(Trigger warning: Rape, Rape culture) How Disney handled the rape of a worker

• Valkyrio wrote on 2013-06-24 20:10

  Quote from Claudia;1111458:

  Oh, then I did miss that. 2 months is a long time, but it takes most rape victims much longer than that to come to terms with what happened. It varies from person to person.
  
  Still pissed about how Disney handled this, though.

  
  
  What else were they supposed to do? They had no legal recourse. I think getting angry is exactly the wrong thing to do here. People wail and cry and get outraged about these things, and it doesn't help. The knee-jerk reaction of "HOW FUCKING DARE THEY" brings nothing to the conversation and just pushes back progress.
  
  What really needs to be done is educate people about how to handle it when things like this happen. It is not okay for anyone to rape someone else, but if it ever happens to you - waiting, and keeping it to yourself is exactly the wrong thing to do. In cases like this, nothing can be done. If it really happened, yes, it's sad, but in the end she dug her own hole. Getting angry fixes nothing and if anything makes things worse - because then you can't have a discussion about how to better the situation and prevent things like this from happening.
• Ithiliel wrote on 2013-06-24 20:14
  I'm just going to point this out...
  
  It probably wasn't the first time her rapist had pulled this, and it won't be the last. He has the typical behavior of most rapists, especially since he's seen he can already get away with it. I wouldn't be surprised if he's done this to more girls but they haven't said anything either.
  
  That being said...You guys do realize Disney does a lot of shady things, right?
  
  Few Examples:
  
  

  In Feb. 1996 a 7-year old girl reported that she saw a man with his zipper down, touching himself at Disney's Blizzard Beach Water Park. When it was reported by a second girl on a second morning, Disney confronted an employee matching the description. He admitted to doing this and was fired. Disney waited 7 hours to report this incident to the local authorities, just long enough for the girl who witnessed him masturbating, and her mother, to check out of Disney's hotel and go back home. No arrest was made, because strangely enough, Disney "lost" the little girl's contact information.

  
  
  

  Maintenance worker Vince Amato was caught peeping on guests trying on clothes in the fitting room of the Disney Village Market "Captain's Tower". He was reported three times. Disney's answer was to transfer him to another job.

  
  
  

  Sgt. Mark Thompson of the Oscala, Florida County Sheriff Dept. said: "We had a guy who traveled the Disney hotels and go to the pool areas. He was taking close-up photos of kids climbing in and out of pools. Three or Four year olds and sometimes suits weren't covering backsides properly, if you know what I mean. You just knew he was going to make a move on a kid. We wanted to get him but Disney didn't want any part of it".

  
  
  

  Jimmie Dennis was arrested in Nov. 1996 in Orlando for "committing lewd acts upon a child". While awaiting trial he applied for a job at Disney in the entertainment division, and got hired as a costumed character. His job was to roam the park, hugging kids and sitting them on his lap. He kept the job until August 21, 1997 when he was convicted of his previous crime. The attorney who prosecuted said this was a great example of why Disney needed to do background checks on people

  
  
  

  In October 1999 Pat Shenck and her 8 year old son went on 'water sprite' jet skis on one of the park lagoons. One of their jet skis got stuck on the water when the shift wouldn't move out of neutral. A 23-year old inexperienced "captain' of the ferryboat "Kingdom Queen" hit them. Going against all park and safety regulations, he put the ferry into reverse, sucking Mrs. Shenck under the blades and boat, killing her. Before Disney called the "real" police and ambulance, they had divers in the water collecting evidence, looking for her body and pulling the bits of clothing and body from under the ferry. When they finally did find the body they tethered it to a buoy and left it in the lagoon for hours, refusing to let it be moved or let anyone to go out and attend to it until after nightfall when the visitors wouldn't see it and the ride wouldn't have to be shut down. Mind you -- her 8 year old son is there this whole time. I can't imagine anything so sick, and cruel.
  

• Claudia wrote on 2013-06-24 20:27

  Quote from Valkyrio;1111463:

  What else were they supposed to do? They had no legal recourse. I think getting angry is exactly the wrong thing to do here. People wail and cry and get outraged about these things, and it doesn't help. The knee-jerk reaction of "HOW FUCKING DARE THEY" brings nothing to the conversation and just pushes back progress.
  
