Criminal Justice - Drunk on Duty

As highlighted by this superb article by Zoe Williams, the recent case of a rape victim receiving only 75% of the usual compensation given to rape victims highlights the incompetency of our justice system to understand that rape is rape. There is no grey area when it comes to drugging someone and raping them. Frankly the 100% £11, 000 is mildly insulting as it is, bearing in mind there is 25 levels of criminal compensation for which they pay out from £1,000 to £250,000.

As the victim herself said, it is not a crime to drink- it is a crime to rape.

This brings to mind many a debate on CIF where the odd hound dog trolls along with a 'who's in the wrong' list. According to such men, women on a night out should be prepared to expect unwanted attention if she wears something revealing. So ladies - no short skirts if you don't want to be raped, please. Or if a girl's gotten so pissed she can't be 100% that the guy who bought her drink didn't drug it, well, that chick's just glutton for punishment eh.

Society really needs to wind it's neck in when it comes to rape. No woman deserves this violation to her human rights. The vast majority of cases go un-reported, or un-solved. For any justice system to give less weight to such cases when alcohol's been consumed is a disgrace.

Calling all women

Don't be one of the silent complainers (see Sitting on your hind below...)
The Guardian is doing a series on feminism to celebrate 90 years in Britain since women won the right to vote. Be heard. Join the debate: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/awomansplace

Sitting on your hind

"Further to this Jill Saward has written this piece on why she’s standing for the by-election. Needless to say, it being a Comment is Free piece so far she’s been described as “pathetic” (robertdaniel), told to “grow up” (GoingGoingGordon), that her writing is “spurious” (RoadRiverandRail), that women reporting rape are all liars (comment detailed but quoted in another one), that women shouldn’t make this a gender/feminist issue (tangerinedream), that talking about rape is “sneaky” (Kvasnik) and that her campaign is “absolute bollocks” (funwithwhips). Lovely."

And needless to say, it being an F-Word piece, they love nothing better than to bitch into the wilderness without actually, err, doing anything. I know it's a new concept. But how about in loving to hate the misogynists, one actually logged into commentisfree and wrote in defense of Jill? Or complained about some of the more undesirable comments by reporting the abuse? Isn't the whole point that misogynists are heard too much, too loudly? Why not just stand up to them there and then, instead of creating a safe environment where no one else is allowed to speak? Why can't we have the courage of our convictions to be heard on the same stage as our opposition?

Or is it just that its so much fun complaining, if we actually took the bull by the horns and changed it ourselves, we'd have nothing left to bitch about. That is true feminism - an actual desire to change, not a desire to winge.