By ROSIE WATERLAND
TRIGGER WARNING: This article deals with an account of rape/sexual assault and may be triggering for survivors of abuse.
Hey you! Yeah, you!
(1) Are you a young female?
(2) Are you no longer a virgin?
(3) Do you sometimes drink more than what your doctor would recommend?
If you answered yes to the three questions above, you better hope you don’t ever get raped or sexually assaulted, because if you did it would be YOUR OWN SLUTTY FAULT.
At least, that’s what tennis legend Serena Williams seems to think.
In a recently leaked excerpt from her upcoming interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Williams made some incredibly hurtful, unfair and exasperating comments about the Steubenville rapists.
Need a refresher?
The Steubenville rapists are high school footballers who found a girl drunk and passed out at a party last year. They stripped her down, raped her, and dragged her around by her hands and feet. The kicker? They thought the whole thing was so hilarious that they filmed it, photographed it, and posted the evidence on social media.
Two of the boys were eventually tried and found guilty, and there was much talk in the media about what a shame it was that their ‘promising futures had been ruined’.
Futures ruined? Yep. A big shame? No. BECAUSE THEY RAPED SOMEONE.
Now, back to Serena Williams.
Williams was sitting with the reporter interviewing her for Rolling Stone when the story came on the TV. Rolling Stone reports:
We watch the news for a while, and the infamous Steubenville rape case flashes on the TV—two high school football players raped a 16-year-old, while other students watched and texted details of the crime. Serena just shakes her head.
Good. She’s upset. Who wouldn’t be? Williams goes on to say:
“Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don’t know.”
Um, I don’t like where this is going…
“I’m not blaming the girl, but -” Williams continues.
Stop right there. ‘But’ is not a word that should ever be used in this context. Ever.
And here’s where despite ‘not blaming the girl’, Williams goes on to blame the girl. And her parents, just for good measure:
“- if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: don’t take drinks from other people. She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember?”
Wow. What an idiot this girl was: the first 16-year-old to EVER drink too much at a party. Seriously, how could her parents not have made sure that she would never make any bad choices, ever? Oh Serena, please stop. Nope, hold on, she’s still going:
“It could have been much worse. She’s lucky. Obviously I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t a virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position…”
Okay. Okay. I think my brain just broke.
Top Comments
Couldn't agree more! No matter who it is that blames women for 'getting themselves raped' - that attitude has to be challenged. How else are we going create change?