One reason the coverage of the Steubenville case has been so disturbing is because of the amount of culpability some sources — reporters, commenters, defense attorneys — have placed on the victim and on her parents. In fact, many people seem more condemning of her parents than of those whose sons might have committed rape and did, incontrovertibly, gloat and joke about it.

Unfortunately, these attitudes are not new or unique. A 2011 story in the New York Times about another gang rape, this one of an 11-year-old Texas girl, presented in exhausting detail the community’s blame-the-victim response. The reporter included several quotes from a woman worried about how the incident would affect the lives of the alleged (some now found guilty) rapists. The article also included the following statement:

Residents…said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

What these residents — and evidently the New York Times — failed to acknowledge is that it should not matter how this child dressed or what makeup she wore or who her friends were. Eighteen boys and men were charged with the assault, including high school students and men in their 20s. She is not the one who committed the crime. She didn’t ask for it even if she threw herself at every male who walked past. Nothing she could have done gave anyone the right to assault her; even consensual sex with a girl that age would be statutory rape. And let’s be honest here: How many 11-year-olds understand the ramifications and potential consequences of the ways they present themselves? How can anyone, especially another female, think this girl is somehow more responsible for what happened than the adult men who assaulted her? There’s also the obvious question of why a child this age would feel the need to seek attention from older boys and men, and the fact that she did ought to inspire compassion rather than triggering condemnation.

What the paper* utterly failed to do was provide a voice for the victim: an attorney, a social worker, a teacher, anyone to say that it was not the girl’s fault, regardless of how she dressed or acted or who she hung out with. I’m sure any rape crisis counselor would willingly have provided a quote. I’m not only disturbed by the attitude of the people in the town where this incident took place, but also by the paper’s unbalanced coverage. Only the people blaming the victim and worrying about the accused were given a voice.

*I’m saying “the paper” rather than “the reporter,” because I’ve worked in enough media to know that things sometimes happen behind the scenes that are out of the writer’s control. It’s possible he did provide a more balanced view, and those segments were cut for space reasons. If he didn’t give both sides, I think his editor should have required him to do so.