Deepb I know, but it always has interesting articles to discuss. Here's an editorial from today's based on yesterday's article:
I was drunk, wearing a short skirt and agreed to go back to his house. Does that REALLY mean I deserved to be raped?
By Jenni Murray
Last updated at 2:00 AM on 16th February 2010
As a young woman - I was 19 and a university student - I did what, on reflection, was an extremely stupid thing. I went with a group of friends to the home of a much older man.
I was wearing what my mother described, disapprovingly, as an extended belt, but what to me was just a fashionable mini skirt. We'd been drinking in the pub and carried on drinking at the man's flat.
I was not used to alcohol, and I remember feeling grown up and flattered by his attentions, but hardly recall the friends drifting away and me suddenly being the last woman barely standing.
Jenni Murray was violently molested after going back to a man's house with a group of friends
Jenni Murray was violently molested after going back to a man's house with a group of friends (posed by models)
I sobered up pretty quickly when his intentions became apparent and he started violently molesting me. I firmly said: 'No', made it clear that I didn't want to sleep with him, and tried to leave.
But he was powerful and aggressive. He pushed me onto his bed, and punched me in the face. I was unable to fight him off. Later, when he finally fell asleep, I crept away and told no one what had happened.
When friends asked, I used the classic excuse employed by victims of domestic violence to explain my bruised face. I insisted I'd bumped into a door. Nobody questioned me further and I did not tell.
Anyone who asks if rape has an impact on your life has clearly never experienced it. Of course it does. It has a terrible effect on one's ability to trust - tragic when all my previous experience had been of the best of men. It took a long time not to be suspicious of a suitor's motives.
This was 1969, long before the crime of rape was placed onto the political agenda by the women's movement.
It didn't occur to me to report what had happened to the police because I didn't think anyone would believe me and I would have been too embarrassed to reveal what a vulnerable position I'd placed myself in. After all, hadn't I worn a short skirt, been drinking and willingly gone back to his house?
I suspected the police would treat me with little respect, as the documentary about Thames Valley police, A Complaint Of Rape, made by Roger Graef in 1982, later confirmed. He revealed that officers in those days were taught that 60 per cent of all rape claims were false.
I also knew the courts were less than sympathetic. Judges were obliged by law to tell juries that they should seek corroboration of the alleged crime as 'women and small children tend to lie about these matters'.
Corroboration is notoriously difficult to find in a crime where generally only two people are present and the question of consent relies on his word or hers.
Since then, there have been changes in police procedure and the law - the corroboration warning only went in 1994.
How dispiriting to find, then, in a survey carried out by the Haven Service for Rape Victims in London, that a significant number of people - and more women than men - believe that in some cases women have only themselves to blame if they are raped.
A third of those surveyed said the woman should take responsibility for what had happened if she was dressed provocatively or had gone back to a man's home for a drink. Seventy-one per cent of women, but only 57 per cent of men, said rape was her fault if she got into bed with the man.
Researchers believe it's these attitudes that may account for the low rate of conviction in cases of rape because juries may not be prepared to send a man to jail if they think he was led on.
So why are these ideas as prevalent now as when I was attacked some 40 years ago, when so much else about society has changed?
I always promised myself I would never turn into my mother, who would frequently say: 'Don't think you're going out in that', as the skirts in the Sixties got shorter. I believe we all have a right to wear whatever we choose, whether it's a mini skirt or a burka.
A third of those surveyed believe the woman should take responsibility for the rape if she had gone back to the man's home
Sadly, I'm not sure that the highly sexualised society in which we live offers young people much of a choice. Children are lured into 'sexy gear' before they're old enough to be trusted to take a bus on their own.
Amanda Platell, in this newspaper, wrote last week of a visit to a nightclub, where she reckoned she was the only woman in the place wearing underwear and where it was accepted that if a couple briefly left the building they'd gone for a 'fag and a sh**'.
I was talking to a teacher the other day who'd been shocked at a parents' evening to find a mother colluding in her daughter's ambition to become a pole dancer and I doubt you could look at the internet history of many young people without finding they'd been seeking pornography.
Is it a surprise that in such a society assumptions are made about a woman's availability?
I may, I'm afraid, have to concede that it's not a good idea to go out in the skimpiest of clothing, totter about in the kind of high heels in which you could never run to get out of trouble, get blind drunk and fall over in the street having first taken off your knickers - if you were wearing them in the first place.
Should the worst happen, you could hardly be surprised if a jury felt you had been guilty of a degree of contributory negligence and compromised your safety.
If I had a daughter I would be telling her to treat alcohol with respect; to listen to her instincts if she thinks a guy may be dodgy and be aware of the signals she may be giving out that may be read as a licence to take liberties. It's not an ideal world, but it is the real world.
I still, however, firmly believe that wearing a short skirt or getting drunk doesn't make a victim any less of a victim or a rapist any less of a rapist, and a young girl may still be at risk even after taking advice on board - part of being human is making silly mistakes, especially when you're young.
