Brock Turner rape victim named one of Glamour’s women of the year, pens powerful new essay
THE VICTIM in the Brock Turner rape case has been named as one of Glamour‘s women of the year, and to mark the occassion she has penned a powerful essay for the December issue of the magazine.
The 23-year-old female, who wishes to remain anonymous but was identified as “Emily Doe” in the magazine, was praised for her powerful court statement that ignited a global outcry against rape culture.
“Her voice literally went around the world,” said Cindi Leive, Glamour’s editor-in-chief.
“Her words and the eloquence of her writing really made everybody stop in their tracks and pay attention.
“Emily Doe’s courageous statement was one of the year’s most remarkable events for women — for anybody, really, who cares about justice and the experience of sexual assault survivors,” Leive told The Mercury News.
“She changed how America sees this experience.’’
Former Stanford University athlete Turner was convicted of attacking the woman while she was passed out near a dumpster on campus in January 2015.
The attack was stopped by two students cycling past, who tackled Turner and pinned him down until police arrived and arrested him.
The victim’s impact statement was credited with prompting new state laws in California where the incident occurred, and launched a recall movement against the sentencing judge Aaron Persky.
In her essay, Doe has written about the despair she felt about Turner’s six-month sentence (which allowed Turner to be released after three months).
“After the trial I was relieved thinking the hardest part was over, and all that was left was the sentencing,” she wrote.
“I was excited to finally be given a chance to read my statement and declare, I am here. I am not that floppy thing you found behind the garbage,” she wrote.
“I yelled half of my statement. So when it was quickly announced that he’d be receiving six months, I was struck silent. Immediately I felt embarrassed for trying, for being led to believe I had any influence. The violation of my body and my being added up to a few months out of his summer.
“The judge would release him back to his life, back to the 40 people who had written him letters from Ohio. I began to panic; I thought, this can’t be the best case ¬ scenario. If this case was meant to set the bar, the bar had been set on the floor.”
She also announced her support for Persky’s recall in November 2017.
“When Judge Aaron Persky mutes the word justice, when Brock Turner serves one month for every felony, then we go nowhere,’’ she wrote in a one-page piece. “When we all make it a priority to avoid harming or violating another human being, and when we hold accountable those who do, when the campaign to recall this judge declares that survivors deserve better, then we are going somewhere.’’
She also expressed her gratitude for the support she had received from people around the globe.
“I started getting e-mails forwarded to me from Botswana to Ireland to India. I received watercolour paintings of lighthouses and bicycle earrings. A woman who plucked a picture of her young daughter from the inside of her cubicle wrote, This is who you’re saving,” Doe wrote.
“When I received an e-mail that Joe Biden had written me a letter I was sitting in my pyjamas eating some cantaloupe. You are a warrior. I looked around my room, who is he talking to. You have a steel spine, I touched my spine. I printed his letter out and ran around the house flapping it in the air.”
But unfortunately, Doe said she also received several scathing comments from internet trolls.
“Some photos of me leaked and someone said, ‘She’s not pretty enough to have been raped.’ In response I say, damn I wish the world could see me. I wish you could see my big, beautiful head and huge eyes. Perhaps now you are at home imagining me looking like some sort of bloated owl. That’s all right.”
Glamour’s past women of the year honorees helped select Doe and 10 other 2016 women of the year. The women include Olympic gymnast Simone Biles; Black Lives Matter founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi; International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde; model and body activist Ashley Graham; human rights activist Nadia Murad; fashion designer Miuccia Prada; singer and fashion designer Gwen Stefani; and actor and activist Zendaya.
Stanford University Sexual Assault Case Prompts Backlash3:33
Stanford University is caught in an uproar following what some students and faculty consider a too-lenient sentence for Brock Turner, a former student who was convicted of sexual assault. WSJ's Melissa Korn discusses with Tanya Rivero. Photo: AP
Originally published as ‘Not that floppy thing behind the garbage’