Blaglash.com

People expect to hear stories coming out of the Middle East and Africa like this one: A woman, Mukhtaran Bibi, is gang raped by six men and they are convicted and sentenced to death.  The men appeal their punishment and the conviction is overturned for five men; the sixth’s sentence becomes more lenient- life in prison. 

Another woman, raped by a man 12 years her senior, filed charges and went through the painful process of a trial only to have the jury acquit the man; with the judge making remarks such as: the defendant was ”in a way a man of good character” and to disregard the plaintiff’s age “in case it was worrying you.”  The defendant had a previous criminal record.  The mother of the girl in question had to practically “beg” the police to even question the suspect, after she provided them with his name, address and phone number.  Another man, a 24 year old, was acquitted from the charges of raping a ten year old girl, since the court found that she was “dressed provacatively.” 

But this was in London, England.

This treatment of rape as the woman’s fault is prevalent all over the world, and with 1 in 20 rape trials ending in conviction in Britain, a question arises: why don’t authorities take rape cases seriously?  Do they beleive that the other 19 women were lying? 

Julie Bindel, a feminist activist and writer said, “women are allowed that bit more freedom as long as men behave. When men choose not to, it comes right back at women: ‘What did you do to stop him? What was it about you that he chose you to rape?’”  This mentality is expected in the Dark Ages and in regressive countries where female circumcision is a matter of course.  But in England?

Another astounding rape ruling ocurred in Italy, when a judge ruled that it is impossible to rape a woman wearing jeans, since “common knowledge that it’s nearly impossible to even partially remove jeans from a person without their cooperation, since this operation is already very difficult for the wearer.”  This ruling was met with global protest: women wearing jeans and signs saying “jeans: an alibi for rape”.  But how were the protests met?  With jokes written by male writers in male dominated newspapers begging women to wear skirts again- so they could look at female legs once more. 

These incidents, along with the rape of female defense contractors in Iraq, are glaring signs that female safety and sexual freedom are not taken seriously all over the world, not just in fundamentalist countries and not just in poor ones.  These defense contractors were systematically abused sexually, and their company did nothing but fire them.  If a judge is allowed to sit on his bench, and TELL a jury not to take a rape victim seriously, how is that victim ever going to get justice?

The problem I see, one I am concerned with, is the way young people will continue to view female liberation.  If the men who were around for civil rights, who witnessed the burning bra protests, who experienced firsthand women’s progression in the professional world can’t respect women and their right to simply say “no” to sex- how are young men in today’s sexualized culture able to?  In turn, how are developing countries going to develop into respectful countries, if even the economically and socially advanced ones in the West can still get away with gang raping an employee and supressing her right to prosecute them for it?

If women rely on the behavior of men they’re not independent; if a man decides to rape a woman she is blamed, and again depends on men to prosecute her asasilant.  Depending on the will of a man in either case is not true equality- and this happens all over the world, every day.