Now, whether this makes me more or less prone to be raped I have no idea.

My point being that in a legal sense, with a jury, (of which there were 4 or 5 women on that occasion) erroneous perceptions of what constitutes rape may not necessarily be restricted to males.

Peter, that’s been commented on more than once by feminist theorists as well. The habit of blaming the rape victim for being in the wrong place with the wrong man in our society is internalised by many many women, and it’s almost as if were female jurors to admit that the victim hadn’t done anything wrong then they would somehow be making themselves less safe. (This is supported by post-trial interviews with female jurors who have voted to acquit rapists, although I can’t remember who did the study – they blame the woman for not doing everything right, so of course the man felt entitled to sex).

It’s mostly feminists who note that this idea that men are biologically incapable of controlling themselves sexually if a woman is in the vicinity is sexist stereotyping. Feminists assert that men are indeed capable of refraining from acting on sexual urges, especially violent sexual urges, yet feminists are the ones accused of being man-haters.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2005/12/01/convicted-of-rape-a-short-story/

My point being that in a legal sense, with a jury, (of which there were 4 or 5 women on that occasion) erroneous perceptions of what constitutes rape may not necessarily be restricted to males.

(In that case, the under aged girls were still virgo intacta, which must have been a salient point to many on that jury.)

I don’t in any way make my comments to dilute or denigrate what Lauredhel’s post is about, and I qualify it by saying there are crucial factors for all in a jury’s decision making process, ie the “reasonable doubt” standard of proof and general principle of presumption of innocence.

I just found it highly puzzling that I (legally trained notwithstanding) would have found the accused guilty but the women on that jury did not.

One “theory” I can advance is that (and we’ll never be privy to a jury’s deliberations) the guys may have been persuasive to the extent that the women may have been swayed to a non-conviction).

I rather suspect, a lot of potential cases of rape sink (before a complaint sees the light of day), for the same reasons I’ve theorised in my case above. I’d call it the latent effect of paternalistic conditioning, effecting perhaps a minority of women and FAR too many guys.

Hope that makes some constructive sense.

[I will say that my 2 pet hates for defence representation are rapists/paedophiles and corporations, otherwise I'm always for the defence :-) ]

“He’s a nice guy, she went out with him, of course he thought she was up for sex, rape is far too harsh a term”

That sort of thinking, betcha.

Um, this one struck me as an oxymoron.
Don’t feel that Australia is bad in particular though, I think that all countries have rape apologists. (I remember similar studies in the UK and one of the Scandinavian countries, Norway, I think?) Patriarchy is global.

For me, the striking thing about this report is that it shows the persistence of a rape-production, with script and actors and an attitude that rape is not rape unless the events and actors conform. That attitude is really at the core of so many problems, not just rape.

It makes me feel angry. Sad and angry.

And a bit helpless, too. I thought we were getting better? Clearly not.

The realisation that most people are completely and utterly irrational always dumbfounds me.

It makes me want to run and bang all their stupid heads together until they see sense. I know that even if I could do that (hehehe) it wouldn’t do any good.

Certainly none of the institutional factors are working in our favour right now. Like, it would be nice to have media that wrote realistic rape/sexual assault stories. That’s not going to happen – dontchaknow they only write what people want to read?

What about if we found a failed high-profile political candidate and set her (well, actually, statistically speaking it’d probably be a man :( ) up with a few powerpoint slides and made a video of it? ;)

You know, something along the lines of:

Picture of woman wearing, well, clothes.
“She does not deserve to be raped.”

Picture of woman wearing other clothes.
“She does not deserve to be raped.”

Picture of naked woman.
“She does not deserve to be raped.”

You get the idea ;)

And maybe:

Picture of man wearing, I don’t know, maybe a suit or something.
“Don’t be fooled, this man could well be a rapist.”

And so on.

Hey, slightly more serious idea: you know that women’s political party that was in the news last week or so? What Women Want or something like that? Wonder if they’d care to let the community know what their stand is on this? At the moment, all their policies seem to equate “woman” with “mother”, and yeah, I sort of get why, but it would be very, very interesting to see if they’re willing to make a noise about this.