Tag Archives: rapes

What is rape?

THE COURT: All right. Let me tell you why I’m going to sentence Mr. Gurel to six years only in spite of the People’s request for –

MS. SNYDER: Sixteen.

THE COURT: – 16. And that is, I spent my last year and a half in the DA’s office in the sexual assault. I’ve seen sexual assault. I’ve seen women who have been ravaged and savaged whose vagina was shredded by the rape. I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something: If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case. That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasn’t necessarily willing, she didn’t put up a fight. And to treat this case like the rape cases that we all hear about is an insult to victims of rape. I think it’s an insult. I think it trivializes a rape.

via readersupportednews.org

I certainly know that this judge in California has absolutely no idea. For more read:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/304-justice/15388-judge-demands-shred…

India gang rape suspects charged in court

Lawyers at the district court in New Delhi refused to defend the accused men — the bus driver, his brother and four of their friends, all residents of a south Delhi slum near the site of the attack.

“We have decided that no lawyer will stand up to defend the rape accused as it would be immoral to defend the case,” Sanjay Kumar, a lawyer and a member of the Saket District Bar Council, told AFP.

Kumar said the 2,500 advocates registered at the court have decided to “stay away” to ensure “speedy justice”, meaning the government would have to appoint outside lawyers for the defendants.

via france24.com

While there’s no sympathy for the perpetrators of the Delhi gang rape – ensuring at the very least a defence for the right to due process is the only appropriate response.

Sure, Mr Kumar says it’s simply a symbolic gesture, but to me – it’s a deeply problematic gesture – what if every counsel in the country would choose to do this?

We all create the conditions in which rapes can flourish

No amount of severe (capital) punishment, “improved” policing or Bollywood moral outrage will ever solve the problem as long as the systematic treatment of women as long as “the elaborate everyday control of women’s lives by families and institutions” is in place. 

While “marital rape, date rapes and the sexual violence that takes place within the family are systematically ignored” there are no safe places for women, or frankly speaking anybody else – especially not anybody in a vulnerable or subaltern position whether of an alternative sexuality, sex worker, muslim, working class or adivasi.

Especially if you’re in any position of power – whether that be upper middle class, educated, man or white (all four which I check) – you do certainly do have a share in the responsibility for the culture that creates the context in which these rapes are happening. 

Being supposedly outraged, calling for beheadings or speedy justice is nothing but trying to shirk that responsibility making this an isolated event perpetrated by people who have nothing to do with you. 

Read more:

http://www.sify.com/news/we-are-all-part-of-the-rape-culture-news-columns-mmsxrUdgfed.html