The life sentence handed out to the vile Steve Wright for his murder of 5 prostituted women last year is welcome to say the least but as Rmott asks, far more powerfully than I ever could, what is actually going to change for the tens of thousands of women in this country, and the many millions across the world, who find themselves in an industry where life is cheap and where bodies are bought and sold like pieces of meat? Wright got into the news because he was a serial killer, because the papers saw money-making opportunities from yet another 'ripper' story, but where are the stories of the dozens of other women who have disappeared off the streets over the last decade, largely ignored by a male dominated legal system and a male dominated media who see them as worthless 'whores' who deserved what was coming to them?
Proponents of prostitution have typically, including several days ago in The Guardian, used this terrible case to argue that legalisation is the answer and that as soon as the industry gains legitimacy it's going to cease being any more dangerous or more exploitative than any other. This idea is wrong on so many levels - it is wrong because it assumes that most so-called 'clients' are decent people and that violence against prostituted women is a rare exception which can somehow be legislated away. The truth is that men who pay for sex do so because they want a feeling of power over women, her body becomes nothing more than an object to be invaded and controlled, he pays his money and gets to do whatever he wants to her.
It is also wrong because it assumes that prostitution has always existed and will always exist in our society. Am I the only one who's sick of hearing this 'oldest profession' crap? I mean really, do these people think that early humans didn't have more pressing things on their mind such as finding the food they needed to survive on perhaps? The question we need to be asking ourselves today is whether or not we accept the buying and selling of women's bodies by men as normal or whether or not we want to abolish it. We should be asking whether or not men's violence against women is natural and unavoidable because if it is then we may as well start dividing the world up into a male and a female half.
Showing posts with label sexual violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexual violence. Show all posts
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Friday, August 31, 2007
Courts show their contempt for victims of domestic violence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,,2155428,00.html
I felt totally sick and disgusted to read this article a week ago and it provides all the proof you need that we have a male dominated legal system which doesn't give a damn about the rights of women. The article is about two recent cases in which men were found guilty of horrific acts of domestic violence yet were let off with a miniscule fine.
The first sick bastard we hear about is Stuart Brown. For 7 years he made his wife Carol McEwan's life a misery before ultimately being convicted of dragging her out of bed and punching her 24 times. What words did the magistrate use to describe him? A "vile monster" perhaps? Wrong, he described him as being of "good character" before handing out a fine of £500. This woman-hating pig has so far been allowed to keep his £100,000 a year job as a hospital anaesthetist. His former partner on the other hand will have to live with the abuse he subjected her to for the rest of her life.
The second evil swine is Colin Read. As soon as he had married his partner Elizabeth Axe last year he reverted to being the savage misogynist he really is. In one horrendous attack he slashed her feet after she failed to make a sandwich for him. Eight days later he branded her on the back with an iron, causing severe burns, after complaining she hadn't ironed one of his shirts. Read, a wealthy management consultant on a £90,000 a year salary, was fined just £2,000 for these vicious acts of violence. He didn't even have to undergo a community sentence because according to the judge he would be "too busy" to carry it out.
Noone who has ever been a victim of domestic violence themselves can begin to imagine what these two women have been through and it must be a sickening blow to watch the person who subjected you to so much pain and misery being let off with not even a slap on the wrist. According to the Guardian just 4% of the men responsible for domestic violence ever go to prison. Yet for a crime of this nature anything other than prison is a complete insult to the victim and will do nothing to make men like these think twice in future.
The legal system in this country is rotten to the core and is clearly far more interested in upholding the interests of patriarchy and of capitalism than it is in getting justice for the victims of those who hold all the power and wealth. Maybe there will be no progress until we get rid of all the overpaid middle-class middle-aged men who make up the vast majority of judges and magistrates and who seem to have no capacity for seeing things from the perspective of anyone else, or at least from the perspective of anyone who doesn't have exactly the same social profile as themselves.
I felt totally sick and disgusted to read this article a week ago and it provides all the proof you need that we have a male dominated legal system which doesn't give a damn about the rights of women. The article is about two recent cases in which men were found guilty of horrific acts of domestic violence yet were let off with a miniscule fine.
The first sick bastard we hear about is Stuart Brown. For 7 years he made his wife Carol McEwan's life a misery before ultimately being convicted of dragging her out of bed and punching her 24 times. What words did the magistrate use to describe him? A "vile monster" perhaps? Wrong, he described him as being of "good character" before handing out a fine of £500. This woman-hating pig has so far been allowed to keep his £100,000 a year job as a hospital anaesthetist. His former partner on the other hand will have to live with the abuse he subjected her to for the rest of her life.
