I don't know Jane doe

‎I don't know Jane Doe.‎‎I've never met her. I don't know what she sounds like when she's afraid or what she looks like when she cries. ‎‎But somehow, reading about her case has left me angry.‎‎Not the loud kind of anger that makes you want to break something. The quieter kind. The kind that sits heavily in your chest because you keep thinking about how someone's body could become a place where other people decided they were entitled to do whatever they wanted.‎‎And maybe that's the part I can't get past.‎‎The thought of being unable to protect yourself.‎The thought of waking up and having to piece together what happened to you. Of having to tell strangers what was done to you. Of having people dissect your words, your memory, your behaviour, your decisions as though you are the one who has to prove that what happened to your body mattered.‎‎And I keep thinking about how easy it is for people to reduce cases like this to arguments.‎‎‎why was She was drunk?‎Why did she go there?‎Why didn't she leave?‎Why didn't she remember everything?‎‎Okay, why didn't they help when they saw her drunk or better still leave her ?‎Why did they give her ketamine?‎Why did they think to touch her?‎Why did they touch her?‎Why did they rape her? ‎‎But somewhere underneath all those questions is a person.‎A person that something terrible happened to. ‎‎There were fifty seven of them.‎Seven of them raped her. Seven!For seven hours! ‎And their punishment was to write essays. Wow The other fifty are also rapists they just didn't get the chance to rape her, because they probably will if they were there.‎‎ ‎It makes me angry.‎‎It makes me angry that anyone could look at another human being who is vulnerable, unconscious, incapacitated, or unable to consent and see an opportunity instead of a person.‎‎Many people don't believe Jane. It makes me angry that sexual violence can become a debate before the person who says they were violated is even allowed to simply be hurt.‎‎And perhaps what hurts most is knowing that no matter what happens in court, she has already had to live with the fact that this happened to her ‎‎‎I don't have a perfect conclusion.‎I've just been ranting ‎‎I just know that I wish she had been safe.‎I wish she never had to tell this story.‎And I wish we lived in a world where the first instinct when someone says she was raped is not to think she's probably lying. ‎I wish we lived in a world where nobody has to experience something like this

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