CLOTHING DOESN’T CONSTITUTE CONSENT
How Victim Blaming Affects Survivors of Sexual Assault
BY TATE RAUB ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA MCADAMS
Editor’s note: This article discusses sexual violence.
Three of the sources mentioned in this article, Meredith, Jane, and Jenna, are survivors of sexual violence and are using pseudonyms to protect their identity.
What were you wearing?
When survivors of sexual violence share their stories, this is a common response they receive.
Why did you drink so much? Why did you go home with them? Why didn’t you fight back?
Inquiring about a survivor's clothing—-or asking any of the other prying questions—after they’ve experienced something traumatic is a major reason why survivors don’t report their assault, according to the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, or SACE.
Jane, an Ohio University student who is remaining anonymous, was sexually assaulted during her junior year of high school. Being young for her grade and 15 years old at the time of the assault, she said she didn’t realize what had happened until she talked to her best friend about it, which prompted her to talk to law enforcement.
“When I was talking to an officer, he asked me what kind of clothes I was wearing,” Jane said. “But at that time I was just wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt…it [didn’t] make any sense.”
This diversion of blame and disbelief in response to a survivor’s story is known as victim blaming, which SACE defines as, “someone saying, implying, or treating a person who has experienced harmful or abusive behavior (such as a survivor of sexual violence) like it was a result of something they did or said, instead of placing the responsibility where it belongs: on the person who harmed them.”
Many survivors never tell anyone they were assaulted, but those who disclose their story to someone may wait to do so for a variety of reasons, according to the Jackson Health System. This includes feelings of shame, fear of not being believed, feelings of uncertainty, guilt, and avoidance. Victim blaming can introduce or amplify these feelings.
Taylor Ebert and Kaitlyn Urbaniak, Ohio U graduates and full-time advocates with Ohio U’s Survivor Advocacy Program, or SAP, are constantly at the helm of an effort to encourage more students to be involved in discussions about sexual violence.
“Society has tried to tell survivors it was their choices, their actions that they made that lead to these actions,” Urbaniak said. “Instances of sexual violence occur because someone wants to exert power and control over another…survivors are not responsible for these instances happening and we shouldn’t be making excuses for other people’s behavior.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, reports one in four women and one in 26 men are survivors of sexual violence. One in three women and one in nine men report being sexually harassed in public.
In May 2013, Jen Brockman and Dr. Mary Wyandt-Hiebert of the University of Arkansas attended a conference held by the Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault, at which they read Dr. Mary Simmerling’s poem, “What I was wearing.” Brockman and Wyandt-Hiebert were so moved by the poem that, by June 2013, the pair had conceptualized the very first exhibition of “What Were You Wearing?” It was displayed in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month the following April.
In the months leading up to the opening of the installation, Brockman and Wyandt-Hiebert conducted personal interviews with student survivors at the University of Arkansas who volunteered to share descriptions of the outfits they had on when they were assaulted. The outfits were then recreated with clothes donated to the installation by the university’s local Peace At Home Thrift Store in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Presented by Ohio U’s Women’s Center, Housing and Residence Life, Counseling and Psychological Services, and Office of Health Promotion, “What Were You Wearing?” was displayed on campus for a second time on November 16. It was previously on display in the Trisolini Gallery in Baker University Center in 2018.
This time, Ebert and Urbaniak decided the exhibit should be outdoors. From 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., the outfits displayed were hung on clotheslines in Paw Print Park behind Nelson Commons.
In typical Ohio fashion, what would have normally been a cold November day was full of warm sunshine and a light breeze that moved through the outfits, each one asking those walking by to hear its story.
“I probably read those descriptions and looked at those outfits five times each,” Ebert said. “Seeing it displayed in a place where students walk through and seeing these are normal clothes these people are wearing to class…was really empowering but also very emotional.”
To prepare for the exhibit, Ebert and Urbaniak went through each survivor’s story and corresponding pieces of clothing to make sure everything was accounted for, especially the outfits directly provided by survivors. Many of the outfits are recreations of what survivors described in their stories, but some survivors donated their exact outfits to the gallery.
Montanna Buck, a freshman studying business strategic leadership and management at Ohio U, said walking through the exhibit could be eye-opening to anyone who has been a perpetrator of victim blaming, especially when it comes to clothes. Buck also said all of the clothes displayed were very casual, but even in situations where a survivor was wearing more revealing clothing, it is still not their fault.
“[Survivors] know exactly what they were wearing—the color of things, what they did afterward,” Buck said. “They never forget those things, so just be supportive of them no matter when it happened or what happened.”
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, or RAINN, women between the ages of 18 and 24 are more likely to experience sexual violence. In fact, female college students between the ages of 18 and 24 are three times more likely to experience sexual violence. Male college students between the ages of 18 and 24 are 78% more likely than non-students to experience sexual violence.
The CDC reports that, among female survivors, more than four in five report being assaulted before they turn 25; nearly eight in 10 male survivors report the same. Between 2018 and 2020, Ohio U reported a total of 122 incidents of sexual violence and 34 offenses of stalking.
