The "Right" Kind Of Rapist
Or, why the world is so quick to dismiss Israeli sexual assault survivors
I debated whether or not to put a content warning on the title of this post. I think even using terms like “content warning” or “trigger warning” can be, well, triggering.
I know this might offend, but I have lost my patience for trying to ease people into a talk about what happened on October 7 in Southern Israel.
Of all the reactions to that day, few of disgusted me more than the behavior of organizations large and small, global and local that claim to stand up for women and stand against gender-based violence.
I am someone who has long supported organizations that strive to end this type of violence. One of my proudest moments was when, as a regional board member for the Jewish youth movement BBYO, I lead a program on violence against women.
My focus was on the women and girls of Afghanistan who were suffering under an abusive and oppressive regime. This was before 9/11, mind you, when little to know attention was paid to that part of the world.
Not long after I led that program, I saw The Vagina Monologues. While every story was compelling, none stood with me more than the stories of rape as a tool of war. In one account, a woman was brutally assaulted with a broom and bottles. It remains one of the most disturbing things I have ever heard.
And, yet, even that was nothing compared to what I am just now bringing myself to read about the vicious violence endured by Israeli women and women of other nationalities whose only crime was existing in the nation of Israel.
When October 7 first happened, I was appalled and enraged, but also weirdly hopeful that maybe this time the world would stand up for Jews. I thought maybe they would understand that maybe Hamas is pretty fucking shitty and be on Israel's side for once.
Of course, that didn't happen.
Because nobody believes the Jews.
Or, they did, but the IDF did it.
Ok, they'll begrudgingly admit, but let's look at the “context.”
Fuck all of it. Fuck all of them.
This past month plus has reminded me that, while every survivor of sexual violence should be acknowledged and validated, some survivors are more valid than others.
They are more valid not just because they are the “right” kind of victim, but because they were attacked by the “right” kind of rapist.
Wait what?
There's a right kind of rapist?
Shouldn't we condemn all rapists and call out all sexual violence?
Of course.
But that doesn't happen.
It's not happening in regards to the October 7 attack on Israel.
It wasn't happening beforehand.
Take the ongoing and brutal war in Syria. The number of rapes reported as a tool of war is staggering. You can find coverage of this, but it has never been a part of the global conversation. Well not the “Western” conversation.
In Nigeria, sexual violence is so prevalent that a significant percentage of married woman report that they are survivors of gender-based assault. This doesn't account for unmarried women and those afraid to share their stories.
Around the globe, particularly in nations that are less economically advantaged than the United States rape is so rampant it is almost an accepted part of life.
So why don't we talk about it?
Well, for starters we tend to care about our own. We have plenty of sexual violence in the U.S., and the #metoo movement has emboldened more American women to speak out.
We also view rape as a form of power abuse.
If you look at the rape/sexual violence cases that grab headlines, they always involve a (usually) white, cisgender male who holds a certain status in society. Harvey Weinstein is the best example of this. However, even Brock Turner, a well-off college student from an elite background fits the bill.
Danny Masterson was also the “right” kind of rapist. Long before October 7, I wrote about his conviction, the outrage over his celebrity friends’ attempts to appeal to the judge for leniency, and whether restorative justice should be afforded to people like Masterson.
Men like these fit the narrative that rapists are fueled by a sense of entitlement born from patriarchy and White supremacy.
They commit sexual assault because society told them they could. They are also the type of men that get away with rape, at least in the court of law, which fuels the outrage in the court of public opinion.
This is not how sexual violence functions in much of the world.
The men who raped those women in Israel (Jew and non-Jew, Israeli and non-Israeli alike) would in no way be considered privileged or benefitting from White Supremacy. If anything the argument from the far-left would likely blame White Supremacy (i.e. colonialism) for creating the conditions that had no choice but to produce these rapists.
In short, in their view, these men are as much if not bigger victims than the women they violated.
They have no agency, no power, no responsibility.
They're simply not the “right” kind of rapists.
And, the women they raped are not the “right” kind of survivors.
More and more it seems to me that for a woman's story of rape to be believed and validated, her account has to fit the narrative of oppressor vs. oppressed, with her clearly being the one with less power in the eyes of the world.
Viewed through this lens, we can understand why feminists groups aren’t speaking up for Israeli women. We can also understand why the United Nations has yet to condemn Hamas for using rape as an act of war.
As I write this, I wonder, what if one of those rape survivors was an American college student? What if she came home to the United States and sought guidance from her school's sexual assault and counseling center? What if she was told that the center “wasn't comfortable” supporting her because of the “context” in which her rape occurred?
I wish I could say this is too outrageous to imagine, but I have given up on expecting common sense to prevail.
For the sake of those whose lives were utterly destroyed (and in some cases ended permanently) through the sexual violence committed by Hamas, I express my deepest sadness, anger, disbelief and apologies.
I am sorry the world decided you didn't matter.