VA-05: 'I was drugged and raped' at Marine Corps ball, Virginia candidate says in new TV ad

[RandySF]

Claire Russo was attending the Marine Corps ball in 2004 when she was drugged and raped by a superior. And that’s the first thing many voters in Virginia’s 5th District will learn about her, because the Democratic candidate talks about it in a 30-second television ad released Thursday.

“I refused to let him stop me from serving my country in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Russo says in the ad, which describes her efforts to get the rapist jailed after the military declined to prosecute him.

Russo, a former Marine intelligence officer, has spoken publicly about the assault before, including at an Air Force base during Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. She also mentions it in the biography section on her campaign website. But it is among the first times such an ordeal has played a prominent role in a campaign ad, indicating the strides that female candidates have made in recent years to turn personal experiences once considered inappropriate or unimportant into central issues of their campaigns.

Russo, who is running in a crowded primary for a seat her party sees as flippable, lays out the disturbing details over a piano soundtrack and a picture from the night in question. In it, she is smiling, surrounded by female friends in formal clothes whose faces have been obscured.

“I was determined to find justice,” Russo says to the camera, over a newspaper clipping with the headline: “They thought it would go away.”

She goes on to say that she would bring the same fighting spirit to Congress.



https://www.rollcall.com/2020/05/21/i-was-drugged-and-raped-at-marine-corps-ball-virginia-candidate-says-in-new-tv-ad/

[lunatica]

1. That sharp inhaling sound you hear

is the sudden panic gasping of a bunch of male politicians. Karma is coming.

[BComplex]

2. Wouldn't that be awesome?

If we could only change the culture in this country about powerful men, and the women, girls and boys they exercise their physical power over.

[lunatica]

4. Having seen how cultural trends are changed shows me

that only very large and concerted activism will change the long standing acceptance of inequality. The Civil Rights movement Largely changed the status quo against people of color in this country. The Feminist movement going on at the same time changed the laws and culture for women’s rights. And just recently, in the last few decades the LGBT movement has changed the laws and the culture.

If you wait around to be taken seriously it will never happen. There has to be a definite movement to change aspects of the status quo for it to happen. I see women running for higher office with sexual harassment and rape prominently being part of their campaigns as the vanguard of the changes in laws and in the societal culture in the future.

No overarching changes happen by themselves. It is very difficult, but sooner or later change comes if the demand is societal and widespread.

[empedocles]

3. Virginia had the US 5th worst gerrymandering record, until the courts stepped in.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. About a quarter of female veterans report being sexually assaulted in the military.

About 1 percent of male veterans do so, but I would guess the number higher than what is self-reported, because of shame, and idea that it's necessary, etc.