"Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town" Jon Krakauer

“It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering….” 

― Jon Krakauer, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

I think this quote from "Missoula" also typifies the response to the book in relationship to some of Krakauer's other books, such as "Into Think Air" and "Under the Banner of God", in that they describe situations beyond the average U.S. citizen, and thus, provoke fewer personal responses.  I think "Into the Wild" hits closer to home for many of us, because we probably know the lone, troubled young man that we don't completely understand.  But, "Missoula" hits right at the heart of our lives - it resonates positively or negatively with parents, educators, people on both sides of the religious spectrum, and probably mostly, with young men and women.

As I often do, before or after reading a book, I looked at the 1-star reviews of this book on amazon.com.  I find these reviews telling, and often I will read a book specifically because of what the reviewers did not like.  In this case, I read the 1-star reviews after I read 60% of the book.  I wanted to know what the objections to the books were.  Up until that point, I was in awe of Krakauer's telling of these women's stories, and now after I read the reviews, I am in awe of his and his publisher's willingness to put themselves on the line for such a personal and divisive issue.  Bravo.

First, let's make this clear:  the book is not an unbiased reporting of the Missoula situation.  It is carefully documented, but it is specifically of what the women involved in these cases endured.  One must recognize both the importance and implications of that focus, something many of the poor reviews did not like, but that disappointment with the book was a failure of recognizing the purpose of the book.  Some of the reviews accused Krakauer as depicting the women as saints and the men as devils, but nowhere is the book does the author make judgments on the women.  He reports from their interviews, depositions and testimony.  Period.  As for the young men, he refers to them as rapists or alleged rapists depending on whether the man himself has admitted to the crime or not, respectively.  One reviewer said that Krakauer laid blame on the men by saying they were alleged rapists, while another was sure his publishers required the use of the word 'alleged.'  I saw a careful distinction between the assumption of guilt based on publicly made statements by the accused men themselves and not a bias of the author.

Another issue raised by the reviews was the perceived bashing of law enforcement and prosecution.  Again, there is quite a distinction made by Krakauer in the varying responses of different police officers and detectives and different attorneys for the state, not only indicating the supposed bias of each for the accused or the accusers but also providing possible explanations for their inconsistent behaviors.  The author explained in detail, which some reviewers saw as needless repetition, the distinction between the rules of a court of law and the obligations and purposes of a universities disciplinary board, including the diverse levels of 'proof' employed by each and how those definitions have changed over time.

For example, the definition of 'incapacitated' has evolved over time.  At one time it was the case that for a person not to be able to give consent to be a partner in a sexual act, he or she had to be physically incapacitated, as in restrained or passed out, but it is now that case that being drunk or drugged, whether self-induced or not, is considered as being incapacitated with regard to being able to give consent.  It is clear from the 1-star reviews of this book, that there are readers who believe that if a woman drinks she is implicitly giving consent, as in one reviewer's words 'easy drunk girls' as if the drinking of alcohol is synonymous with promiscuity.  These sorts of prejudices were one of the issues Krakauer was trying to expose as harmful to all sides of the community.

Another issue the reviewers brought up was how Krakauer choose the information to include and exclude.  One reviewer wrote, "He dismissed two commonly referenced studies because they were not 'methodologically' researched like the paper he chose to reference yet provided virtually zero detail on the methodologies."  This reviewer claims to have only read 40% of the book, and so he might have missed the detail that Krakauer gave about the methodology used by one study he used, which used best practices for such research.  The reviewer also was not willing to do his own research since the names and sources of the studies were all provided so that he could, in fact, make up his own mind about them as he stated that he wished to do in part of his review.  Yet another reviewer tried to use a single example of a false claim of rape in an attempt to debunk Krakauer's use of studies that showed that false claims are rare.  Krakauer did not say they did not occur, but the reviewer did not understand the difference between rare and nonexistent.

There were issues I would have like Krakauer to raise with regard to the difference between police interviews and research interviews.  The former is allowed to use tactics that provoke response changes over time, but the latter cannot if the results are expected to be reliable.  A question I have is whether there has been a study about the gender differences in how questions are answered.  Men are more likely to make strong assertions of what they did and how they felt, while women are more likely to use qualifying phrases such as 'I think' or 'I believe'. How does that affect the results of a police interview?  I think it can be detrimental in both situations; a man who has made statements without qualification may be accused of lying if his story changes a little, and a woman could be accused of not knowing what really happened, as was the case in one of the testimonies of a woman in "Missoula".  The book, however, does have information that explains why women may endure a rape until its end when the rape begins while they are asleep or passed out and the woman becomes aware of the act while it is occurring.  This phenomenon is not well understood and is often used during investigations to imply that the woman is complicit in the act, thus, refuting the accusation of rape.

I could go on addressing other logical fallacies or misconceptions of the reviewers.  I know from my on-line arguments with others in discussion forums that many, male and female, of my acquaintances have attitudes and beliefs that mirror those of the reviewers that panned this book and those that championed the accused in Missoula.  I simply do not get it.  A woman is not raped because of something she did; a woman is raped because of the action of another person.  Partner rape is crime according to the law, but it is not a crime in the minds of the perpetrators and it is not a crime in the minds of much of the public.  I again applaud Krakauer for telling the story of these women.  This is a necessary read.