Maybe to no one's surprise there is another sports star accused of sexual assault of a woman. The case involves a 20 year old woman and Ben Roethlisberger, 28 years old, who is an award-winning quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers football team. [This is not his first sexual assault charge.] Like so many previous cases, the victim is stating that she was raped and the male "star" is denying that it was rape.
Here is one mother's summary of an ESPN report that laid out facts:
Apparently she [the victim] went to the bathroom and he [Roethlisberger] followed her in and locked the door. She told him "no" but he said something like "I take that as a yes." Her friends, who were with her, tried to get to the door to help, but his entourage blocked the door and wouldn't let them get near the door. Once she got out of the bathroom, she and her friends went directly to the police station. I guess the District Attorney wouldn't press charges because it would have been a "he said, she said" and the victim didn't want to go through that. Apparently the football commissioner and the Steelers are working together on what penalties should be assessed - a fine, possible suspension - who knows but the Steelers owners are not supporting him.
So what do you think? Is this a case of "he said, she said"? Should this be national news? We have judged that it is.
There is a great blog article by the Boston Area Rape Crisis Article summarizing the national media coverage of the event. Each identified reporter includes some sort of "victim blaming" in his story. Are we still in the dark ages where we accuse the woman for the crime committed against her?
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