Journalists keep having the girls explain why they didn't tell anybody when the answer is kind of obvious before they say one word:
They were children and
they didn't know what was happening to them.
continued from
LARRY NASSAR IS THE SECOND COMING
OF JERRY SANDUSKY AND MORE WILL FOLLOW
The girls want to explain. I can see them straining to explain. I can imagine how strong the impulse is explain to tell people that it wasn't their own fault when that's not even close to necessary.
Unfortunately, I endured a brief sexual assault myself at the hands of a group of boys 2 to 5 years older than me when I was 12 or so years old. So I the feelings of guilt and shame because I felt them myself in response to an incident that was much, much shorter in duration - microscopic in comparison.
But hearing these girls explain makes me cringe. And allowing them to do so without the proper context makes me worry for the girls listening.
I keep wondering if we, the public, aren't encouraging girls to think they actually have something to explain when they don't. They were children sexually assaulted by an adult and other adults didn't take care of them regardless of what they reported or didn't report.
According to the victim statements I heard yesterday these girls had trembling, stomach problems, nightmares, and things that sound like PTSD symptoms that any adult around them before or after Nassar's "treatments" should have been able to see.
Some of the mothers were actually in the room when Nassar assaulted their daughters. Nassar positioned his body between the girl and her mother when he slipped his hands down her underwear or shorts, but the actual violation wasn't the only thing there was to see.
Researchers say children seldom report sexual assault by an adult. And I'll take that at face value. But out of Nassar's hundreds, possibly thousands of victims the small fraction of child victims that usually report abuse should have been a significant number.
Now we know that a number of the girls did indeed tell adults at USA Gymnastics, the University Of Michigan, and their parents.
Young women reported Larry Nassar for decades. No one took them seriously — until now.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/25/16928994/larry-nassar-mckayla-maroney-gymnastics-me-too
That headline is not correct. Little girls reported Larry Nassar for decades.
Furthermore, this matter overlaps #MeToo but it is not precisely #MeToo. Furthermore, I resent the #BelieveWomen aspect of this white female version of protest. The people that protected men that sexually assaulted women DIDN'T CARE about the sexual assault and mis-named sexual harassment. Belief was not the issue.
Belief isn't an issue here, with these girls either. But ignoring these girls needs to be approached as adults ignoring child abuse.
When a television journalist finally got around to asking the parents about what happened when they re-reported what their daughters told them to USA Gymnastics or the University Of Michigan, the journalists didn't ask the parents the obvious next question:
Why didn't you go to the police when you weren't satisfied with Nassar's explanation of why he was penetrating your daughter with his fingers?
Furthermore, it's unclear if parents did go to the police and police turned them away because children (especially girls) are considered poor witnesses.
But because the language is so careful around sexual assault of children is humiliating for victims and shaming for parents, journalists are doing an exceptionally poor job of making it clear the exact details some of the complaining parents knew.
But "knowing" all the details of abuse is not necessary to know when it's time to pull your child out of harm's way.
If a child calls a parent panicked and crying -- as did happen in multiple cases with these gymnasts-- and says that she wants to come home from a training camp, maybe that shouldn't be ignored as girls being "emotional?" or "undisciplined?" or not understanding "no pain/no gain" part of becoming a professional athlete when you're as young as 8 years old.
In my mind, it seems to me that sexism and gender stereotypes almost had to have played a role in parents being able to ignore their girl child's anguish.
American values probably played a role too but we'll talk about that later.
Furthermore, it is one thing for a child to not understand that sexual assault* is happening to them.
It is another thing entirely for an adult, a parent, to not understand when their child describes a sexual assault* and doesn't call the police. I'm pretty sure that's what more than one of the mother's was trying to say on a television news special that aired the day Nassar was sentenced..
Again, it's not clear as to exactly what some of the parents knew
even when their girl child told them Nassar was touching them in a way that made them feel bad...long before Rachel Denhollander grew into adulthood and went to the police herself. But it's still time to change the laws so that an adult's failure to call the police when a child is being sexually assaulted is a crime.
Yes, some of the officials at USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University should be at risk for being arrested. But some of the parents should at least be interrogated at length.
It's time to stop treating parents like co-victims when they are supposed to be a child's first line of defense.
It is another thing entirely for an adult, a parent, to not understand when their child describes a sexual assault* and doesn't call the police. I'm pretty sure that's what more than one of the mother's was trying to say on a television news special that aired the day Nassar was sentenced..
Again, it's not clear as to exactly what some of the parents knew
Yes, some of the officials at USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University should be at risk for being arrested. But some of the parents should at least be interrogated at length.
It's time to stop treating parents like co-victims when they are supposed to be a child's first line of defense.
