You Do Uterus: Turner judge recall signals progress

The summer of 2016 will always be one of the most memorable periods of my life — I graduated from high school, watched Hillary Clinton become the first female presidential nominee from a major political party and voted for the first time all in the span of two months. It was a time of joy and excitement for me, and for better or for worse, the news events I witnessed at this stage in my life exposed me to the real world and forced me to develop my own views.

Around the same time Clinton won the nomination, a county judge in Santa Clara sentenced a male college student to a few months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. The assault had been witnessed by numerous people, and the assailant had confessed to his wrongdoing — nevertheless, the trial remained preoccupied with misogynistic questions about the survivor’s past, and infuriating reductions of the young man’s crime.

Progress for women’s rights is often a give and take, an alternating rotation of triumph and frustration. No year singularly encapsulated this more than 2016, and as the aforementioned Brock Turner case returns to the public eye, 2018 promises to be another impactful one.

Circling back to Turner’s case, the sexism underlying the court’s treatment of his victim, in itself, wasn’t what made the case so upsetting to so many survivors and advocates; sexist speculation directed at female survivors is the norm rather than the exception. What distinguished this case was that it had met all criteria to appease the usual skeptics and satisfy the frankly ridiculous standards that sexual assault survivors must meet to be believed. And yet, despite this, the assault was still trivialized and the female victim’s voice and experience still marginalized — all with a six-month county jail sentence for Turner.

Apparently listening to the pleas of Turner’s father that prison would be “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action” (he was referring to the assault of the victim), the county judge, Aaron Persky, declined to sentence Turner to the six years in prison recommended by the district attorney. Instead, Persky sentenced Turner to six months in county jail. In Persky’s own words, he was concerned a long sentence “would have a severe impact” on Turner, a young white man whose actions had made a severe, perhaps lifelong impact on a young woman.

I remember hearing about Persky for the first time that summer, as justified outrage over the Turner case unearthed his problematic history of leniency involving gang rape and child sexual abuse. At one point, he presided over a trial in which scantily clad photos of a sexual assault survivor were displayed before the jury, which only reinforces the sexist, age-old “asking for it” trope. And this week, Persky was made relevant once again when the Santa Clara County Superior Court announced that a petition to recall Persky had garnered enough signatures to be included on the California primary ballot. In other words, come June, Santa Clara County voters will decide Persky’s fate — and in doing so, could decide whether survivors past and future receive justice.

In many ways, the vote for Persky’s recall is taking place in a society vastly different from that of the People v. Turner. In the age of #MeToo, the bravery and sheer force of women speaking up for themselves and for each other has revamped the political climate into one that amplifies women’s voices and holds men accountable. Of course, there’s work to be done. But the results of Persky’s recall vote could be a crucial measure of how much progress we’ve made since 2016,  and the year that a man convicted of sexual assault was sentenced to six months for assaulting a young woman, the year that media identified him not as the purveyor of an unforgettable crime, but as a gifted swimmer, and withheld his mugshot from the public.

The national conversation around assault is evolving; the typical “both sides” language used by Persky himself in defending his decision is becoming increasingly tired, as we come to recognize that more often than not, the only evidence a survivor is capable of providing is their own testimony, and that testimony must be taken seriously. Survivors should not be forced to either conform to a perfect narrative or be disbelieved, dismissed and attacked; they should not undergo the stress and discomfort of reporting their assault only to be deprived of justice. That is the goal of survivors’ rights advocates, and Persky’s recall brings us one step closer to achieving this.

And yet, the Persky recall vote will function as more than a sign of the times. That we’re even voting to remove him sends a crucial message to survivors that we recognize their trauma, hear their voices and will fight for them. For all the survivors whose experiences have traumatized them into silence, for all the survivors who were forced to relive their trauma upon coming forward to report their experiences, for all the survivors who faced an Aaron Persky,  Santa Clara County voters hear you, believe you and are dedicated to building a legal system that recognizes your humanity and takes your experiences seriously.

Kylie Cheung is a sophomore majoring in journalism and political science. She is also the associate managing editor of the Daily Trojan. Her column,“You Do Uterus,” runs Thursdays.