But at least by taking responsibility for the amount she drinks, and thinking before going to a man's house, a woman would be giving herself the best chance of being safe and, should the worst happen, convincing a jury she had done everything to protect herself.
Of course, persuading young women to act more responsibly won't solve everything. The brutal truth is that many men still have shockingly predatory attitudes.
According to the survey, one in three men didn't think it was rape if they made their partner have sex when they didn't want to. Thirteen per cent of men admitted having sex with a partner who was too drunk to know what was happening.
The late Sue Lees, Professor of Women's Studies at the University of North London and author of Carnal Knowledge: Rape On Trial, spent a large part of her adult life researching attitudes to rape.
She found that false reports of rape are relatively rare and on a par with false reporting of any other crime.
She discovered that only a small number of the rapes women claim to have suffered are reported to the police and that, of those, only four-fifths go to trial because the Crown Prosecution Service tends only to pursue cases where the evidence is good.
A significant number of people believe in some cases women have only themselves to blame if they are raped
A significant number of people believe in some cases women have only themselves to blame if they are raped (posed by model)
What was particularly fascinatingwas that she found, sitting in the Old Bailey day after day, that the same man appeared in the dock on a number of occasions. He would appear clean and smartly dressed, every inch the respectable chap next door.
The women would seem cold and distant, giving evidence without tears or hysterics, no matter how brutal or intrusive the defence lawyer's approach; a demeanour psychologists say is typical of someone who has been traumatised and is telling their story months after the incident.
He would always be acquitted, arguing he had met the woman in a bar, been invited home and the sex was consensual.
Professor Lees realised that this man was a serial rapist, similar to the much-trusted London black cab driver, John Worboys, who, when the police finally pieced together a number of women's complaints, was found guilty last year of raping or sexually assaulting 12 of his passengers.
Some prominent feminists have argued that rape is not the worst thing that can happen to you. It's something I tried to tell myself.
It's not true. Rape is not a bit of fun that went too far. It is a terrifying crime of violence. It's used as a weapon in war to destroy communities. It's employed by men who want only to harm and demean the person they are with.
It threatens whatever sense of security and autonomy you believed you had. It can cause profound physical and emotional damage, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection.
And in the end, blaming women for being violently assaulted and abused is just plain wrong.
It is the man who makes the choice to commit the crime because he chooses to ignore the veracity of that old saying: 'When a woman says no, she means no.'
And that's true, even if her clothes are saying the opposite.
Deepb I know, but it always has interesting articles to discuss. Here's an editorial from today's based on yesterday's article:
I was drunk, wearing a short skirt and agreed to go back to his house. Does that REALLY mean I deserved to be raped?
By Jenni Murray
Last updated at 2:00 AM on 16th February 2010
As a young woman - I was 19 and a university student - I did what, on reflection, was an extremely stupid thing. I went with a group of friends to the home of a much older man.
I was wearing what my mother described, disapprovingly, as an extended belt, but what to me was just a fashionable mini skirt. We'd been drinking in the pub and carried on drinking at the man's flat.
I was not used to alcohol, and I remember feeling grown up and flattered by his attentions, but hardly recall the friends drifting away and me suddenly being the last woman barely standing.
Jenni Murray was violently molested after going back to a man's house with a group of friends
Jenni Murray was violently molested after going back to a man's house with a group of friends (posed by models)
I sobered up pretty quickly when his intentions became apparent and he started violently molesting me. I firmly said: 'No', made it clear that I didn't want to sleep with him, and tried to leave.
But he was powerful and aggressive. He pushed me onto his bed, and punched me in the face. I was unable to fight him off. Later, when he finally fell asleep, I crept away and told no one what had happened.
When friends asked, I used the classic excuse employed by victims of domestic violence to explain my bruised face. I insisted I'd bumped into a door. Nobody questioned me further and I did not tell.
Anyone who asks if rape has an impact on your life has clearly never experienced it. Of course it does. It has a terrible effect on one's ability to trust - tragic when all my previous experience had been of the best of men. It took a long time not to be suspicious of a suitor's motives.
This was 1969, long before the crime of rape was placed onto the political agenda by the women's movement.
It didn't occur to me to report what had happened to the police because I didn't think anyone would believe me and I would have been too embarrassed to reveal what a vulnerable position I'd placed myself in. After all, hadn't I worn a short skirt, been drinking and willingly gone back to his house?
I suspected the police would treat me with little respect, as the documentary about Thames Valley police, A Complaint Of Rape, made by Roger Graef in 1982, later confirmed. He revealed that officers in those days were taught that 60 per cent of all rape claims were false.
I also knew the courts were less than sympathetic. Judges were obliged by law to tell juries that they should seek corroboration of the alleged crime as 'women and small children tend to lie about these matters'.
Corroboration is notoriously difficult to find in a crime where generally only two people are present and the question of consent relies on his word or hers.
Since then, there have been changes in police procedure and the law - the corroboration warning only went in 1994.
