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Rape
- Temple University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
SUSAN ESTRICH I. Introduction ELEVEN YEARS AGO, a man held an ice pick to my throat and said: "Push over, shut up, or I'll kill you." I did what he said, but I couldn't stop crying. A hundred years later, I jumped out of my car as he drove away. I ended up in the back seat of a police car. I told the two officers I had been raped by a man who came up to the car door as I was getting out in my own parking lot (and trying to balance two bags of groceries and kick the car door open). He took the car, too. They asked me if he was a crow. That was their first question. A crow, I learned that day, meant to them someone who is black. They asked me if I knew him. That was their second question. They believed me when I said I didn't. Because, as one of them put it, how would a nice (white) girl like me know a crow? Now they were on my side. They asked me ifhe took any money. He did; but while I remember virtually every detail of that day and night, I can't remember how much. But I remember their answer. He did take money; that made it an armed robbery. Much better than a rape. They got right on the radio with that. We went to the police station first, not the hospital, so I could repeat my story (and then what did he do?) to four more policemen. When we got there, I borrowed a dime to call my father. They all liked that. By the time we went to the hospital, they were really on my team. I could've been one of their kids. Now there was something they'd better tell me. Did I realize what prosecuting a rape complaint was all about? They tried to tell me that "the law" was against me. But they didn't explain exactly how. And I didn't understand why. I believed in "the law," not knowing what it was. Late that night, I sat in the Police Headquarters looking at mug shots. I was the one who insisted on going back that night. My memory was fresh. I was ready. They had Reprinted by permission of the Yale LawJournal Company and Fred B. Rothman & Company from The Yale LawJournal, Vol. 95. pp. 1087-1184. Copyrighted Material 43 I 432 I SUSAN ESTRICH four or five to "really show" me; being "really shown" a mug shot means exactly what defense attorneys are afraid it means. But it wasn't anyone of them. Mter that, they couldn't help me very much. One shot looked close until my father realized that the man had been the right age ten years before. It was late. I didn't have a great description of identifYing marks, or the like: No one had ever told me that ifyou're raped, you should not shut your eyes and cry for fear that this really is happening. You should keep your eyes open focusing on this man who is raping you so you can identify him when you survive. Mter an hour oflooking, I left the police station. They told me they'd be back in touch. They weren't. A clerk called me one day to tell me that my car had been found minus tires and I should come sign a release and have it towed-no small matter ifyou don't have a car to get there and are slightly afraid ofyour shadow. The women from the rape crisis center called me every day, then every other day, then every week. The police detectives never called at all. I learned, much later, that I had "really" been raped. Unlike, say, the woman who claimed she'd been raped by a man she actually knew, and was with voluntarily. Unlike , say, women who are "asking for it," and get what they deserve. I would listen as seemingly intelligent people explained these distinctions to me, and marvel; later I read about them in books, court opinions, and empirical studies. It is bad enough to be a "real" rape victim. How terrible to be-what to call it-a "not real" rape victim. Even the real rape victim must bear the heavy weight of the silence that surrounds this crime. At first, it is something you simply don't talk about...