As a survivor of abuse and neglect, I'm very cognizant of the potential of an interrogation of a parent making a child feel re-victimized. And I worry about what a police investigation might do to a child psychologically. But I am at the point where I believe parents cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of their child when the children and parents have certain goals in mind, have certain things they are afraid of losing
-- like a spot in a prestigious gym and a chance to be on an Olympic team.
I'm not saying police and lawyers should be allowed to force a child's testimony in court etc. Maybe the child doesn't even have to be involved in the reporting of the crime itself. But parents should be forced, by law, to at least report a sexual assault or face jail time --even if they refuse to let their child talk to anyone directly for fear of psychological damage.
All of the adults who potentially knew and did not call the police should be interrogated in cases like this. I do not care how bad some of the parents feel already. We need to stop treating parents like co-victims or the Larry Nassars and Jerry Sanduskys are going to keep on coming.
As many stories as I've read on Jerry Sandusky, I never could figure out if the boys had parents or if they were orphans at a shelter or what any parents might have known when.
As much as I read about Sandusky at the time, I should have a very clear picture of what their parents did or didn't do. I suspect I don't because the same thing that is happening this time happened last time.
The parents are being treated like co-victims instead of thoroughly investigated. Even if they made understandable "mistakes" we all need to know what those mistakes were so they aren't repeated
...like they've been repeated already.
I don't care how bad the parents feel. I don't care if might have failed in the same way if I'd been the parent of one of Larry Nassar's victims or Jerry Sandusky's victims. We need to figure out how hundreds possibly even thousands of parents failed to protect their children from A SINGLE PREDATOR.
As many stories as I've read on Jerry Sandusky, I never could figure out if the boys had parents or if they were orphans at a shelter or what any parents might have known when.
As much as I read about Sandusky at the time, I should have a very clear picture of what their parents did or didn't do. I suspect I don't because the same thing that is happening this time happened last time.
The parents are being treated like co-victims instead of thoroughly investigated. Even if they made understandable "mistakes" we all need to know what those mistakes were so they aren't repeated
...like they've been repeated already.
I don't care how bad the parents feel. I don't care if might have failed in the same way if I'd been the parent of one of Larry Nassar's victims or Jerry Sandusky's victims. We need to figure out how hundreds possibly even thousands of parents failed to protect their children from A SINGLE PREDATOR.
Child predators are always going to be with us. But we can reduce the number of victims per year by hundreds possibly thousands if we start demanding that ALL OF THE ADULTS charged with children's protection answer for obvious failures.
That said, even though I think parents need to be interrogated as if they may have done something wrong, in all honesty, I think gobbling down American values is mostly what's wrong with American parenting in this case.
That said, even though I think parents need to be interrogated as if they may have done something wrong, in all honesty, I think gobbling down American values is mostly what's wrong with American parenting in this case.
Even so, I'm not going for the "parents were groomed too" excuse even though I believe this to be partially or even mostly true. The parents of these girls should feel guilty and ask their children for forgiveness and make their girls understand they DID do something that requires forgiveness so these girls don't find parallel ways to neglect their own children that only look different.
It appears that a lot of the victims's fathers might not be going for the "Nassar groomed the parents" explanation given by the judge in this case either. That's probably why we've pretty much only seen mothers with survivors talking about now they were tricked by Larry Nassar once they knew what Nassar was doing to their children.
It appears that a lot of the victims's fathers might not be going for the "Nassar groomed the parents" explanation given by the judge in this case either. That's probably why we've pretty much only seen mothers with survivors talking about now they were tricked by Larry Nassar once they knew what Nassar was doing to their children.
Gender roles being what they are, I'm guessing the fathers know they abdicated their responsibilities in protecting their girl children... in ways the mothers and the female judge don't seem to on the surface.
The vast majority of Larry Nassar's victims, just like Jerry Sandusky's, were entirely preventable. Every single adult that knew what Nassar was doing and never called the police directly should be considered an accessory to his crimes.
We need to change the laws to make this a reality.
To do that, we need journalists to stop trying to morph this into a #MeToo empowerment story for women. The Larry Nassar Story is about sexual child abuse and the adults that failed them.
UP NEXT: The parents that REALLY DID NOT know that Larry Nassar was sexually abusing their girl children but DID KNOW that their girls were begging them to come home.
*= I'm trying to redefine sexual assault on this blog as "unwanted sexual touching" because women need to change definitions so we can change laws and put more people in prison for what we've been misnaming "male misbehavior" and "boys behaving badly" and "sexual harassment" and "sexual abuse"---all words I heard used to describe men touching women on the front side of the Harvey Weinstein Scandal
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