My Facebook page has been filling up with people upset with the coverage by CNN on the Steubenville, OH rape case. At least four friends have shared a link urging me to sign a petition to put a big shame on them to CNN about their coverage. A few more friends have given me a link to something called the Ms. Foundation for Women which lists a number of news outlets which is supposed to illustrate what rape culture is like.

When I first thought about making this comment, the path I was going to take would have taken too long to explain. I could go on for pages about why the media, especially the television media, might show or appear to cover the story from the view of the perpetrators and not the victim. I realized, from a few commentaries I’ve made in the past, Internet activist don’t care about understanding why something happens. They are content about complaining about the wrongs of the world, doing the least about changing things, and assuming that a few clicks of the mouse will be an instrument of change.

I know people’s hearts are in the right place and people feel that doing anything is better than doing nothing. As I have written time and time again, clicking on a link or signing an electronic petition isn’t going to change the world. Couch potato politics isn’t going to change the hearts and minds of the public and politicians. To make real change, we have to get up, march in the streets, and let our faces and voices be heard.  We can’t hide behind misunderstood V for Vendetta masks or Anonymous non de plumes. Even with the physical work needed to make change, there’s no guarantee the effort will be successful the first, second fifth or tenth time. It may cause discouragement in many to be harsh about what the reality of change is, but in making people believe social or political change can be made from the comfort of a loveseat is selling them a false reality which will cause disappointment when it inevitably fails.

The story of the Steubenville rape case seemed very familiar to me as I began to research it. Ironically, about 10 years ago there was a convection of a similar case in Orange County California. The three boys weren’t football players, but one of them was the son of a prominent law enforcement officer in the area. While there was no posting of the rape on the Internet, the act was videotaped. It was that evidence that ultimately convicted the three boys. All of the other circumstances; underage drinking, a passed out 16 year old girl, a question of consent, they were all there. Guess what the defense was in the case? The boys were wanna be filmmakers and the girl supposedly wanted to be a porn actress so they were essentially making a demo reel for her.

I did say the boys were convicted, but their conviction came after the first trial ended in a hung jury. With a graphic video showing the boys having sex with the 16 year old and with them using bottles and pool cues to stick inside her, the first jury was hung because of the same fixations the press has now. The jury in the first trial wondered about the impact the guilty verdict would have on the boys. They were ‘good kids’ from ‘good homes.’ While the jury didn’t claim it was a mitigating factor, the defense tactic of painting the victim as damaged girl from the wrong side of the tracks influenced them. Why would this girl drink so much that she passed out? Why would she be with those boys alone? She said she wanted to be in a porn movie (this is disputed but was put into evidence) so she knew what she was doing. That was the attitude the press and a good amount of the public had. As I looked at a number of articles and a bit of a CBS 48 Hours report that was done at the time, the impression was the same as I suspect a lot of people have about the Steubenville case; boys will be boys and it was the girl’s fault for what happened because boys will be boys.

Is that the right impression to have? Of course not, but to me blaming the press doesn’t solve the bigger picture. A little while ago, Zerlina Maxwell appeared on the Sean Hannity television show, talking about rape culture. She got death threats from her talk, and the threats attacked her, her race and her gender. Because she was on Fox News, some might conjecture the negative attack would be expected because of the demographics of the Fox News viewers. Again, taking that stance covers up the real problem we have, just as blaming the press in the coverage of the Steubenville case covers up the underlying issue. Year after year, probably month after month, you can pull up events like the Steubenville or the OC case. Be it local or national coverage, if there is an event where a woman is assaulted or raped, especially an underage girl between 15 and 20 years old, her behavior, not the boys or men who attacked her, comes into question. If you check the public forums of those cases, quite a number of people, hiding behind monikers, will wonder aloud what the woman or girl did to cause the males to attack her. Have someone dare to question the action of the boys and men and watch how fast people will jump to their defense.

In the OC case you have an incident that occurred ten years ago, similar to the Steubenville case and in those ten years nothing has changed as far as coverage and attitudes. Of course, there have been cases throughout the course of those ten years similar to these two cases and in almost all of them, the initial public reaction has been to either blame the victim outright or give overwhelming support to the perpetrators. Remember the lacrosse team accused of raping the prostitute? While that case ultimately proved to be false, the fact that underage male students were drinking, hired a prostitute to perform at a party and an allegation of rape occurred caused many to rally in support of the boys. At the very least, the ‘upstanding’ underage boys drank and put themselves in a terrible position. No real cries of blaming the boys was given. Do you know what really bothers me about the Steubenville case? I know some legal pundits have surmised that if the boys had been tried as adults, they could have gotten a stiffer sentence, but in looking at the OC case, a jury of their peers might have acquitted the boys, or at the very least would have resulted in a hung jury.  Even with the eventual conviction of the boys in the OC case, jury interviews showed there was still a question of consent. While it wasn’t explicitly said, the new jury suggested public pressure made them decide the way they did.

People may want to blame the press for the coverage of the Steubenville case but they need to blame a portion of the public for having the attitudes they have. The OC case graphically illustrates that with a preponderance of evidence that a sexual crime was committed, ‘good people’ can still foster antiquated attitudes about bad girls and boys will be boys mentality. Until that mindset changes, we will continue to have cases where women are assaulted and blamed for their crimes committed against them.