According to Melanie Phillips in today’s Mail, the new ConDem government is wrong to consider granting anonymity to those accused of rape. So far so good eh? Indeed, you might now be thinking: “At last! Mel “I’ve never been considered a part of the sisterhood” (Question Time 13/5/10) has finally seen some sense and come out on the side of the angels for a change.”
In which case calm yourselves, because no, that’s not what’s happened here.
In fact far from it. Because this time, Melanie Phillips has sunk lower than it was previously thought humanly possible to sink, and has suggested that rather than granting anonymity to men charged with rape, the government should instead be looking at abolishing anonymity for rape victims.
“We should name their accusers” rants Mel, in her usual calm and rational manner “‘cos they’re just a bunch of lying slags anyway!”
Yeah okay, I made that last bit up, but it’s basically what her shameful argument boils down to.
Take this claim for example:
“The injustice being done to men derives from the false accusations that result in the 40 per cent acquittal rate. And what fuels those untrue claims is that the women who make them know they will never be held to account.”
That’s right, not only has Mel rounded up the conviction rate, from the 58% Baroness Stern recommended politicians and campaigners should be using (a recommendation I and others reject by the way) to 60%; she’s then put two and two together and come up with some truly twisted fuckwittery along the lines of: 40% of men accused of rape are acquitted, therefore 40% of men accused of rape are the victims of lying scheming bitchez. Fuckwittery which she later repeats:
“the important point is that the real injustice to men in those 40 per cent of rape cases where they are acquitted is not that their identities are made known but that they are the victims of false allegations in the first place.”
She goes on:
“Women were originally granted anonymity in rape cases because of the often harsh cross-examination to which they were subjected, which laid bare their sexual history.
So to encourage those who had been sexually attacked to brave the ordeal in court, their identities were kept secret.
When the new law was introduced in 1976, there was some force behind this argument. Indeed, the Mail led the campaign which led to this change in the rules.
But circumstances now are very different. Women’s sexual behaviour has changed beyond recognition. We are in a far less prissy age. Sexual modesty has gone out of the window.”
Or in other words, there’s no reason for women to suddenly come over all coy and embarrassed when talking about their rapes nowadays, ‘cos they’re not backwards in coming forwards when it comes to sex anyway.
At which point I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering what on earth Mel thinks rape and women’s sexual behaviour have to do with each other…
According to Mel:
“Rape has been redefined from a crime in which someone is forced to have sex against their will to cover a wide variety of non-violent sexual encounters.
Thus a woman is encouraged to claim she has been raped when, for example, with the benefit of hindsight, she may become aggrieved about what she voluntarily allowed to happen, particularly when she was rather the worse for wear.”
Encouraged by who though, you might be asking. Why, by all those man-hating femnazis who’ve been driving the rape agenda for all these years of course. The same shadowy group Minette Marrin referred to as the “rape lobby” in yet another “Won’t somebody think of the poor rapists” piece in yesterday’s Times.
The comments underneath Mel’s rant are the usual mixed bag, with some rightly condemning the author for her fucked up analysis, and others lauding her as the voice of sanity. Predictably though, the misogynists are out in force. Here’s Sandy from Hertfordshire for example:
“Very little consideration, if any at all, is given to those completely innocent men whose lives have been totally ruined by the lies of vindictive, scheming, women who were found to have made false rape accusations for whatever reason, often out of sheer spite and malice or out of shame and regret for their own actions in a sexual relationship, often resulting in tragic consequences for the men concerned. Melanie spaketh the truth. I am fed up with women who claim victim status when none exists in reality, or will not accent [sic] responsibility or accountability for their own actions.”
And here’s a “world war 2 veteran” from Bradford, a man so brave he won’t even post under his own name.
“The feminists tell us women can do anything a man can do, & do it better. They can fight in the front line, use machine guns, pilot bombers & act as captain or crew on nuclear submarines & aircraft carriers. Yet when it comes to standing behind an accusation they have made, it is “Pass the smelling salts, I am a weak & vulnerable woman”.”
And finally here’s Jan from Harpenden:
“or women who go to the hotel rooms of guys and say they didn’t want or expect to have sex – what a load of rubbish”
What a load of rubbish indeed. I mean for god’s sake sisters, everyone knows that if you go to a bloke’s hotel room you’re then obliged to have sex with him. It’s in the (entirely-made-up-in Jan-from Harpenden’s-head) contract ffs!
