Natural hair guru and virtual comedian Franchesca Ramsey recently shared her personal experience with date rape in response to a video that blames sluts for greasy one-night stands.
She shares how she lost her virginity at the age of 18 after she was date raped on her birthday. After blacking-out, her friend ending up sharing her date rape story against her will with fellow co-workers, who taunted Ramsey at work. The women constantly called her a “slut” and blamed the incident on her.
Ramsey painfully calls for society to stop putting the blame on the victim and for men to take heed of women’s pain.
“Can we stop telling girls that they shouldn’t get raped and instead tell men to stop f—ing raping women and taking advantage of women?” she asks in the video.
The ideology of victim blaming and slut shaming is one that appears to be propagated in modern media. The New York Times recently published a piece that focused on a young woman’s appearance as a cause to why she was gang-raped by 20 men. The girl in the speculative story was only 11 years old.
“It shouldn’t just be a women’s responsibility to look out for other women,” Ramsey said. “There is no reason why a guy can’t step in at a bar.”
Ramsey has received both positive and negative reviews from sharing her poignant story. She says that the responses, good or bad, highlight how big of a topic slut shaming is.
“I appreciate everyone’s words of encouragement and support,” a note on the video reads. “I even appreciate those of you leaving shitty comments and proving how necessary this conversation is.”