How dispiriting to find, then, in a survey carried out by the Haven Service for Rape Victims in London, that a significant number of people - and more women than men - believe that in some cases women have only themselves to blame if they are raped.
A third of those surveyed said the woman should take responsibility for what had happened if she was dressed provocatively or had gone back to a man's home for a drink. Seventy-one per cent of women, but only 57 per cent of men, said rape was her fault if she got into bed with the man.
Researchers believe it's these attitudes that may account for the low rate of conviction in cases of rape because juries may not be prepared to send a man to jail if they think he was led on.
So why are these ideas as prevalent now as when I was attacked some 40 years ago, when so much else about society has changed?
I always promised myself I would never turn into my mother, who would frequently say: 'Don't think you're going out in that', as the skirts in the Sixties got shorter. I believe we all have a right to wear whatever we choose, whether it's a mini skirt or a burka.
A third of those surveyed believe the woman should take responsibility for the rape if she had gone back to the man's home
Sadly, I'm not sure that the highly sexualised society in which we live offers young people much of a choice. Children are lured into 'sexy gear' before they're old enough to be trusted to take a bus on their own.
Amanda Platell, in this newspaper, wrote last week of a visit to a nightclub, where she reckoned she was the only woman in the place wearing underwear and where it was accepted that if a couple briefly left the building they'd gone for a 'fag and a sh**'.
I was talking to a teacher the other day who'd been shocked at a parents' evening to find a mother colluding in her daughter's ambition to become a pole dancer and I doubt you could look at the internet history of many young people without finding they'd been seeking pornography.
Is it a surprise that in such a society assumptions are made about a woman's availability?
I may, I'm afraid, have to concede that it's not a good idea to go out in the skimpiest of clothing, totter about in the kind of high heels in which you could never run to get out of trouble, get blind drunk and fall over in the street having first taken off your knickers - if you were wearing them in the first place.
Should the worst happen, you could hardly be surprised if a jury felt you had been guilty of a degree of contributory negligence and compromised your safety.
If I had a daughter I would be telling her to treat alcohol with respect; to listen to her instincts if she thinks a guy may be dodgy and be aware of the signals she may be giving out that may be read as a licence to take liberties. It's not an ideal world, but it is the real world.
I still, however, firmly believe that wearing a short skirt or getting drunk doesn't make a victim any less of a victim or a rapist any less of a rapist, and a young girl may still be at risk even after taking advice on board - part of being human is making silly mistakes, especially when you're young.
But at least by taking responsibility for the amount she drinks, and thinking before going to a man's house, a woman would be giving herself the best chance of being safe and, should the worst happen, convincing a jury she had done everything to protect herself.
Of course, persuading young women to act more responsibly won't solve everything. The brutal truth is that many men still have shockingly predatory attitudes.
According to the survey, one in three men didn't think it was rape if they made their partner have sex when they didn't want to. Thirteen per cent of men admitted having sex with a partner who was too drunk to know what was happening.
The late Sue Lees, Professor of Women's Studies at the University of North London and author of Carnal Knowledge: Rape On Trial, spent a large part of her adult life researching attitudes to rape.
She found that false reports of rape are relatively rare and on a par with false reporting of any other crime.
She discovered that only a small number of the rapes women claim to have suffered are reported to the police and that, of those, only four-fifths go to trial because the Crown Prosecution Service tends only to pursue cases where the evidence is good.
A significant number of people believe in some cases women have only themselves to blame if they are raped
A significant number of people believe in some cases women have only themselves to blame if they are raped (posed by model)
What was particularly fascinatingwas that she found, sitting in the Old Bailey day after day, that the same man appeared in the dock on a number of occasions. He would appear clean and smartly dressed, every inch the respectable chap next door.
The women would seem cold and distant, giving evidence without tears or hysterics, no matter how brutal or intrusive the defence lawyer's approach; a demeanour psychologists say is typical of someone who has been traumatised and is telling their story months after the incident.
He would always be acquitted, arguing he had met the woman in a bar, been invited home and the sex was consensual.
Professor Lees realised that this man was a serial rapist, similar to the much-trusted London black cab driver, John Worboys, who, when the police finally pieced together a number of women's complaints, was found guilty last year of raping or sexually assaulting 12 of his passengers.
Some prominent feminists have argued that rape is not the worst thing that can happen to you. It's something I tried to tell myself.
It's not true. Rape is not a bit of fun that went too far. It is a terrifying crime of violence. It's used as a weapon in war to destroy communities. It's employed by men who want only to harm and demean the person they are with.
It threatens whatever sense of security and autonomy you believed you had. It can cause profound physical and emotional damage, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection.
And in the end, blaming women for being violently assaulted and abused is just plain wrong.
It is the man who makes the choice to commit the crime because he chooses to ignore the veracity of that old saying: 'When a woman says no, she means no.'
And that's true, even if her clothes are saying the opposite.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1251364/JENNI-MURRAY-I-drunk-w...
"We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect." Ambrose Bierce