Why too little empathy for victims of sexual violence?

However tempting it is to discuss the “list of shame” and the President’s earth shattering State of the Union address, I choose instead to focus on this week’s allegations of rape against an MP. The allegations marked yet a new low for our esteemed Honourables coming in the same week as allegations of verbal abuse on an MP after she scorned the advances of a male colleague. Since the rape matter is still under investigations and being a believer in the constitutional principle of presumption of innocence, I will not deem the MP guilty.

I wish to, however, speak firstly as a citizen, and secondly as a father of two lovely daughters and the grandfather of the most beautiful girl in the whole world, on the disgusting and widespread narrative, which has sought to transform the rape victim into the villain. The anti-victim attack is prosecuted from two distinct but related approaches. On the one hand are those who dismiss the allegations outright. To them, the rape story must have been made up for extortion purposes. I haven’t understood what informs this perspective, unless of course the assumption is that an MP is so honourable, he would not need to rape anyone. We know different.