sexual assault it is easy for them to then blame themselves. It causes shame in their own bodies which also leads women to not want to report assault. These truths also allow rape itself to happen, because with the sexualization of our bodies it allows for other people to think that rape and sexual assault ends up being a part of our own life as women. In the article, “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention” by Sharon Marcus, they identify a lot of the inconsistencies of rape culture as well. They also mention the underlying assumption that male rapists have the power to rape and thus act on it.

“Rape as an inevitable material fact of life and assume that a rapist’s ability to physically overcome his target is the foundation of rape.”

A Culture of False Accusations

This also ties into how girls are doubted when they come forth of having been sexually assaulted, because girls and other people who like to place blame on them and leads to the accusations of being a liar. Add on how “easy” it is to rape women as suggested before, it creates a culture of people who take this and assume that girls can lie and say they were raped even if they are not lying. It also ties into how men used this assumption to their advantages and assault these women. Afterwards, these girls are accused of ruining men’s lives but the reality is that their accusations do not affect them overall. And false accusations are not something that happens in reality, it rarely happens and when it does the men are not convicted because in rape cases that are real it is hard to convict them.

“This may be hard to believe, especially considering that rape is a felony, punishable with years of prison. However — to start with this worst-case scenario — it’s exceedingly rare for a false rape allegation to end in prison time.”

Our own rape culture allows for these men to remain free, and this stigma of false rape accusations has created another issue women who have been assaulted have to face as well. It is also the one that would hurt the most, and that is doubt. Doubt of these women also creates a culture that does not want to convict the perpetrators and in turn blame the victim. A false accusatory and a rape survivor are often lumped together in conviction cases about rape, and that is an issue because the two cases could not be any more different. Marcus also mentions that the language and power of rape culture structures our own violence against women. Rape culture is also under the impression that women are the cause of their own rape which could not be more wrong.

“One common conjunction of rape and language refers to the many images of rape which our culture churns out, representations which often transmit the ideological assumptions and contradictions of rape-women are rapable, women deserve rape/women provoke rape, women want rape, women are ashamed of being raped/women publicly lie about being raped.”

A solution?

Ideology surrounding the women and their cases are mostly about doubt, and that is one issue that needs to be changed in our society. Another thing would be the abolishment of rape culture and how it plays in favor of who committed the crime rather than victim. Rape culture and the doubt of all the girls who are brave enough to come forward is harsh, America needs to change how we act when rape is even mentioned. Americans need to address their own sexist agendas and use the ideologies of feminism to shape their minds and allow women’s voices to become a central part of her own evidence.