The System Didn’t Give Me Justice After My Assault. I Did That Myself.
For sexual assault survivors, our ability to heal and “seek justice” is often entirely tied to the legal and carceral systems. People tell us to come forward, report what happened, and face off against our attackers in court. Time and time again, survivors come forward in civil and criminal courtrooms and are torn apart, manipulated, and outmaneuvered by attorneys who specialize in destroying victims on the stand. We are told that if we endure this, we will find justice.
But the status quo is not justice. Our institutional systems of “justice” for survivors are frequently ineffective at best and actively re-entrench rape culture at worst. The status quo does not protect survivors, create lasting and sustainable accountability or change in predatory situations, or rehabilitate and restore those who perpetuate harm.
Let’s start with the fact that it is incredibly difficult to get someone convicted of sexual assault or have someone found civilly liable for assault. Less than 1% of assaults will lead to a conviction, yet over half of women and almost one in three men have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact. Just because something is true does not mean you can prove it in court, particularly in the American justice system. A lack of conviction or charges being pressed doesn’t necessarily mean that the person who was accused didn’t commit the act. Our legal system is full of institutional racism, transphobia, and rape culture. As such, it is an unreliable narrator of the truth, especially when it comes to sexual violence. We regularly sentence people to decades in prison for crimes they did not commit or after shaky arrest tactics. We also regularly let rapists walk free.
The system can be — and is — weaponized against those who come forward. Survivors who do not neatly fit into the white supremacist, cishet Madonna-Whore paradigm of survivors are frequently demonized in their communities and in courtrooms. Survivors end up being harassed by the very legal system that we tell them will protect them, whether by being hit with unjust defamation lawsuits or targeted by the police officers they reported to.
The system is also weaponized against complexity, favoring only archaic rape culture myths about how survivors behave or how they don’t instead of relying on contemporary neurobiological readings of trauma. We know that it takes abuse survivors an average of seven tries to leave an abusive relationship due to a myriad of factors, including “fawn” trauma responses and socioeconomic pressure. It’s a common, well-documented phenomenon, but all too often, that nuance is shoved aside in court. Well, if you really were abused, why would you go back?
Sometimes, engaging in the legal system is more of a favorable option than other times. But the legal system isn’t the default for “getting justice” for survivors, and I’m so tired of seeing our society posit it that way.
I’ve been through the civil legal system in several #MeToo cases — twice in political employment law and once in a Title IX case. I dropped out of one case, and two ended in settlements. But when I think about the damage it caused me psychologically, I doubt it was worth it. Did anything in those cases change how things are done? Or, worse, was the existence of my lawsuit and its eventual end something that could be further weaponized? Hey, it’s done now, we settled and didn’t admit guilt, we’re moving on. It grants legitimacy to the slap in the face that these institutions so frequently serve to survivors after litigation.
When I think about the justice I’ve gotten, I don’t think of the civil cases or the settlements. I think of the organizing victories that happened adjacent to or after the legal cases. I think of dropping out of a lawsuit to expose anti-survivor behavior and getting a law firm specializing in defending accused sexual predators removed from my employer’s cases. I think of how I got messages from students, coaches, student reps, and fellow survivors after speaking out and writing the whole truth — the kind of truth that is often weaponized against survivors in court. I think of the survivors I’ve met, the stories we’ve shared, and the transformational validation of that. I think of the policy changes created when I chose to do things “outside the system,” which really just meant telling the truth publicly. But I approached it as an organizer, an activist, not a plaintiff. And that made a huge difference.
When I think about the times I’ve reported, I not only don’t think of justice: I think of active harm done to me for my trouble. I think of the time that a police officer threatened to have me arrested and sent to juvenile hall for the night when I was sitting in a hospital bed with bloody underwear. These are not unique anecdotes. Survivors are harassed by police, investigators, and lawyers. Many of these interactions happen in back-room settings, a tactic that certainly seems to enable people to get away with doing bad shit to survivors and not having to publicly account for it.
Survivors are tasked with making an impossible choice. We have to choose something so consequential in a system of bad options. It is an imminent and pressing question for us to develop alternative ways of seeking “justice” and fundamentally reshaping our cultural discussions about it.
Instead of constantly telling survivors that they need to report to get justice, let us frame our conversations about what survivors want. For any survivor reflecting on coming forward with their story, there is only one question that matters: What do you want? Do you want your abuser removed from their position of power? Do you want an investigation at your job site? Do you want a restorative justice firm to propose solutions? Or do you want to go the civil or criminal route?
There is no wrong option besides the option that a survivor doesn’t want. For the sake of the survivors who engage in the system, we should learn to organize together, connect survivors to trained advocates who can go through the process with them, and pressure organizations to ensure they take accountability seriously. We should fight against policies like the cruel and unjust provisions in over a dozen states requiring rape victims to prove themselves worthy by reporting their assault to the police to get an abortion. I dream of a world where, in the interim, survivors at least know that if they engage in the system, they won’t be doing so alone, but with the support of their community behind them.
The system didn’t give me justice after my assault. I did that myself. The system hasn’t changed or rehabilitated perpetrators, prevented violence, or given us the solutions we need to dismantle rape culture. For that, we’ll have to look beyond the system instead. There’s so much work to be done, and it’s far from an immediate process. But what we can do immediately is stop pretending that this system works and start creating alternative pathways to justice in our communities.
