The shame that shouldn’t be

If a person were to be shot or stabbed, they should not have to feel ashamed of saying so. There should be outrage, sympathy, and a demand for justice. They should not have to defend what they were wearing or why they were in that particular place at that particular time. The burden should be on the perpetrator, not the victim.

But when it comes to sexual assault, a different set of rules too often applies. A survivor may hesitate, struggle, and sometimes never speak of what happened. They may bury the trauma deep inside, weighed down by an overwhelming sense of shame. Not shame for the attacker – for the one who violated their body and humanity – but shame for themselves. As though they had invited the violence. As though they had been complicit in their own suffering.

Why is this? Why is it that we, as a society, recognise the physical violence of a gunshot wound or a stab wound, but when the violence is inflicted through coercion, force, or manipulation of a different kind, we question the victim? The wounds can still be there. Sometimes unseen, but no less real. The pain can linger, the damage can reverberate through every aspect of a survivor’s life, yet too often they are made to feel they should be silent.

We should not ask a shooting victim why they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We should not demand that a stabbing victim justify their past choices, their habits, or their state of mind at the time of the attack. We should not suggest that perhaps they had “led on” their assailant, or secretly wanted to be harmed. And yet, for survivors of sexual violence, these are the very questions that can prevent them from speaking, isolate them, and make them believe – falsely – that they carry the blame.

This shame can be imposed and reinforced by victim-blaming, whispered judgments, and societal conditioning. It can become a tool of oppression, silencing survivors and shielding perpetrators.

But just as we have challenged outdated ideas about justice in other realms, we must challenge this. No one should feel ashamed of surviving. No one should be made to feel hesitant to say, ‘I was assaulted,’ any more than they should saying, ‘I was attacked.’

The crime should bring shame upon the criminal, not the survivor.

The silence must end. The burden must shift. And the shame – that should never have been theirs to carry – must finally be lifted.