News
Cook: Dear Donna Rotunno: Sexual Assault Is A Public Health Crisis. Your Reckless Words Hurt All Of Us.
Yale Psychiatry's Joan Cook, PhD, and Anne P. DePrince, PhD, of the University of Denver, respond to an op-ed written by Harvey Weinstein's lawyer, Donna Rotunno, in which Rotunno chastised the public and the media for "pre-determining guilt" against her client. Cook and DePrince write: "As women and trauma psychologists, we had to catch our breath last week when we heard Rotunno say she's never been sexually assaulted because she never put herself in the position to be victimized. We had already been reeling from the rape myths that Rotunno and her colleagues had promoted at the trial ... These are jaw-dropping mischaracterizations of sexual assault and the potential responses to it. These kinds of misperceptions and flat-out untruths not only hurt survivors' psychological health, but also distort public knowledge, attitudes and behaviors."
Source: Newsweek