'Stanford Rapist' Brock Turner's victim Chanel Miller says rape is no 'punishment for getting drunk'
Chanel Miller, the woman who was sexually assaulted by former star swimmer at Stanford University Brock Turner, recently appeared in an interview just weeks after revealing her real identity to the world and said women do not deserve to get raped just because they get drunk. Miller, previously referred to as Emily Doe, made headlines in 2015 when Turner was found guilty of three felonies for sexually assaulting her outside an on-campus fraternity party.
Although she delivered a viral speech in the courtroom beforeTurner's sentencing, expressing the emotional trauma the assault and the legal process had put her through (which almost became a kind of manifesto for assault survivors globally) her assailant only got three months in jail.
“I was in shock,” Miller said in CBS' '60 Minutes' Sunday. “So, you’re saying I just put aside a year and a half of my life so he could go to county jail for three months.” For the last three years, Miller was busy penning down her experience in a book called 'Know My Name' before she gathered the courage to reveal her true identity.
Although her story has been told and retold through the media and in the courtroom, she still believes large and important parts of it remain buried. “There are young men, particularly young men of color, serving longer sentences for non-violent crimes, for having a teeny bit of marijuana in their pocket. And he’s just been convicted of three felonies … one month for each felony. How can you explain that to me?” she added.
She spoke about the pain of hiding her real identity in the past as she watched the most horrific parts of her life play out in the open. While her victim-impact statement was viewed more than 11 million times in four days at the time, Miller was going through an inner-turmoil.
“In newspapers, my name was ‘unconscious, intoxicated woman.’ Ten syllables, and nothing more than that. I had to force myself to re-learn my real name, my identity. To re-learn that this is not all that I am. That I am not just a drunk victim at a frat party found behind a dumpster, while you are the All-American swimmer at a top university, innocent until proven guilty with so much at stake,” she said during the interview.
She added society's mindset has to change if rape is thought to be appropriate punishment for a woman getting drunk. “[Rape] is not a punishment for getting drunk. And we have this really sick mindset in our culture, as if you deserve rape if you drink to excess," she said. “You deserve a hangover, a really bad hangover, but you don’t deserve to have somebody insert their body parts inside of you.”