Some of you may have heard this horrific story (trigger warning) of a woman who was raped at gunpoint in front of her 2 little kids in a Marriott hotel parking garage. That would be bad enough, but Marriott has decided that classic victim blaming is the way to go in defending itself from the victim’s law suite.

Marriott may or may not be legally responsible for damages. I don’t know enough of the specifics. But rather than defend themselves on rational grounds, the company has decided to use the oldest victim blaming/slut shaming techniques in the book.

So I wrote a little email to Marriott’s general manager, Joe Kelly. (Shakes has other links up if your in a tea spooning mood). Also, seriously, we all need to find a way to include the Rapes-alot hotels in blogsposts for awhile. Let’s show them that victim blaming isn’t the way to build solid business practices.

Dear Mr. Kelly:

After reading this horrible story about a woman who was raped at gunpoint in front of her two children in one of your parking garages, I will have to think twice about ever staying in one of your hotels again.

I do understand that sexual violence is incredibly pervasive, and that your hotel isn’t responsible for stopping all rapes everywhere. However, your company has made it clear that not only do you not protect your guests, but that you will stoop to the lowest level of rape apologism and victim blaming when something goes wrong. Quite frankly, knowing that if something horrible were to happen to me on one of your properties that I would be doubly victimized not just by a criminal but by your staff as well is enough to make me stay away and to tell all of my friends and family members to stay away. Actually, I think in the future I am going to refer to all Marriott hotels as the Rapes-alot hotels. it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Do you think it might possibly have been cheaper to settle with the poor vicitm in this case, rather than accusing her of being complicit in her own rape and dragging her babysitter, pilates instructor, and tennis partners into the case in order to harass her? I mean the PR costs alone to get people to stop calling you the Rapes-alot hotels are going to be astronomical.

Sincerely,
(RQ)