Too Much To Say For Myself 
well said cath.
it’s just mind boggling, isn’t it? i mean, mike tyson, a convicted rapist, is able to make movies and be seen as some kind of cult hero. his life has hardly been ruined, has it?
what of course mel doesn’t mention in her analysis of the figures is that the true false accusation rates of rape are lower than false accusations of car insurance. rather than 40% or whatever.
we don’t give anonymity to those accused of murder, or any other crime. why should rape be treated differently?
and her women hating is so awful – women’s sexual histories are irrelevant (or should be).
when she picks up her poison pen, does she not think about women at all? is she so sheltered that she knows no victims of sexual violence? is she so sheltered that she knows no women who haven’t gone to the police, or have done but left because no one believed them? i mean, look at the john worboys case. the women who accused him weren’t listened to for a long long time. perhaps, if things had played differently, all of those women would have been filed under mel’s ‘false accusers’ list. thanks to non-anonymity, enough women were able to come forward to get him charged and jailed. but it took a while before those women were listened to.
it seems to me that rape and related crimes are the only ones where the victim is given less respect than the defendant. it has to stop.
Unfortunately equality means exactly that – it’s not something that’s self-adjusting according to what happens to be convenient.
That means that either both the plaintiff and defendant should be granted anonymity, or neither should.
Dear sweet jesus has anybody SEEN the comments on the Male here….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280786/Boys-aged-10-11-guilty-attempted-rape-year-old-girl.html
Not only are all women who ‘cry rape’ lying slags it seems, but so are all 8 year old girls. So not a chance then that an 8 year old could get confused under the strain of cross examination? The jury and the judge seemed to think this was possible.
umm, gulfstream 5, no.
equality would mean that women who go to the police over rape are always taken seriously.
equality would mean that newspapers and therefore potential jury members wouldn’t disregard a claim of rape if the victim was drunk/wearing “provocative” clothing/flirting/had sexual history with the alleged attacker/had got into bed with the alleged attacker/was a prostitute
equality would mean that we had enough rape crisis centres so that when a rape takes place, it is easy and simple to get forensic evidence, medical help and counselling as quickly as possible.
equality would mean that newspapers don’t write sensationalist articles about false accusations that distort the public perceptions, whilst tending to ignore the vast number of rape cases.
equality means 100,000 women don’t get raped every year, that most women feel able to go to the police if they are raped, that rape isn’t a weapon of war.
equality would mean being able to go to the newsagent and not be confronted with a barrage of women-as-objects, or go into town without walking past loads of strip clubs where women are treated as objects – an objectification with clear links to sexual violence.
if we had equality, if all the things i mention above were sorted and women had true equality – well if women had true equality we wouldn’t have to have this debate. but the fact is, equality has nothing to do with anonymous victims vs named defendants.
we don’t have anonymous defendants in any other crime. perhaps if we did, then we’d be treating rape “equally”. but we don’t, making your idea of equality even more surreal.
Gulfstream5
What sianushka just said. With added *applause*.
Re the 58% conviction rate for those cases which reach court. I’ve linked this before and I’m going to keep on linking it. It is the number of times Ian Huntley was accused of rape and other sexual offences without one of them reaching court.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3313501.stm
Now can you honestly say Gulfstream5 that you think it was right that none of those cases reached court, and that if they HAD, Huntley should have had anonymity?
Not forgetting that commonly ignored word ‘justice’ because justice is only used when it concerns men – women however continue to be denied justice when they charge men with raping and/or committing other forms of violence against them.
Re: the 8 year old girl who courageously charged two boys with raping her – of course she is ‘an innate liar’ (sic). Common sense informs us that all women are liars whereas all men always tell the truth, especially when said men are charged with rape. Remember Ian Huntley and John Worboys both of whom were serial rapists but were presumed to be too respectable to commit rape.
Why were the two boys charged with rape not called to give evidence? Was it because if they did so they would incriminate themselves? Something to ponder on now the jury have rightly convicted these two boys of attempted rape.
The media once again conveniently ignores the fact this 8 year old girl was subjected to a whole day’s cross examination by a defence barrister and at the end of the day she was saying ‘yes’ to anything the defence barrister asked her. The judge himself made the observation that the young girl was exceedingly tired and her answers had become just ‘yes, yes.’
The way this 8 year old girl was subjected to detailed cross examination is identical to how adult female rape survivors are routinely subjected to when they are lucky (sic) to have their cases proceed to court. I wonder how males would feel if they were subjected to minute cross examination for a whole day and then be expected to remember precise details of what happened many, many months previously.
Not forgetting the the power differential between an adult and a young child. This child does not have the cognitive ability of an adult and yet she was expected to remember in minute detail everything that happened to her months ago. 20 years ago recommendations were made concerning how child witnesses should be treated in court and these recommendations as usual, were ignored. One important recommendation was for an independent court arbitrator to be the only person who should put the prosecution and defence questions to the child witness. In this way the child would not be subjected to intimidation and both sides of our adversarial court system would be satisfied. However, such a radical idea was of course rejected and guess who proposed this idea? Why it was the NSPCC of course – and their mandate is child protection.
