Crimes

That is the unfortunate moral of the many stories recapped in a must-read by Violet at Reclusive Leftist:

Here’s an interesting change. After all these stories of women being prosecuted or threatened with legal action for pressing rape charges, today we have a story of a woman being prosecuted for not pressing rape charges.

You all remember that back in 2005, a 17-year-old girl was actually prosecuted for reporting her rape. Not only prosecuted but convicted of a crime — and all because the state decided it couldn’t prove the case against her attackers.

And with the Duke case, as you all know, every sexist twit this side of the Andromeda galaxy took to the intertubes to demand that the victim in that case also be prosecuted, again for the “crime” of reporting a crime that the state decided it couldn’t prove.

And in the De Anza case, a teenage girl who was gang-raped by a sports team was publicly castigated for, again, reporting a crime that the state decided it couldn’t prove.

Anybody see a pattern?

Rape survives in the traditional Christian wedding ceremony, for it is the Best Man who can be trusted to help protect the bride should unruly thugs come to rape her at the ceremony.

In classics, we read about the Rape of the Sabine Women and how rape is an instrument of policy.

And we don't have to go back to Rome, either, though we could pause in medieval history and get more of the same. Just turn to the 1990's, within living memory, and read about the rape squads in Bosnia who raped as part of ethnic cleansing.

The strategy was to humiliate the females of the "enemy side." Deflower the girls and even make them carry the babies of the raping armies.

Go forward one decade and we witness the South Dakota law that would force a woman to carry a child to term who is spawn by a rapist. His seed is furthered - thanks to the new law - and the woman has to cross a state line to get relief.

There are laws on the books that prevent people from profiting from their crimes. For example, a murderer cannot get royalties from a tell-all book about the murder he committed. Yet a rapist gets to see that his baby is brought to term and raised by someone - spending the rest of her life caring and feeding the child that is a result of her humiliation.

South Dakota - Bizzaro World.

This is just obscene:

A 17-year-old girl went to police at the urging of her friends after she was allegedly gang-raped by three men, including her boyfriend. The men testified that the act was consensual. After reviewing all the information and statements, prosecutors decided they didn’t think they could prove a rape allegation, and so declined to prosecute the case.

Instead, they prosecuted the victim for filing a false police report. Yesterday, she was found guilty.

The victim has never recanted her story. Instead, the decision was based on the judge’s opinion that the three men were more credible, in part because a police detective and the victim’s friends testified she did not “act traumatized� in the days after the incident.

Apparently the men consider themselves experts on how one reacts to being raped.

Let me give you some more information—something that is only a possibility because The American Street’s Kevin Hayden has known the victim nearly her whole life. He attended the trial. He noticed that the prosecutor repeatedly referred to the attackers as “boys,� even though they were grown men and the victim was 17. He noticed that the judge acknowledged he had found inconsistencies in all of their stories, but, inexplicably, decided that the same reasonable doubt that kept prosecutors from pursuing charges against the attackers wasn’t enough to keep him from finding the victim guilty.

There's more.

Already we live in a country where rapists are considered victims and rape victims are considered some sort of evil. Look at how it plays with celebrities, such as with Kobe Bryant's case -- where the facts themselves were not disputed, yet Bryant was boosted and supported by people who passed all sorts of judgments on his alleged victim. The woman received death threats, presumably not from the Laker fans who leave at the end of the 3rd quarter of every game.

Already, rape is the one violent crime where the victim's testimony is rarely enough to bring about a conviction. Now we have victims risking charges if they don't put on a good show for the D.A.?

As Shakespeare's Sister notes, "only 10% of victims of sex crimes in Oregon file reports with police."

She goes on to dispel with the urban legends MRA types like to trot forth as pseudo-facts, and then points up some hard and fast truths:

Rape is underreported. Reporting a rape is difficult, and can be embarrassing, shameful, hurtful, frustrating, and too often unfulfilling. Quite bluntly, there is very little incentive to report a rape. It’s a terrible experience, and the likelihood of seeing justice served is a long shot. Even if it is, it usually comes at great personal cost, with one’s sexual history put on public display amidst the dismay of reliving the attack—and an extended trial can necessitate living in a state of suspended animation, where moving on from that moment is all but impossible. The only real incentive one has is knowing the sacrifice might prevent the same thing from happening to someone else. Not a small thing, but a big personal investment.