Many survivors who experience sexual violence between the ages of 12 and 18 spend years processing their trauma, taking time into their college or college-aged years to heal.
Approximately 30% of cases of sexual violence are reported to the police according to RAINN. As a result, additional statistics collected based on reported cases are believed to be low due to how many go unreported.
Meredith, an Ohio U student who is also remaining anonymous, was sexually assaulted her senior year of high school two days before prom. She was assaulted by the person who was supposed to be her date to the dance.
“It was one of those things where I didn’t know how to tell people,” Meredith said. “I went to a Catholic high school and I felt like it was my fault…There was a lot of victim blaming going on.”
Meredith said the people around her started noticing that something was wrong after the assault. Some people approached her to ask if or what happened, but she kept everything to herself for a long time from many people she knew. However, she said a lot of people put the pieces together after she didn’t go to prom. Though she did not go to the same high school as her assaulter, she said they had a lot of mutual friends and acquaintances.
Like many other survivors, Meredith was questioned about what she was wearing prior to the assault.
“One of my relatives said something like, ‘Was your skirt too short?’” Meredith said. “I was in my school uniform. I had just gotten home from school…I was wearing a polo shirt [and] a plaid skirt.”
As people learned about what happened, Meredith said a lot of people wouldn’t let her be alone if her assaulter was in the same vicinity as her. She said her friends were amazingly supportive and did all of the things one should do when supporting a survivor.
Meredith said her best friend’s parents were especially helpful. They let her know they were always around to talk about it if she wanted to, asked if she needed help with reporting the assault if she chose to, and provided her with survivor resources.
Survivors of sexual violence differ in personal experiences. For Jane, she said the actual reporting of her assault was a negative experience.
Throughout the process, she said she mostly spoke to one detective, but it felt like the police were listening to her because they were following protocol—not because they believed her.
Shortly after Jane reported her assault, her assaulter was arrested for sexual violence against someone else.
“It actually made me really mad because it showed me right there that [the police] didn’t trust me,” Jane said. “I just felt like they were letting this person go and letting this happen to other females as well.”
Moving forward, Jane hopes schools implement more sex education into their curriculum so people are more aware of what sexual violence is and discourage it from an earlier age. She said because of how young she was and because sex education was not taught at her school, simply knowing more about what sexual assault is could have caused her story to be a lot different.
RAINN also reports 21% of TGQN— transgender, genderqueer, and nonconforming—college students are survivors of sexual violence. LGBTQ+ college students are significantly more likely to experience sexual violence than their heterosexual and cisgender peers, according to the American Psychological Association.
Jenna, an Ohio U student whose identity is being protected, was a 14-year-old freshman in high school when she was repeatedly assaulted by her girlfriend at the time.
Prior to the assault, Jenna said her ex-girlfriend would frequently touch her without her consent. The pair did theater together, and one particular day left Jenna especially frustrated while they were working together.
“I was so f---ing upset with her I hit her, and I immediately regretted it,” Jenna said. “I was apologizing so profusely and nothing would fix it. I understood that, and I understood I had broken her trust and there wasn’t anything I could do about that. But after that, things were never really the same.”
Jenna said she and her ex-girlfriend would regularly sleep over at each other’s houses. This was where the assaults began.
“That went on for about four or five months and I thought I deserved every second of it,” Jenna said. “I couldn’t do anything. No amount of saying no, no amount of saying stop…I’ve been in therapy now for five years, and I can confidently say I have gotten over pretty much all of it, but that doesn’t make it any less hard.”
Neither Jenna’s parents nor her ex-girlfriend’s parents knew they were together. As a result, Jenna felt she could not tell her parents about the assault for fear of getting both herself and her ex-girlfriend in trouble. To this day, Jenna has not told any of her family members what happened.
Jenna said she did not experience victim blaming by other people, but her internal blame led her to wear a hoodie and leggings every day so she would not draw attention to herself.
It’s important to not view survivors of sexual violence as victims, but rather let them know you are there to talk about what they went through with patience and to whatever extent they feel most comfortable with, Jenna said.
“Almost every survivor we’ve ever worked with has some sort of feeling of self-blame and guilt and shame,” Ebert said. “That’s a large thing they have to work through regardless of what they were wearing or what they were doing at the time of the incident.”
Ebert and Urbaniak both said it’s important to let survivors know there is someone ready to support them and to never ask questions like, “What were you wearing?” Questions and statements that lead to victim blaming survivors worsen the internal guilt they are already experiencing. Simply telling a survivor you believe their story and that what they went through was not their fault is the best way to go.
“One person telling them it wasn’t their fault—they’ll remember that,” Ebert said.
If you or someone you know is a survivor of sexual violence, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673, go to https://www.nsvrc.org/survivors, or refer to Ohio University’s Survivor Advocacy Program at https://www.ohio.edu/survivor.
