The author, Shaila Dewan, is the National Criminal Justice Editor for

the New York Times. She has chosen to write this article as she feels
strongly for sexual assault victims and tries to clarify and explain the
misconceptions people in the society have about them. She has used
many examples and cases of victims of sexual assault to reinforce her
ideas and to counter the mistaken beliefs that cause people to doubt
such victims. The author is a reporter and also possesses a strong
background in criminal justice issues and thus she has sufficient
knowledge to make valid points and attract the reader to her motive.
She has not opted for a specific group of people as her audience,
instead she has penned down this article for almost every person on
the planet as her purpose is to spread awareness as most people are
not psychologically prepared to accept how prevalent harassment
and sexual assault are, and they try to find reasons to disbelieve.

In her article, Dewan outlines five different reasons which cause

people to question the authenticity of a case of sexual assault. She
says that there is a very small percentage of false reports and in
addition to the public, the law enforcement agencies also shockingly
overestimate the incidence of false reports. The author maintains a
neutral stance by saying that not all allegations are true and the
credibility of these incidents must be evaluated on the basis of
genuine facts and evidence. The reasons she lists are that the victim
doesn’t act like one, the victim remains friendly with the abuser, the
victim doesn’t report misconduct immediately, the story doesn’t
make sense and the victim doesn’t fight back. She argues that the
victim doesn’t have to behave in a specific way and a wide variety of
behaviour is expected from the victim. Most of the time the abuser is
the one in higher power so the victim must act accordingly for the
sake of their careers. She cites the example of Leigh Corfman who
was assaulted by a Republican candidate for the Senate in her teens
but didn’t report for four decades as she feared the negative
consequences she would face by reporting the assault. She says that
most of the time the story doesn’t add up because memory fades
with time and the victim has difficulty in remembering the order of
events in a traumatic situation. She states that the victim is unable to
fight back as the brain puts the body in a state of temporary
paralysis.

Shaila Dewan has provided rational explanations for the

misconceptions public has and thus succeeds in taking a stand for
victims of sexual assault. Although, the examples she used may
become a part of history but her intentions of writing this article will
remain crystal clear.