Rape – Pike & Hurricane

On rape, stereotypes and victim-blaming

Merle Emrich — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:36:38 +0000

Trigger warning: rape, sexual violence, mention of suicide

In the age of #MeToo, awareness on sexual offences and consent is increasing, yet it is still fairly easy to get away with rape and sexual assault – the crime with the least report and conviction rates. From victim blaming based on stereotypes connected to rape, over police officers not believing rape survivors, to humiliating and misguided inquiries into the complainant’s private life or even charges of false allegations, the abuse of these women continues even after the act of rape itself.

What is rape?

While the term sexual violence refers to all and any kinds of unwanted sexual activity, rape – at least according to English law – is defined as “penetration with a penis of the vagina, anus or mouth of another person without their consent”. Non-consentual sex without penetration carries the same sentence as rape but is called sexual assault. In 2018, Sweden changed its law so that sex without explicit consent (freely agreeing by choice when one is capable to do so, that is not when asleep, under the influence of drugs or a lot of alcohol, when being threatened, bullied or scared) can be considered rape. Thus, while previously decisive factors for rape convictions were the use of force, threats or taking advantage of someone in a vulnerable position, rape is legally considered as such also without the survivor having explicitly said “No!”.

While not all rape survivors are women, and not all rapists are men, statistics show a noticeable difference in this regard. In England and Wales 20 percent of women over 16 years are estimated to have been exposed to sexual assault, yet only 4 percent of men. In Sweden, 35.8 percent of women compared to 4.7% of men aged 20 to 24 have experience sexual violence, and on an EU level nine out of ten rapes and eight out of ten sexual assaults are committed against women whereas the persons convicted of these crimes are men. What is furthermore noticeable are the report and conviction rates for sexual violence which are far lower than for any other crime. Only about 15 percent of sexual violence cases are reported to the police and of these cases only about six percent in England and Wales and 17 percent in Sweden end with a conviction.

Women are not “asking for it”

The #MeToo movement has undoubtedly raised awareness on sexual violence and rape culture, yet we are still far from a social atmosphere and a justice system that is not based on stereotypes around rape and humiliating legal procedures for rape survivors. A major obstacle to the conviction of rapists, apart from the issue of presenting concrete evidence, is that those who make rape complaints are often not believed. Of the few reported cases of rape almost a third is considered as no crime by the police, and only those cases investigated that are likely to be won go to court.

The main issue in this regard are the stereotypes connected to rape; from the image of rape as a stranger dragging a woman into the bushes and taking advantage of her to considering it women’s responsibility to stay safe rather then men’s to not rape and consequently blaming the victim, especially when she was drunk, had condoms with her, or was wearing the “wrong” clothes. Alcohol consumption is considered as “asking for it”, clothes and make up are seen as “implying consent”, and at times the woman’s sex life is taken apart in court. When, in 2006, a teenager called the police because she had been gang raped in a park in London with the rapists filming her abuse, she was accused by the officers of being “mentally unsound” after stating that she had been raped previously. They did not even bother arresting the rapists and considered the video as evidence of the girl’s “consent”.

In dubio pro reo

Rape is not only the most under-reported crime, and the crime with the lowest conviction rate, but women are also often accused of making false allegations. And while there is widespread reporting on such false allegations, there are indeed not more false rape claims than there are false allegations for any other crime.

A month after the teenage girl’s rape, it was her, not the men who had raped her, who was arrested. She was accused of perverting the course of justice by lying about her rape. Fortunately for her the charges were dropped, yet, her rapists were never convicted. Other women had similar experiences. One of them is Lucy Green who was sued for slander. “All of a sudden I was in court as a defendant, not a victim of rape”, she said. “If he had won I would have been forced to make a public apology and pay him money for raping me.” Similarly, 23-year-old Eleanor de Freitas was sued for perverting the course of justice after reporting a case of sexual assault. Shortly before her trial she killed herself.

