Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Rapist or Victim?

The case of former French IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has dominated the news lately. When I first heard it, I was happily shocked that a mere hotel maid was actually coming forward with being sexually assaulted by a powerful man. It seemed that the evidence was compelling enough, and law enforcement was on her side. I assumed he was guilty, and was thrilled that justice was being done. The signs were there: her story remained consistent, she had bruises on, among other areas, her crotch, she had an injured shoulder, it was determined that his semen was on her dress and around the room. Then, even more allegations came out against him from a French journalist. Finally, I thought, people are treating sexual assault with the gravity that victims deserve. And this wasn't just any sexual assault case--it involved a man in power. The kind that are notoriously difficult to push through.

But.

Then I heard that charges were most likely going to be dropped, because it seems the hotel maid lied. I'm still torn. Obviously, I wasn't there. No one, but the maid and Strauss-Kahn were there, so we don't know what happened. What I do know is that, while I 'm not totally convinced she was raped, the details of her lies aren't enough to convince me that she is lying either.

The maid is an immigrant from Guinea, who has something of a history of lying. She lied about being gang raped in her home country, which sounds absolutely awful--until one considers the circumstances. My first reaction when I heard she had lied about being gang raped was despair. Certainly, if she's lied about being raped once, she'd do it again, right? However, she lied about being gang raped on her asylum papers, in order to get into the United States. She knew that poverty was not a valid reason for asylum, so she lied. Of course, this is assuming it's a lie. Her lawyers still hold that it's true. She's admitted to lying about the rape, but says she was raped, just not in the manner she originally explained.

She lied about various other things. She told prosecutors that she had only one cell phone and one job, when in fact, she has two of each. She may have lied on her tax return. She lied about the events immediately following the alleged rape: originally, she said she reported the rape to her supervisor right after the event. Later, she said she continued to clean before telling her supervisor. So, she's a compulsive liar, right? A woman not to be believed. Except, we must consider the one important thing she has not lied about: the events of the alleged rape. Most people who make false rape charges are found out because they cannot keep their story straight, but Strauss-Kahn's accuser has. Maybe I'm ignoring all sorts of other compelling evidence and over-focusing on this, but this seems very important to me. The lies the maid has told seem suspicious, sure, but again, we must consider the circumstances. She was a poor woman in an impoverished country. Is it not understanding that she might lie about her reasons for asylum, and her financial situation?

If there is one potentially seriously damning fact in this whole case, it's the phone call she made to her boyfriend, just after the alleged rape (as reported by the New York Times, from a "well-placed law enforcement official"). It took a while to get the phone call translated, because it was in a unique dialect of Fulani, but the quote that keeps getting thrown around is her saying something along the lines of, "Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing.

When I read this, I threw my hands up in defeat. But then I thought, we don't know the context. Slate makes a wonderful point about this. The conversation could be exactly what most people would automatically think: she's talking about falsely accusing a powerful man of rape to get money. But what if, in fact, her boyfriend suggests something like killing Strauss-Kahn, rather than going to the police? Or simply not going to the police at all, because no one will believe her, an immigrant hotel maid, anyway? Either of those statements might elicit the response that the maid gave. We simply don't know the whole conversation, for whatever reason. We know what one journalist reported from one nameless official. Maybe she did want to make a profit, but I don't see what's wrong with wanting to get something out of a horrible event. That's why people sue, isn't it?

So maybe what happened is she hatched this plan to accuse Dominique Strauss-Kahn of rape. She went into his hotel room, had incredibly rough, consensual sex with him, and then told her supervisor she had been raped. There are a number of ways in which this scene could have been played out.

Or, she was raped, and she was scared. She cleaned another room after the rape because she was scared of losing her job, and lied about it because she was scared no one would believe her about the rape if she told them she went on cleaning. She made some clumsy mistakes, sure. But we must understand this woman in the context of her background. Given the situation that she came from, lying may just be a habit for her, as a means of survival. Trusting authorities may seem foreign and dangerous to her.

I don't know if she was raped, of if she is making it up. If I absolutely had to say, it seems to me that she was raped, and the media is publishing the most sensational facts without presenting them in context, therefore making everyone believe that she is lying. I have a terrible feeling that the case will be dismissed, legal action will be taken against the maid, and this case will become a rallying point for those who are convinced that women constantly cry wolf about rape, and who overestimate the number of false rape cases.