Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

ASHLEY JUDD DIDN'T "CONFESS" TO ABUSE - SHE BRAVELY "TOLD"!

By Wendy J. Murphy

For The Patriot Ledger

April 23, 2011

When actress Ashley Judd recently revealed that she was sexually abused as a child, most media outlets wrote that she "confessed" to abuse.

 

When ex-American Idol judge, Kara DioGuardi, revealed that she, too, had suffered the same violence as a child, it was widely reported that she had "confessed" to being victimized.

 

When Senator Scott Brown wrote in his new book that he had been molested as a child by a camp counselor, the headlines said things like "Scott Brown's Shocking Confession" - and "Scott Brown's Child Sexual Abuse Confession".

 

Other stories reported that one or more of these celebrities "admitted” abuse. 

 

A Google search of the phrase "Ashley Judd Admits Abuse" produced 372,000 hits.  The phrase "Ashley Judd Confesses Abuse" brought 436,000 hits.

 

For Scott Brown - the number was well over 500,000 for the term "confess".  For the word "admit”, it was almost 800,000.

 

Can't see where I'm going here?

 

According to Webster's Dictionary, "confess" means to disclose something "wrong" or "damaging" about oneself - or to "disclose one's faults". One needn't be Catholic to feel the sting of the word "confess" and the way it evokes images of people kneeling in shame to ask forgiveness for their sins. 

 

The word "admit", similarly, means "to concede", as in "admitting a mistake".

 

Here's what I'm wondering.  What did Ashley Judd, Kara DioGuardi and Scott Brown do, exactly, that requires them to "confess" or "admit" to anything shameful?

 

Keep all that in mind for a moment and consider this:

 

I also searched for "Ashley Judd Was Sexually Abused", but I got only 150,000 hits; less than half the number that came up when I used the words "admitted" or "confessed".

 

I got relatively similar results for Scott Brown - - and for both Brown and Judd, the word "says" was typically added to modify the fact of the abuse such that it sounded more like a claim than a reality.

 

At first I thought maybe the judgmental language was used because there were no criminal convictions and the victims did not reveal their suffering until adulthood. 

 

To test this theory - I searched for "Joe Torre admits child abuse" and "Joe Torre confesses child abuse".  Like Judd, Brown and DioGuardi, the famed MLB manager didn't report his child abuse until well into adulthood.  And guess what?  I couldn't find a single headline that included either the word "admits" or "confesses".  Joe's story was met with strong public support - not skepticism or language that implied he had something to feel shameful about.  Even today, headlines about Joe say things like "Torre Breaks the Silence of Child Abuse", "A Painful Childhood For Torre", and "Torre Goes to Bat For Kids".

 

The key difference between Joe Torre and the others is that Joe wasn’t sexually abused.  He and his mother were beaten, physically, by his rageful father.  Physical violence can be easier for people to believe because it leaves marks – unlike sexual abuse, which more often leaves scars inside than outside the body.  And let’s face it - there's not as much money in beating the hell out of your wife and kids, as there is in all things sexual, and pornographic, and salacious.  If we disbelieve victims of child sexual abuse, all sorts of “valuable” behavior can continue with impunity.

 

The words used in news stories about child abuse are very powerful because of how passively we take them in.  They seamlessly become embedded in our mental software – which in turn colors the way we think about the topic in general.  Skeptical terms beget skepticism in society, and so on.  Unless we actively think about the way stories are told, words like "confess" and "admit" won’t be understood as harmful – even as they cause us unjustly to feel dubious about the information being expressed.  We have to be aggressive and critical consumers of information, and not only reject the power of unfair words but also point them out as worthy of scorn. At a minimum, we can send letters to editors when stories use words that impose shame on those who dare to speak out.  Until the language used in all spheres of society properly frames child sexual abuse as the unilaterally harmful and vicious act of perpetrators - blameless children will continue to suffer in silence.