The dilemma My daughter was raped in her late teens. During the trial the man was found not guilty, despite so much evidence pointing to the fact that he did it. She also had a brutal experience at the hands of the defence lawyer. Now I feel there’s a widening gap between us that’s got worse over the past months. We’ve always been very close, but she seems to be gravitating towards her stepfather. Since the trial ended, I feel she’s keeping me at arm’s length. I don’t know what to say to her, how to be around her or how to support her while managing my grief and rage. Because of the horrific nature of the trial, I’m consumed with shining a light on what happened to her and have been surfing the net for hours to see what I can do. I’m struggling to get through each day and wish she’d stay nearby so that, as a family, we can try to get through this. She just wants to go out and see her friends. I’m really struggling. I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Mariella replies No wonder. I am so sorry to hear about your daughter’s experience – and your determination to shine a light on what she’s been through is both understandable and admirable. On the other hand, she may be trying to move from being a survivor to a “thriver”, and this is no time to be dictating how her recovery should best progress. Your daughter may not want the responsibility of her traumatised family at the moment and she may need a respite from managing her feelings. Her friends probably form a sort of liberation and even her stepfather may be detached enough to offer her escape, however briefly, from her trauma. That you are consumed by grief and rage only pinpoints how terrible this ordeal has been for your daughter.
Before I get personal, let’s talk about drawing attention to the bigger picture as that seems a good place for you to be investing your energy. Your letter couldn’t be more enraging in its confirmation of how rarely justice is served when it comes to this heinous and devastating crime. The most recent statistics only highlight the fact that despite vocal campaigns over the past two years, not least the world’s most renowned hashtag, little progress is being made where it most counts, in terms of justice and support for the survivors of sex crimes and abuse.
It’s all very well having the ability to call out predators, but if we remain powerless in creating consequences for such behaviour, what is actually being achieved? Over the past five years in the UK there has been a steady and continuing decline in rape cases leading to prosecution. Superficially, it may seem that we are finally becoming a survivor-supporting society where a woman’s right to say no is not open to discussion, but scratch that veneer and it’s misogyny as usual in so many situations.
We need change, but demanding it doesn’t always produce results and I’m worried we’ve veered off course. I’m witnessing a return to the adversarial, angry stance favoured by my mother’s generation of feminists. While there are plenty of reasons for rage, recognising that all the greatest social movements have achieved success by encouraging support and dialogue rather than demanding that others toe a newly created line is an important consideration. I’m glad you’re adding your voice to the chorus.
We are more diligent in how we describe the myriad ways of being human, how open we are to gender fluidity, how angry we get about inappropriate advertising, but equal pay remains an unrealised ambition and our children’s rapists are all too often roaming free. Indeed, in one recent report in this paper it said that a third of rape prosecutions against men aged 18-24 failed to result in conviction because juries were reluctant to criminalise young men at the beginning of their adult lives!
It would appear that sympathy among the wider public for survivors whose lives are destroyed by rape is a lesser consideration than the future of its perpetrators and that marks a failure in the approach of all of us who see ourselves as campaigners.
Having spoken to victims and learned how, for many, the experience marks the end of one life and the beginning of another, unhappy one, it’s a crime that deserves extreme punishment. Your daughter has been through a terrible ordeal. I think you could both do with counselling, your daughter as she seems intent on trying to escape her experience rather than come to terms with it, and you because you remain mired in it (contact Rape Crisis on 0808 802 9999 or Victim Support on 0808 168 9111).
Don’t make this present moment a battle for your daughter’s attention, or beat yourself up about where she turns for support. I’ve no doubt she’ll come to you when you least expect it. In the meantime, perhaps she needs to let go with her friends for some cathartic socialising. Far better that you prepare for when she crashes rather than dictate the terms on which she attempts to work her way though this experience. My heart breaks for you both. Like you, I remain furious that this remains the situation for far too many women.
If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1
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