Emma Sulkowicz, a senior visual arts student at Columbia University in New York City, carries a mattress in protest of the university’s lack of action after she reported being raped during her sophomore year. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Rarely does a roundtable make you pause and wish for an old fashioned VHS recorder, but Melissa Harris-Perry pulled that off brilliantly on Saturday with a highly needed and deeply uncomfortable discussion about women judging other women on sexual assault ‘matters’.
Buckle up. Women parsing rape? Themselves? How dare they.
For background, they used the Hot Topic Columbia University “He said she lied ” story in the MSM and debate on blogs a bit of late, where the parameters of the relationship itself and ongoing debates of what assault IS are beginning to whirl.
In a perverted version of the princess and the pea fable, the self-proclaimed
Jezebel had a most excellent drill down.
In August of 2012, on the first day of her sophomore year at Columbia, Emma Sulkowicz alleges that her friend, a fellow student named Paul Nungesser, held her down on his bed and violently raped her. After her assault, she’s said, she decided not to pursue disciplinary action against him for the same reasons many acquaintance rape survivors don’t pursue justice against their attackers: it’s just too much trouble.
But after Sulkowicz learned about two other women Nungesser had allegedly sexually assaulted, she decided to press forward, bringing charges against him before her college’s disciplinary board. Nungesser was found “not responsible.” He’d earlier been found “responsible” for another sexual assault, but had appealed and won after the woman grew tired of fighting the proceedings. So he was allowed to remain on campus.
Sulkowicz began carrying her mattress between classes in an act of protest that doubled as her senior thesis in visual art; soon after, one of the most prominent and visible anti-campus-sexual-assault advocates of our time was minted. In the months after going public with her identity, Sulkowicz has appeared on the cover of New York magazine and several major news channels. Her continued anti-rape advocacy has even caught the eye of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who invited Sulkowicz to be her guest at last month’s State of the Union.
MHP had a superb analysis of the facts and the facts are anything but comfortable. It’s essentially a he-said she-said situation that the media has, typically, taken on to adjudicate for themselves. A female writer at The Daily Beast, Cathy Young, following a single email from the male student’s parents took the stance that it was ‘murky’ and the ‘tone’ was suspect.
A panel of women and one male dove in deep.
MHP at one point had to call a Ref moment, whoa whoa whoa, “This was said on My Air” – she paused the debate and asked the skeptic, Young, to clarify. Have a good look, it is one of the most important conversations I have seen in some time, and hope readers are as gobsmacked and intrigued as I was to follow the Live and powerful discussion.
This is a deeply personal and visceral issue for so many, and I’m of course aware that men are assaulted as well – and that there are and will continue to be cases where the party lying is the accuser, not the named perpetrator. Add in the titanic holes in the justice system when it comes to the American handling of these victims and the number and variety of cases.
Sidebar: A grateful shout out to new friend and inspiring voice, topjob66t was good enough to initiate discussion on a women-centric piece earlier this week. This is why we type.