In dubio pro reo (“when in doubt, for the accused”) is a good and useful principle. But in the case of rape and sexual assault it all too often appears to be turned into “if possible, for the perpetrator”. Women are held responsible for the crime committed against them, especially when they have previously filed rape charges leading to women who are raped or assaulted more than once and report the crime being even less likely to get justice.

A society that blames women for being raped due to how they dress, how much they drink, who they sleep with and how often, police officers that are unable or unwilling to properly investigate potential cases of sexual violence and courts that are influenced by the same biases and stereotypes as police and society are preventing too large a number of rape survivors from obtaining justice, or even worse paint them as perpetrators of a crime themselves. In dubio pro reo can only be an effective principle to apply to charges of sexual violence when the complainants are taken seriously, and when the responsibility of women to “not get raped” is transformed into the responsibility of men to not rape.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Barbie violence, Isabella Quintana, pixabay [no attribution required]

#womensmarch2018 Philly Philadelphia #MeToo, Rob Kall, CC BY 2.0

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The Polanski affair: Should we differentiate the artist from his work?

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 18:16:25 +0000

A big debate is back in France raising the question: “should we separate the man from the artist?”. In fact, Roman Polanski, the famous director, is accused of multiple rapes of minors. On 8 November 2019, the photographer Valentine Monnier accused Polanski to have raped and beaten her in 1975 which he disputes. However, she is the fifth woman to officially declare having been raped by the director since the Samantha Geimer case in 1977. To the case of this 13-year-old girl who Polanski allegedly drugged and raped during a photo shoot for Vogue magazine were added the more recent accusations of three actresses in the end of 2017.

The accusation of Valentine Monnier appeared only a few days before the release of the new movie of Polanski, aptly named “J’accuse”. So the question arises, can we go see this artistic work of an alleged rapist, repeat offender?

While Roman Polanski has been exclude by the Academy of Oscars in the United States, the French cinema community is regularly suspected of protecting. In fact, he was convicted by the American courts in a case of sexual abuse of a minor in 1977. Roman Polanski is considered by Interpol as a fugitive: following his conviction, after having served his first sentence in the United States, he fled the country before being sentenced again in the same case.

This is why some feminists have decided to boycott his movie, and some have mobilized to block the access to the film’s preview at the “Champollion” cinema in Paris. Polanski is protected by the state because he appears as a man of power and a great artist which is not acceptable. The boycott of his film is then the only weapon that the population has to campaign against this injustice and show their dissatisfaction with the French justice.

This problem has already arisen in France with Louis-Ferdinand Céline, notably known for his work “Journey to the end of the night”. But this famous writer was a racist and wrote antisemitic works.

The problem is quite recent because indeed before, it was a taboo and was considered as normal. So those artists, that we know to have done some criminal activity can no longer be tried and can no longer defend themselves in face of these accusations, recalling the presumption of innocence which says that “everyone charged with a penal offense is presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.“

Understanding is not forgiving

If Polanski is a rapist, I think that as with every criminal, we need to interest ourselves for his history for a better understanding, but to understand is not to forgive.

Polanski was born in Paris in 1933, to a Jewish Polish father and a Russian mother. He lived in France for three years, but his family left for Poland after the German invasion of Poland. There, he was forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto where he escaped deportation but his parents and sister did not. His mother died in Auschwitz. He was interested in cinema since his childhood, he notably made one of his greatest successes with “The Pianist” which is adapted from the homonymous autobiographical novel by Władysław Szpilman in which he tells how he survived in the Warsaw ghetto, then after its liquidation, until the insurrection of the Polish resistance, and the Soviet invasion. His childhood story therefore strongly inspired Polanski to make this film.

In 1969, Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski, was assassinated by repeated stabbing in their house in Los Angeles while she was pregnant. The murder was organized by Charles Manson and perpetrated by his “family”, the name of the sect that the serial killer had founded.