The second evil swine is Colin Read. As soon as he had married his partner Elizabeth Axe last year he reverted to being the savage misogynist he really is. In one horrendous attack he slashed her feet after she failed to make a sandwich for him. Eight days later he branded her on the back with an iron, causing severe burns, after complaining she hadn't ironed one of his shirts. Read, a wealthy management consultant on a £90,000 a year salary, was fined just £2,000 for these vicious acts of violence. He didn't even have to undergo a community sentence because according to the judge he would be "too busy" to carry it out.
Noone who has ever been a victim of domestic violence themselves can begin to imagine what these two women have been through and it must be a sickening blow to watch the person who subjected you to so much pain and misery being let off with not even a slap on the wrist. According to the Guardian just 4% of the men responsible for domestic violence ever go to prison. Yet for a crime of this nature anything other than prison is a complete insult to the victim and will do nothing to make men like these think twice in future.
The legal system in this country is rotten to the core and is clearly far more interested in upholding the interests of patriarchy and of capitalism than it is in getting justice for the victims of those who hold all the power and wealth. Maybe there will be no progress until we get rid of all the overpaid middle-class middle-aged men who make up the vast majority of judges and magistrates and who seem to have no capacity for seeing things from the perspective of anyone else, or at least from the perspective of anyone who doesn't have exactly the same social profile as themselves.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Only 14% of Scots think it's acceptable to view porn!
After a long absense (and 5 weeks on holiday in France and Switzerland) I've decided to come back and hopefully start posting more regularly to my blog. I think this article from yesterday's Herald (which made me happy and angry at the same time) is worth commenting on:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1605108.0.0.php
Firstly we hear the rather surprising figures from a recent poll that only 14% of Scots think it's acceptable to view porn and 10% to pay for sex. This is really positive and while I'm sure many of the participants oppose them for the wrong reasons it suggests that the sex industry, despite its continuous onslaught of patriarchal capitalist propaganda, has been failing miserably to change the attitudes of the Scottish public. In fact according to the article pornography and prostitution have became less acceptable over the last few years. I think it's really vital that feminists build on this almost universal opposition to the commodification of sex by pushing for tougher laws and ensuring our perspective is the one which is heard when the issue is debated in public.
The second part of the article, referring to the same survey, discusses public attitudes towards rape, finding that 30% of men and 25% of women believe a woman who's drunk to be to some extent responsible for being raped. 26% of respondents think in the same way in regards to women wearing revealing clothing and 34% of men and 29% of women when it comes to flirting. I suppose one positive thing the survey shows is that such views are far less prevalent among younger people - 7% of adults under 24 believe women who were flirting can be held at least partly responsible compared to 50% of those over 65. And a clear majority of those surveyed do hold the view that women are never responsible for being raped.
But why is it that so many people still feel the way they do? Could it be, as an SSP comrade suggested, that sex is very much seen as something which men do to women and that it is women who have the responsibility to say no and resist - with getting drunk being considered an abdication of that responsibility? The above survey was carried out by the Scottish Executive in an attempt to tackle the miserable conviction rate for reported rapes which last year fell below 4% for the first time. What sort of society are we living in, we should be asking, when less than 4 out of every 100 women subjected to rape ever see their attackers brought to justice, when rape victims are hardly ever taken seriously, when they have their stories laughed at and ridiculed by the police and by the male dominated legal system?
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1605108.0.0.php
Firstly we hear the rather surprising figures from a recent poll that only 14% of Scots think it's acceptable to view porn and 10% to pay for sex. This is really positive and while I'm sure many of the participants oppose them for the wrong reasons it suggests that the sex industry, despite its continuous onslaught of patriarchal capitalist propaganda, has been failing miserably to change the attitudes of the Scottish public. In fact according to the article pornography and prostitution have became less acceptable over the last few years. I think it's really vital that feminists build on this almost universal opposition to the commodification of sex by pushing for tougher laws and ensuring our perspective is the one which is heard when the issue is debated in public.
The second part of the article, referring to the same survey, discusses public attitudes towards rape, finding that 30% of men and 25% of women believe a woman who's drunk to be to some extent responsible for being raped. 26% of respondents think in the same way in regards to women wearing revealing clothing and 34% of men and 29% of women when it comes to flirting. I suppose one positive thing the survey shows is that such views are far less prevalent among younger people - 7% of adults under 24 believe women who were flirting can be held at least partly responsible compared to 50% of those over 65. And a clear majority of those surveyed do hold the view that women are never responsible for being raped.
But why is it that so many people still feel the way they do? Could it be, as an SSP comrade suggested, that sex is very much seen as something which men do to women and that it is women who have the responsibility to say no and resist - with getting drunk being considered an abdication of that responsibility? The above survey was carried out by the Scottish Executive in an attempt to tackle the miserable conviction rate for reported rapes which last year fell below 4% for the first time. What sort of society are we living in, we should be asking, when less than 4 out of every 100 women subjected to rape ever see their attackers brought to justice, when rape victims are hardly ever taken seriously, when they have their stories laughed at and ridiculed by the police and by the male dominated legal system?
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