And now, women have one less reason to come forward—the possible horror of watching their attackers go free while they are found guilty.

Score another one for the patriarchy. Rape culture is saved for another day.

Update:

The Heretik has an excellent blog round-up on this story.

Update 2: Title typo fixed. Yes, I can spell, sometimes.

Update 3: The Heretik has more on this story.

An ICM poll in the UK reveals public attitudes about rape:

A new ICM opinion poll commissioned by Amnesty International indicates that a third (34%) of people in the UK believe that a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner.

The poll, ‘Sexual Assault Research’, published today (21 November) as part of Amnesty International’s ‘Stop Violence Against Women’ campaign, shows that similar “blame culture� attitudes exist over clothing, drinking, perceived promiscuity, personal safety and whether a woman has clearly said “no� to the man.

Some findings:

• 26% believe a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she wears sexy or revealing clothing.
• 22% believe a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she has had many sexual partners.
• 8% believe a woman is totally responsible for being raped if she has had many sexual partners.
• 30% believe a woman is totally or partially responsible for being raped if she gets drunk.
• 37% believe a woman is totally or partially responsible for being raped if she doesn't clearly say "no."
• 96% either underestimated or had no idea just how prevalent rape is (in the UK).
• Only 4% guessed as high as 1/4 of the actual numbers of rape each year.
• 6 out of 7 do not know that only 5.6% of reported rapes actually result in conviction. (Most guessed an average of a 26% conviction rate -- five times higher than the reality.)

Read the full report (.doc).

Volsunga puts it in perspective:

Until we dispell these myths about consent and victim responsibility, the rape conviction rate will not improve. And, aside from the media scrutiny of clear-up rates, the rape rate itself will not be affected; men who do not think what they do is rape, or even wrong, are not likely to question their own actions. A society that sees rape as the product of men’s unrestrained and unrestrainable sexuality combined with women’s provocation, or as that of evil men preying on pure women, will never realise the link between sexism, the position of women socially, and rape.

And that's the point, because in all these hand-wringing discussions about rape what's never discussed is the tacit assumption that men rape, and it's the woman's responsibility to stay out of the way and not provoke the beast.

In other words, men rape. Period. So if it happens, it's often just because the woman crossed the line.

I wonder if that applies to other crimes. Guys, if you don't jam your wallet down the front of your jockey shorts, and you get pick-pocketed, are you responsible? If a robber shoots you for your watch, are you responsible? If your employer screws you over on your contracted retirement benefits, are you responsible?

Interesting, though, the assumptions about rape. --Especially the assumptions that rape is a crime about sex.

Rape is about control. Rape is about power. At the very least, rape is about selfishness, ownership of the other. The very definition of rape is that the victim does not have a choice. So if the woman has no choice in the matter, then why is she assumed to be responsible for it?

(See title.)

[Via ampersand.]

Finally, some good news on the subject of violence against women!

Looks like feminists' constant "bitching" about the fact that we women get beat up way too often really has made a difference.
At least, it has in Britain.

Women are less likely [10% less likely, in fact] to fall victim to murder today than 20 years ago because they are more willing to walk out of violent relationships....
[Danny Dorling, the author of the report and a human geography prof at Sheffield University, states that]“People have both became aware of how dangerous domestic violence is and how fruitless it is to stay in a violent relationship. In addition, women have become economically better off and so, in increasing numbers, they can afford to walk out.�

But (I'm hoping this isn't typical Brit fashion) the news article ends with the uplifting statistic that "the average Briton [regardless of gender] is 176 times more likely to be murdered than to win the lottery with a single ticket." Lovely.

Now I know that the US's murder rates are significantly higher than pretty much any other country anywhere, so I'm sure that our raw numbers are higher than the Brits', but I wondered how much different American statistics regarding the murder rate of women are.

So, I did some googling.