In an interview with Bitch Magazine, Runaways bass player Jackie Fuchs discusses how she came forward last month to say that Kim Fowley had raped her in 1976. Fuchs was passed out at the time of the attack, having taken Quaaludes, but multiple people saw the rape occur; the recent Bill Cosby allegations and other women telling their stories moved Fuchs to speak out about her own experience.
“The music industry was not very kind and welcoming to women in the mid 70s,” Fuchs told Bitch. “I think there is a great deal of racism in the music industry as well… I think there’s this unconscious thing [in them] that says ‘Oh, they’ll work for less.’” Because of this sexism, Fuchs says, she thinks Fowley was able to get away with what he did. “Other people in the music industry were handing out drugs and sleeping with teenage girls where it was ‘consensual.’”
When asked about all the people who witnessed her rape and did nothing, Fuchs said that she investigated the idea of the bystander effect. She said, “With that, I started directing my anger to where it belonged, which was toward the man who raped me.” Fuchs never got the chance to address Fowley before he died. It is something she’s still seeking closure about.
Fuchs doesn’t blame any of the bystanders during her rape for not acting. “The truth is even people who are really good and really moral when placed in that situation, it’s difficult to act,” she said. “It’s possible that the people who saw what was happening didn’t exactly understand what was going on.”
We hope that Fuchs is continuing to heal and that her message of speaking out reaches more survivors.
Image via Bitch Magazine
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