It’s impossible to know how many lives Gail Abarbanel has saved.
For decades, she has been dedicated to changing the way the world thinks and speaks about rape and helping victims of all ages recover from the trauma of sexual assault.
After 50 years as director of the Rape Treatment Center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, she recently stepped down. She’s not retiring, she insisted to me when we met for lunch in Santa Monica recently, she’s just forging a new path.
I met Abarbanel 30 years ago, when she invited me to attend one of the center’s annual fundraising brunches at Ron Burkle’s lavish Greenacres estate in Beverly Hills. These were celebrity-related programs, often hosted by cast members from popular TV shows like “Friends” or “ER” or “Mad Men.”
But the stars of the afternoon were always the rape victims who shared their stories with the hushed crowd. (And yes, Abarbanel uses the word “victims” not “survivors.” “They.”) Are Suffering,” she says.)
The girl who told in 1994 his terrible story She was the 24-year-old granddaughter of a famous film producer. She grew up in Beverly Hills, not far from Greenacres. When she was 12 years old, her father fired the family nanny and began raping her at night. She told him that they were lovers in a previous life. By the end of high school, when she mustered the courage to leave home and expose the abuse, she found solace Stuart House, an extraordinary rape treatment center refuge for sexually abused children. His father went to jail; She grew up to become a household name.
“There is nothing more powerful than hearing a victim share her experience,” Abarbanel told me.
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A native of Los Angeles, Abarbanel began her career as a social worker in Santa Monica. She had no particular interest in rape victims, but in the early 1970s, she was asked to look after a young woman who was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. Less than a week earlier, it was revealed that the young woman had been raped by a stranger on the beach.
“I was very moved when I revealed the rape,” Abarbanel told me. “And that was the beginning.” She soon realized how poorly rape victims were treated by police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and doctors and nurses—and how little was understood about their trauma, which was often invisible.
The emergency room can be a nightmare. “There were no protocols for gathering evidence, no sensitivity,” Abarbanel said. “The nurses would come into the waiting room and say, ‘Where’s the rape?’ ,
The legal system was stacked against the victims. An alleged rapist will only be charged if the victim displays “extreme” physical resistance, the law says. If the victim had not struggled and had not been injured, she would not have been able to credibly claim that she had been raped.
Victims were shamed and treated in court They The trial was going on; Their sexual history and the way they dress can be used against them. If a case ever reaches a jury, judges are required to instruct that “Rape is a charge that is easily made and difficult to defend, so examine this witness’s testimony carefully. “
All this has changed in the 50 years since Abarbanel founded the Rape Treatment Center in 1974, and it’s largely because of her work.
His great innovation, now much imitated, was the creation of a 24/7 one-stop shop for victims, with medical personnel, physicians, and detectives and prosecutors coordinating under one roof. Its aim was to empower victims, make them feel safe, listened to and supported.
In 1986, Abarbanel and attorney Aileen Adams, the first rape treatment center attorney, created Stuart House. Before then, children, even more so than adults, were treated extremely poorly. Children who disclosed abuse were taken to five or six different agencies, interviewed by adult strangers, and re-interviewed. There was a lack of specialized forensic care, and very little specialized medical care. At Stuart House, children receive specialized pediatric forensic examinations and comprehensive medical and therapeutic support. And they only have to tell their stories once.
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In 1977, Abarbanel received a call from a man he had never heard of. His name was Norman Lear, and he wanted to hire him as a consultant for a special episode of his hit TV series “All in the Family.”
“If you could talk to 40 million people about rape,” Lear asked Abarbanel, “what would you say?”
First and foremost, she told him, she wanted people to stop blaming the victims.
That two-part episode, “Edith’s 50th Birthday”, was a watershed moment in the portrayal of rape on TV. Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales Called it “shattering” and “brilliant”.
It also marked the beginning of an important alliance between rape treatment centers and Hollywood. Abarbanel consulted on shows like “Lou Grant,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Cagney & Lacey,” “L.A. Law” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” all of which shifted the culture away from blaming the victim and toward trauma. Helped to inspire a compassionate view of rape.
Short, soft-spoken and publicity-shy, Abarbanel said working with Hollywood was fun, “but I always wanted to go back to work.”
Lear, who died last year, served on the center’s first board and frequently hosted its annual fundraising brunch.
When Abarbanel needed to raise money to open a rape treatment center, women working for Lear – many of whom had their own experience with rape – put her in touch with the prolific fundraiser. sandra mossShe was married to A&M Records co-founder Jerry Moss.
At a luncheon hosted by Moss at Mister Chow’s in Beverly Hills, Abarbanel recalls being approached by Milton’s wife, Ruth Burley. “Honey,” Burley told her, “if you want to get money, you’ve got to get men.”
Moss, when holding the first fundraiser for the center in her home, made sure the living room was filled with important Hollywood men. “Norman sent telegrams to all of them,” Abarbanel said. “Telegram!”
At a fundraising brunch, famed producer Sherry Lansing was so inspired, she stood up and declared, “I’m going to do something!” And he did just that; In 1988, he produced “accused,” A commercial and critical success. Its star Jodie Foster won her first Best Actress Oscar for playing a woman who is gang raped in a rowdy bar.
It is impossible to list all rape treatment centers in this space first. It is responsible for changing laws, changing the way we think, educating hospitals, police departments, college presidents, school principals, and athletic coaches about rape and rape prevention.
“I feel really good about what I’ve done,” Abarbanel told me. “I really do.”
She should be there. After all, he has indeed achieved the rare feat of making the world a better place.
