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Audrie and Daisy: Let’s talk about rape and the pursuit of justice

By Ann Varner

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5278460/

Audrie and Daisy is a documentary that aired on Netflix. The film examines the ripple effects on families, friends, schools and communities when two underage women find that sexual assault crimes against them have been caught on camera.  Both Audrie and Daisy tried to get justice. Both of them were slut shamed and had backlash so badly that one of the girls, Audrie, committed suicide. Daisy went to the police, and the rapist was arrested and charged.

Suddenly, he was set free. The prosecutor decided that there just “wasn’t enough evidence”. Daisy and her family suffered severe backlash because of it, to the point that they had to move after members of the town burned their house down. When Audrie was sexually assaulted, the boys took a picture of her. That picture was sent around the school and posted on social media. Instead of her peers noticing that something was wrong with the picture, she was called many slut-related names as she tried to find out who had taken the picture. The bullying was so bad she committed suicide only a week later.

Rapes are underreported crimes due to this rape culture and slut shaming. Victims of rape are so scared of the retaliation that could happen that they would rather not seek justice so they don’t end up like Audrie or Daisy. The biggest misconception is the notion that women are raped because of something they did, like wearing jeans too tight, getting drunk at a party, and so on. I wrote about this in my last blog about our upcoming denim day.

Daisy will be coming to UMKC for a discussion panel on Thursday, April 27th at 6:00pm in the Student Union Theater. I encourage anyone and everyone to come and hear her speak and ask questions. The only way to end this cycle of rape culture and shaming is to talk about these issues.