Stalking Victims and Victim Blaming: Tracee Hamilton and Erin Andrews

Crossposted to FeministLookingGlass.com

Tracee Hamilton, a new sports columnist for the Washington Post, wrote a column today , following up on the Erin Andrews case, discussing stalking and victim-blaming. It’s a rather personal column, as she opens up about a stalker who followed her for years, instilling terror and helplessness in her for more years to follow. It’s a chilling read, but it’s relevant to the Erin Andrews case, and to many women’s lives.

Hamilton was stalked for years by a man she met in school; he sent her explicit and threatening letters, made frequent silent telephone calls, and stood outside her window all night. And on top of it, school administrators and even a mental health professional blamed her for the man’s unstable state of mind:

"I still remember standing there, in the dark, phone in my hand, shaking, as [a therapist] went on and on about my ‘boyfriend’ and my poor treatment of him. You see, my boyfriend wasn’t in therapy. The ‘boyfriend’ he was describing was my stalker. Slowly it came to me: I was being chastised by a mental health professional for being mean to the man who was torturing me. And finally, I snapped."

As Hamilton writes,

"Some people may think that the worst thing that happened to Andrews is that video clip on the Internet. As awful as that violation of privacy was, remember that Andrews also has to live with the knowledge that this man stalked her all over the country, that at times only a hotel door separated her from a clearly obsessed and disturbed man. As hard as it is to remove a video from the Internet, that’s how hard it is to remove that kind of fear from your mind. And that’s why I’m tired of the endless debate about whether Andrews somehow “asked for it.”"

As strange as it is that people would suggest Andrews and other stalking victims “asked for it,” this is just another example of how women are frequently blamed for initiating harassment, rape, and abuse. Even Christine Brennan, a female sports columnist who spoke at a feminist conference I attended, suggested that Erin Andrews brought it on herself because of “short skirts” and “beauty” (see this post ).

About 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime. What’s more, according to the National Center for Victims of Crime, 76% of femicide (murder of a woman) victims had been stalked by the person who killed them, and 56% had reported their stalker to the police prior to their murder.

I’ve never been stalked, in a continuous, long-term, serious way. But I can also say that there’s not one woman I know who hasn’t at one time been followed, cornered, or otherwise harassed. I can tell you how frustrated, angry, and powerless you feel while being trailed in every aisle in a store; followed on your way home; stalked on the street at night; harassed at a bar, restaurant, or at work. But I can’t even imagine what it’s like for the situation to persist over weeks, months, years– and on top of it, have people you go to for help blame you, or do nothing. I’m glad Tracee Hamilton had the courage to share her experience in such a public way, especially to remind us that no one deserves it, and that not all, or even most, victims of stalking “have been pretty blonde women with high-profile television jobs.”