Steubenville

For anybody who didn't read or hear about the story from Steubenville here's a quick summary. Last summer at a party a 16 year old girl got incredibly drunk at a party with many friends from her high school and blacked out. While she was blacked out two guys on the football team took advantage of her. Took countless pictures and videos of her. Then raped her.

When it finally came to light that this had happened and they began the trial of the two boys what followed was disgusting. The media (I'm mostly talking about CNN) treated the story as if the entire incident was the girls fault and that by coming forward she was depriving these young men and star athletes (...of a high school football team...) of a normal life. The area she was from put comments all over social media during this case that it was her fault getting so drunk or dressing so slutty. That these guys had such potential and had she not been so drunk or worn her short-shorts that night none of this would have happened.

CNN continued this tirade. They didn't mention the victim generally during their newscast other than that she was a victim. They focused more on the two guys saying things like:

There's always that moment of just -- lives are destroyed. But in terms of what happens now, the most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law. That will haunt them for the rest of their lives. -- Paul Callan

Incredibly difficult to watch as these two young men who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students literally watched as they believed their life fell apart. -- Poppy Harlow

By framing these two guys as "star athletes" and "very good students" they're setting up the rest of America to blame the girl, the victim of this crime. Yes she was drunk... still doesn't mean you can rape her. Yea she had provocative clothes on... still can't rape her. It's incredibly sad that this is even a thing. It seems that you're only truly a victim of rape if you weren't drunk and have conservative clothing on. 

What really needs to change is all of the victim blaming and to begin having people step up for their actions. In no way, shape, or form should these guys have been framed any other way than rapists. If you want to talk about how their careers are flushed down the toilet or that they'll always be labeled as sex offenders then that's fine... but you can't blame the victim for this. Victim blaming or slut shaming or a positive framing of a negative act is never going to be ok.