For the sake of framing, in order to explain the problem with the behavior of The Washington Post, let us briefly look back at the media firestorm that was the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hysteria. Think back as Justice Kavanaugh was accused, when anyone dared challenge the testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford or asked for particulars and witnesses, it was called victim oppression leveled by the GOP. When a collection of other baseless accusations were trotted out, the lack of evidence was bypassed over the seriousness of the accusations. Accusers were sacrosanct, their testimonies were considered gospel, and anyone who dared question the veracity was branded as heretics.
As we are now seeing in Loudoun County, Virginia, those granite firm standards of female protections are more fluid than a Jell-O mold left on the hood of an idling Humvee in Death Valley at high noon. In this case, in which a female teenager was assaulted in a school bathroom by a classmate, there have been multiple levels of negligence. The school board has been reticent to act, the media have been forced to cover a story they wanted to bury, and gubernatorial candidate Terry Mcauliffe has been derailed by his loud support of school administrators and dismissive approach to parents.
It has become obvious how none of the usual political figures are orally assaulting microphones over this case. Notably silent are the caterwauling feminist groups. Absent is Alyssa Milano weeping her bromides of female oppression in the name of an underage victim. It is all because it has been political theater, and now at The Washington Post they have turned a complete 180 on the scripting as its latest report turns on the victim, all in order to massage the narrative because this story has become more problematic for the left.
The school board has made itself a vat of roiling controversy for some time. Blocking kids from returning to class and mask mandate ordinances were bad enough, then they had to heap on Critical Race Theory curriculums to add to the mess. Then opening bathroom mores to appease students claiming gender dysmorphia led to the case of a teen girl being sexually assaulted. The father was arrested when he confronted the school board, and the national organization issued a letter proclaiming protesting parents to be domestic terrorists.
This has been a crap-fest, with a fecal juggler opening act and a synchronized septic swimming routine as an encore, and now The Washington Post wants to add more compost to the proceedings.
In a report on the court ruling regarding this case, writer Justin Jouvenal noted testimony from the defendant’s lawyers that the two youths in question had a history of consensual sex, but the attorney for Loudoun County said the victim would regularly turn down the requests for sex from the defendant. Then on Twitter, Jouvenal felt a need to highlight what he deems to be an important aspect of the story. He brings up the sexual history of the victim, in a way not stipulated in his article.
There is no reason to do this, other than to create doubt or confusion in the story. That this story already has a finality to it makes his inclusion of the victim’s past character all the more repulsive, coming from the self-styled “justice reporter.” The judge in the case made the ruling that is the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty verdict. The same attacker is also accused of another sexual assault of a different student at another school in the Loudoun District system, and there are questions as to why the attacker was permitted to attend classes while charged with a serious sexual crime.
These issues have placed a negative focus on the school board, for both the handling of this problematic individual as well as the new policy that may have granted the defendant leeway to use the bathrooms in this fashion, as they identify as gender-fluid. Instead, The Washington Post feels it acceptable to toss out all the prior standards of female protections and resort to victim-shaming.
This becomes an amazing revelation because for years we were lectured at loudly about the new standards and protocols regarding females and charges of sexual assault. Their words were to be heeded, their character to be protected above all else, and the severity of the charges had to be respected. To now not only see this turn but to have it occur with an underage girl is all the more unsettling. Looking over this should reveal for once that so many of these assault accusation standards are a matter of media convenience, and the lectured rules that are delivered are merely enforced politically.