Note too the police and CPS believed this young girl and refused to allow yet another rape case to be abandoned due to supposed ‘lack of evidence.’ But then of course male sexual violence against women and girls is rare, so rare that when male perpetrators are convicted they are always ‘deviant monsters’ never the boy next door, the male relative, the male work colleague etc.
Melanie Phillips is another rape ap0logist and according to her male sexual violence against women and girls rarely happens.
Guess what Sandy From Hertfordshire – I’m fed up with men/women such as you who constantly claim that women are innate liars. Did you know that convicted rapists continue to lie and claim they are ‘innocent’ or that men convicted of murder too commonly claim ‘but it wasn’t me I’ve been stitched up.’
I do wonder who is committing all these crimes given men are never guilty but always, always tell the truth.
It is persons such as Sandy From Hertfordshire as well as Melanie Phillips which enable the innumerable male rapists and male perpetrators to fool themselves they are not committing violence against women because our male-centered and male-dominant society continues to excuse/justify/minimalise male accountability.
Finally the well-respected male researcher into rape and other forms of male violence against women, David Lisak recently published a joint detailed report into false rape allegations. Their findings were that false rape reporting remains at a constant 2-8% not the mythical numbers claimed by pro-rape apologists. Furthermore these findings are identical to false rape reporting in US, UK and Australia.
So why is the myth that huge numbers of women are supposedly engaged in victimising ‘poor innocent men?’ Is it because men as a group continue to refuse to accept it is those male perpetrators who must be held accountable and shamed for their crimes of committing violence against women? Or is it because so many men have a vested interest in proclaiming these myths because men as a group benefit because male violence against women is a very effective method of ensuring continued male domination and male control over all women. No this does not mean all men rape but it certainly means that given most men refuse to accept male violence against women is endemic, allows the male-defined status quo to remain as it is. It is called a patriarchal system wherein men’s interests, men’s rights and men’s needs always supercede women’s rights, women’s interests and above all women’s right to justice.
If anyone want to write complaining to the Daily Mail about this, please email their editor, Paul Dacre at letters@dailymail.co.uk.
You can phone news and features on 020 7938 6000
I am dumbfounded that a woman could sell out her sisters and support such an idea. WTF. She should be ashamed. No wonder victims are afraid to come forward.
Cath
Absolutely incensed, I emailed the Govt Equalities Office to complain about the anonymity for rape defendants proposal. Here is their reply:
“With regard to defendants in criminal rape cases having the right to anonymity, Government recognises that this is a sensitive area and will analyse the options and implications carefully before taking any proposals to Parliament”.
They also said they would consider any comments carefully. So get emailing!
enquiries@geo.gsi.gov.uk
And on the child rape case – unbelieveable attitudes towards an 8 year old girl. Where is compassion for the victim?
Thanks for that MsChin, and yes, totally agree with you re the attitudes towards that poor girl.
Much as I agree with everything you say, I do wish you had bothered to mention the other key issue with Phillips’ piece.
She seems to believe that only women are victims of, and reporters of, rape.
hey – thanks MsChin. i’ve written, you can see my mail here
http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2010/05/anonymity-for-rape-defendants.html
Dworkin in her memoir observed that the victims credibility isn’t even relevant, or shouldnt be, because men dont choose their victims based on their credibility. There’s a credible woman, I think I will rape her; that woman isn’t credible at all, I better leave her alone. It took me a few minutes to think through what she was saying, but as usual shes absolutely right. In-credible women get raped too, is what she was saying. They are specifically targeted for that reason many times. So, I think not only should the rapists name be publicized, the general public should be invited to come forward with evidence of his sexual history or what passes for it, and his character and credibility in general. That would be perfectly fair.
Cath, there’s a petition against this proposal here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/drop-the-proposed-extension-of-anonymity-to-rape-defendants.html
Also an EDM to ask MPs to sign:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=41020&SESSION=905
for people who want to make their objections to it public.
Tara, you’re correct to point out that men get raped too. But has a male who reported rape ever been assumed to be a liar by the press? Contrast the reaction of the press to the 11 and 12 year old boys in the Edlington case, where 2 boys were the victims, and the case of the 8 year old girl which was dismissed by the press as ‘a game of doctors and nurses;’ Yes I know the Edlington case also involved significant physical injuries, but the 11 and 12 year old defendants were deemed to be ‘monsters’ and there was no question as to whether they should be tried in an adult court . Whereas boys of a similar age who attempt to rape an 8 year old girl are ‘children’ playing ‘doctors and nurses’. And there WAS supporting evidence for the attempted rape – the testimonies of other children and one of the defendants in fact. This was ignored by the press.
And the boy’s own defence counsel said they would have pleaded guilty if the charge had been sexual assault.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1281168/UKs-youngest-sex-offenders-Concern-children-forced-rape-trial.html
Sianushka, you are totally awesome.
aww *blush*
thank you,
haven’t had any response from the govt tho…