As the Brock Turner case came to a close earlier this month, people everywhere were able to read the letters and statements made by Turner, his dad, his friends from his hometown, and others as the case files were made public. One letter in particular from Turner's childhood friend Leslie Rasmussen came across as especially victim-blaming — so much so that she eventually apologized for writing the letter because she realized that it came across as incredibly insensitive and incorrect.
"I don't think it's fair to base the fate of the next ten + years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn't remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him," Rasmussen wrote. But the narrative in Rasmussen's letter — the narrative of "drunk girl who was brutally attacked can't remember anything therefore this was not rape" — is one that's incredibly common. It's victim-blaming, and it happens every time someone asks a sexual assault survivor what they had to drink that night, what they were wearing when it happened, or whether or not they'd previously told their assailant "yes" to something else.
To draw attention to the epidemic of blaming victims of assault for their attacks, photographer Yana Mazurkevich took a series of beautiful, haunting portraits that show women covered in bright chalk, holding white boards with statements rape survivors often hear. The photos are featured on Current Solutions, an online platform that aims to provide a safe space for stories about gender inequity, intimate partner violence, and sexual assault. You can see all of Mazurkevich's photo series below.
You can find more of Mazurkevich's work on her Instagram.
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