  What really needs to be done is educate people about how to handle it when things like this happen. It is not okay for anyone to rape someone else, but if it ever happens to you - waiting, and keeping it to yourself is exactly the wrong thing to do. In cases like this, nothing can be done. If it really happened, yes, it's sad, but in the end she dug her own hole. Getting angry fixes nothing and if anything makes things worse - because then you can't have a discussion about how to better the situation and prevent things like this from happening.

  
  
  Sure, we can help people cope with rape, but that's not the only problem. After all, one of the trigger warnings was "rape culture". There is a whole culture here. There are problems with both legal and emotional recourse in this country. We live in a country, hell a world, where almost every time a girl is raped a large chunk of people either turn a blind eye to it or even worse, spout asinine things like "she was asking for it" or "she deserved it".
  
  I wouldn't say that getting mad about it pushes progress back - if enough people stir up a shitstorm, people eventually notice. A lot of people are completely ignorant that these things happen - sometimes they choose not to believe that rape exists, others are just sheltered and unaware. Then, we can bring everyone into a discussion.
  
  I know that you and I are getting at the same point here but please don't tell me that I can't express my anger about this. I have a right to be angry. Thanks.
• Campylobacter jejuni wrote on 2013-06-24 20:32

  Quote from Valkyrio;1111270:

  I feel like this would've put Disney in an awkward place - because it would be seen as accepting her story as true, and so could be looked at to do more than they reasonably could. (i.e. fire the guy without just cause.)
  
  Sucks but...that's the law system for you.

  
  Should have made a simple statement that it's just an "in case she did get raped" scenario, as well as letting the guy work is a "just in case she didn't get raped". Taking no sides while serving both to ensure maximal realistic success.
• Valkyrio wrote on 2013-06-24 20:35

  Quote from Claudia;1111469:

  Sure, we can help people cope with rape, but that's not the only problem. After all, one of the trigger warnings was "rape culture". There is a whole culture here. There are problems with both legal and emotional recourse in this country. We live in a country, hell a world, where almost every time a girl is raped a large chunk of people either turn a blind eye to it or even worse, spout asinine things like "she was asking for it" or "she deserved it".
  
  I wouldn't say that getting mad about it pushes progress back - if enough people stir up a shitstorm, people eventually notice. A lot of people are completely ignorant that these things happen - sometimes they choose not to believe that rape exists, others are just sheltered and unaware. Then, we can bring everyone into a discussion.
  
  I know that you and I are getting at the same point here but please don't tell me that I can't express my anger about this. I have a right to be angry. Thanks.

  
  
  I'm not saying you don't have a right to be angry, but it was actually directed more to people who only say shit like "this gets me sooooooo mad." Anger without a direction is useless, specially in a discussion.
  
  Just to clarify, I don't think we should teach people just how to cope with rape - in this case, for example, the workplace HR was very badly versed in how to cope with rape accusations. They really should have some sort of official policy, but I think most companies won't want to even think about something like that.
  
  Personally - I find the story extremely fishy. Why? Big companies like Disney are bound to have very strict sexual harassment policies. Even if rape wasn't proven, this girl could've taken the HR people to court due to some of their comments. The questions and comments they made to her (trying to make him jealous, getting pretty, etc etc) break pretty much all HR guidelines on sexual harassment. Maybe they didn't know how to deal with rape...but sexual harassment is federally recognized as a form of discrimination, and I highly doubt they'd really make the situation worse by making those sort of comments. HR people of all would know not to.
• Ithiliel wrote on 2013-06-24 20:43

  Quote from Valkyrio;1111471:

  
  
  Personally - I find the story extremely fishy. Why? Big companies like Disney are bound to have very strict sexual harassment policies.

  
  
  That's the problem though, they don't. They don't want to get involved with sexual harassment issues, so they tend to "pass the buck" so to speak.
  
  A little add-on to the first post:
  
  

  Many of you have probably already read Dana Wierzbicki’s post on XOJane from Monday called “It Happened To Me: I Was Raped Disney World And Nobody Cared” – for those of you who haven’t, I’ll give you a brief rundown:
  
  Dana was an employee at Disney World while participating in the Disney College Program, a program that allows post-secondary students from all over the world to come live in Florida, work at Disney World, enjoy unlimited access to the parks all summer, and take a few courses in business management on the side. It should have been the best summer of Dana’s life, and it was, up until she was raped by a co-worker.
  
