Dan Abrams is a Jerk.
Last night Dateline NBC aired this commentary on the Duke rape saga. And no matter how many times I hear Dan Abrams say that if he wanted to protect his alma mater he'd just drop the matter I think it rings hollow. In that article he refers to the alleged victim as "The Stripper" and her colleague as the "Second Stripper". Everytime he did it, and he did it a LOT, I just got madder and madder. When will the media stop removing that woman's humanity?
I really don't care what her job was when she went into that house. It doesn't matter a whit. There isn't a job on the planet that justifies sexual assault. Failing to call the alleged victim a woman serves to nicely remove her humanity and rather alleviates the sense of horror that less morally charged professions would encounter if, say, those women had been a couple of veterinarians or plumbers.
They strategically omit that the woman in question is also a student, a mother, a daughter...
Dan Abrams is only quietly reinforcing the shitty message that she somehow deserved whatever happened to her in that house.
As an aside, my husband asked how I'd respond if one of my sons had been in that house on the night the offence is alleged to have occurred.
I replied that I hope we raise our sons to know that the kinds of behavior that Lacrosse team were known for were inappropriate and wrong. I hope that in a similar situation my boys will be able to see past the skimpy knickers and bravado of the women to know that it's time to leave the building. And be strong enough to tell their friends to so the same.
If it had been one of my sons on that team and at that house? I'd pull their funding, fly them home and have them enroll in a local community college until such time as they can either win a scholarship or fund their own education. I will not ever finance that sort of behavior. It may be the Australian in me talking but I believe that college students are adults and should behave and be treated as such. The fancy colleges like Duke (and even W&M where I went) and parents in the U.S. though, seem to miss that.
In the meantime, I say Dan Abrams is a jerk.
I really don't care what her job was when she went into that house. It doesn't matter a whit. There isn't a job on the planet that justifies sexual assault. Failing to call the alleged victim a woman serves to nicely remove her humanity and rather alleviates the sense of horror that less morally charged professions would encounter if, say, those women had been a couple of veterinarians or plumbers.
They strategically omit that the woman in question is also a student, a mother, a daughter...
Dan Abrams is only quietly reinforcing the shitty message that she somehow deserved whatever happened to her in that house.
As an aside, my husband asked how I'd respond if one of my sons had been in that house on the night the offence is alleged to have occurred.
I replied that I hope we raise our sons to know that the kinds of behavior that Lacrosse team were known for were inappropriate and wrong. I hope that in a similar situation my boys will be able to see past the skimpy knickers and bravado of the women to know that it's time to leave the building. And be strong enough to tell their friends to so the same.
If it had been one of my sons on that team and at that house? I'd pull their funding, fly them home and have them enroll in a local community college until such time as they can either win a scholarship or fund their own education. I will not ever finance that sort of behavior. It may be the Australian in me talking but I believe that college students are adults and should behave and be treated as such. The fancy colleges like Duke (and even W&M where I went) and parents in the U.S. though, seem to miss that.
In the meantime, I say Dan Abrams is a jerk.
posted by Louisa at 8:03 AM
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