Funny (not ha ha) how within a week of my stories on sexual assault, which focused in part on how the media (mis)handles such horrors, the New York Times fell on its face by reporting on the gang rape of an 11-year old from the perspective of the (18!) rapists as the real victims.
Florida's freshman Rep. Kathleen Passidomo followed suit by citing a quote from the article, that the victim could have prevented the multiple sexual assaults from 18 males aged preteen to 27 if only she hadn't been dressed like "a woman in her 20s."
Let's examine that statement. Do women in their 20's deserve to be raped? Just the slutty ones?
What about nudists? Are they asking for it? And if that's true, someone please explain to me why Muslim women, especially in nations that require them to wear the head-to-toe burqa, are sexually assaulted as much if not more than women in the U.S.?
Thank goodness the public editor had the heart AND sense to call the NYT's mistake because no one else at the paper stood up. When our media "gatekeepers" are uneducated and insensitive about an issue, how can we expect the public to be any better?
Let's demand a smarter media. And a smarter U.S.
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