  After reading Dana’s story, I was admittedly shocked by how terrible Disney’s response was. Surely they couldn’t actually care so little about their employees, could they? Dana’s experience must have been a fluke right? So I spoke to my friend Laura*, who had also participated in the Disney College Program, and asked her if any of Dana’s story meshed with what she’d seen during her own time at Disney World. She said that Dana’s experience unfortunately wasn’t uncommon, and that she’d realized from pretty much day one that Disney was not interested in dealing with sexual assault. She said,
  
  "In my first week I was in a room with about 250 Canadian kids learning the rules of the dorms and this big, corporate guy comes in and starts talking to us. He tells us – and I’m paraphrasing a little here – that this is a high crime area and there are sexual assaults regularly around the dorms. That if you are a girl, you should not go out after dark alone, or you might get assaulted. That you should not go to the bars, and definitely not alone, because ‘girls get drugged.’ That you should not make friends with strange men, not go into other people’s dorms alone and not dress provocatively, because girls get assaulted and go home all the time. And if you do get assaulted, don’t go to the housing department, call the police, because there is nothing that housing or Disney can do for you.

  
  
  Full Article Here.
  
  Oh and before someone says, "Well that's happening in their housing, not disney". Those houses are OWNED by Disney, so yes, it is their problem and they should do something about it.
• Space Pirate Nithiel wrote on 2013-06-24 21:07
  I agree with both sides. The comments and such made by the counselor/HR people were uncalled for and they should be reprimanded.
  
  However, as far as it being "poorly handled" there really wasn't any other way they could handle it because she waited too long to say anything so any evidence there might have been was long gone, and you can't go around firing/arresting people on a "because she said so" basis, people lie all the time about this sort of thing for various reasons, so without that evidence to prove it they can't just ruin someone's life.
  
  So I think Disney needs to get their shit together and start actually hiring people who know what they are doing, and I think women(and men) need to be taught that if you get raped REPORT IT OR WE CAN'T HELP YOU. And everyone needs to be taught that raping is bad, don't do it.
  
  Honestly I think men have a worse time reporting rape then women do, because as far as society is concerned men are stronger then women and men never don't want sex. So when a woman says she was raped by a man people console her. When a man says he was raped by a woman you can see people in the room holding back laughter.
• Ithiliel wrote on 2013-06-24 21:12

  Quote from Space Pirate Nithiel;1111486:

  I agree with both sides. The comments and such made by the counselor/HR people were uncalled for and they should be reprimanded.
  
  However, as far as it being "poorly handled" there really wasn't any other way they could handle it because she waited too long to say anything so any evidence there might have been was long gone, and you can't go around firing/arresting people on a "because she said so" basis, people lie all the time about this sort of thing for various reasons, so without that evidence to prove it they can't just ruin someone's life.
  
  So I think Disney needs to get their shit together and start actually hiring people who know what they are doing, and I think women(and men) need to be taught that if you get raped REPORT IT OR WE CAN'T HELP YOU. And everyone needs to be taught that raping is bad, don't do it.
  
  Honestly I think men have a worse time reporting rape then women do, because as far as society is concerned men are stronger then women and men never don't want sex. So when a woman says she was raped by a man people console her. When a man says he was raped by a woman you can see people in the room holding back laughter.

  
  
  Very well said, I actually agree with everything you've said. You're right about the men part to, it's sick that it's a "laughing issue" to most people. Men can be raped just like women can, people need to understand that just because a body reacts to the stimuli does not automatically mean consent.
• Hanna wrote on 2013-06-24 21:36

  Quote from Valkyrio;1111463:

  What else were they supposed to do? They had no legal recourse. I think getting angry is exactly the wrong thing to do here. People wail and cry and get outraged about these things, and it doesn't help. The knee-jerk reaction of "HOW FUCKING DARE THEY" brings nothing to the conversation and just pushes back progress.
  
  What really needs to be done is educate people about how to handle it when things like this happen. It is not okay for anyone to rape someone else, but if it ever happens to you - waiting, and keeping it to yourself is exactly the wrong thing to do. In cases like this, nothing can be done. If it really happened, yes, it's sad, but in the end she dug her own hole. Getting angry fixes nothing and if anything makes things worse - because then you can't have a discussion about how to better the situation and prevent things like this from happening.

  
  There's a huge difference between saying
  "there's nothing we can do" and "well, you should have known better" (blaming her for what had happened)
• Space Pirate Nithiel wrote on 2013-06-24 22:29
  It's almost as bad as the US military. I forget where I read it but they were basically telling female soldiers "Men have no ability to control their penis. If you trust a man, you will be raped and it will be your fault, they can't control themselves so raping you is only natural to them and they have no fault in it."