The English Rugby Football Union

I've been sick, and there's been so much horrific stuff happening, that every time I've wanted to write I've felt outrage paralysis. So I'm going to go a couple of quick updates on the worst aspects (then I hope to get to a long post of outrage at the Maori party, and less outraged post about the possibilities of redemption, and how it doesn't look like Tony Veitch or Derek Fox).

My first object of outrage is the English Rugby Football Union:

It is up to women who have been raped to use the coping strategies that are best for them at the time. The decision to make a statement, or not make a statement, needs to be based on what she needs. To force women into a particular path is to revictimise her, by giving her no control over her reaction to being raped.

That an official representative of the English rugby team would see fit to comment on how a rape survivor deals with her assault shows that it's not just a team with four players that are rapists, but an institution that upholds rape culture.

No-one is saying this. Even the women's refuge spokesperson on Checkpoint, just talked about the fact that the English rugby players hadn't co-operated with the police when they were in the country, which equates the rapists and the women they raped.