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Why Demanding That Rape Victims Report Assault Isn’t Helpful

Mikki Kendall
The Establishment
Published in
5 min readSep 6, 2016
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I cannot say that you should never report being sexually assaulted. That is a personal decision, and a choice that I don’t think should be taken away from you. Ever. But if you look at the likelihood of getting justice, at the risks associated with the process, and you decide that you cannot report what happened? I completely understand.

When women discuss how they didn’t report their sexual assault, they are often subjected to shame and chastised for “not stopping him before he can do it again,” forcing them to defend their decision. But we forget one of the reasons why this choice is so common; why 63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police.

As gut-wrenching as it is to think about, sometimes reporting sexual assault won’t bring you any justice.

This isn’t just about sentences handed down to people like Brock Turner (who was recently released after spending just three months in jail), Jonathan Ryan Davis, Stacey Dean Rambold, David Becker, Daniel Drill-Mellum, and Austin Wilkerson. This isn’t just about how rare prosecution is, and how infrequently offenders who are prosecuted and convicted face any substantial jail time or really face any consequences that they cannot sidestep in a few years on appeal. And this isn’t just about the ways that gender and race and class can confer…

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The Establishment
The Establishment

Published in The Establishment

The archives of culture + politics site, The Establishment. Media funded and founded by women — Nikki Gloudeman, Kelley Calkins and Katie Tandy with Ijeoma Oluo, Ruchika Tulshyan and Jessica Sutherland. The conversation is much more interesting when everyone has a voice.

Mikki Kendall
Mikki Kendall

Written by Mikki Kendall

Proud descendant of Hex Throwing Goons. Writer. Total sweetheart. Daintiest stroll since Mae West. Giggles and Grenades! Always claps back.