So if we judge the artist in relation to his work it is important to look at and judge it in relation to his childhood and the traumatic elements that he himself suffered. Several artists have been accused of mistreatment like Chris Brown or paedophilia like Michael Jackson … You are free to boycott their works or not according to your convictions.

by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo credits

Devant l’affiche de “J’accuse” (Polanski), Jeanne Menjoulet, CC BY 2.0

missing bricks, Warsaw ghetto wall, Nina Childish, CC BY-ND 2.0

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Women’s Leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Zarifa Dag — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 19:45:25 +0000

What comes to your mind when you think of a “leader”?

For three women leading various organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ‘leadership’ is synonymous with patriarchy, rape and war crimes. Rape was a common practice for soldiers in the Bosnian War and more than a decade after the conflict, some feminists claim that the acts of rape were perpetrated as genocidal acts. Others argue that rape is a tool in every war zone and that every military action is sexist.

Despite the trauma from the past, the women leaders in Bosnia are in charge of organizations aiming to help women in the post-war areas in Bosnia.

Leadership as Patriarchal Dictatorship

For Amra Pandžo, Danka Zelić and Sehija Dedović the word ‘leadership’ is a word they despise as it reminds them of a powerful dictator, hierarchy and dominance, especially on females. Amra, Danka, and Sehija struggle to call themselves leaders, as archaic leadership in Bosnia lead to the humiliation of many innocent citizens by means of a genocide, or rather ethnic cleansing.

Amra is a muslim woman leading the ‘Small Steps’ peacebuilding organisation in Sarajevo, Danka is a Catholic and a former female police officer leading UG Grahovo, and Sehija is a muslim woman with formal theological education, leading Nahla(bee). These organisations promote women’s human rights, peacebuilding and settlement during and after war.

All three women have been prominent leaders within their organisations and claim that they had no intentions of becoming leaders and this progressed throughout the years and their initiative to defend human rights, and eventually they self-trained themselves for leadership roles within their communities.

Yet, Zilka Spahić Šiljak’s article ‘Women, Religion and Peace Leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina ‘ states that for the three women the definition of a leader is, someone who knows how to persuade others on peace and having the vision, courage, and faith to act within their communities.

On the 11th of each month the Women of Srebrenica gather in the main square of Tuzla to stand in silent protest of their missing and dead men. Photo: The Advocacy Project

Humiliation – rape for being a woman or for ethnicity?

Rape is severe torture and aggression to the intimate self and the dignity of a human being.

The book “Mass Rape: The war against women in Bosnia-Herzegovina” describes how the ultimate torture that can be caused to a woman is by violently invading her inner space. This results in loss of dignity, shame, loss of identity, and self-determination or self-confidence.

Humiliation in this case is not only targeted at women but also at men. Women were a crucial target because women in many cultures are extremely important due to the perception of a woman as the pillar in family structure. Therefore rape became a different way of waging war between different ethnicities in general. Perpetrators ritualize rape as a means to show the men of the other ethnicity that they are incompatible and are not able to ‘protect their women’. On the other hand, many victims of wartime rape were not supported by their husbands neither as they were to blame and were ostracized by ending relationships. The women were silenced and never had the chance to fight for their rights.

Unfortunately, the UN did not acknowledge rape as a war crime until 2008. In wartime and among soldiers, rape has always been embedded. A typical excuse used to justify rape is that soldiers have been in the battlefield for an extensive period, leading to a situation where the men have urges to be fulfilled. And this is what we have come to accept – a common excuse.

Giving Women a Voice Again

Amra, Danka and Sehija use the ethics of religion to teach peacebuilding in their organisations. All three peacebuilders recognised the needs in their community, of which; deconstructing the media’s idea of Islam as a terrorism, submission and oppression, helping returnees to settle back in Bosnia, and including women in recognised organisations which are dominated by men. This has helped many women to regain their voices, as the peacebuilders did not want professional and experienced people to lead in their organisations, but wanted volunteers from all over Bosnia, to exchange knowledge and build support together.

Erasing women by traumatising them by war crimes such as rape is the same as erasing a community.

On the other hand, observing how Amra, Danja and Zehija work and strive for a better definition of leadership instills hope in their communities. This provides them a sense that Bosnia can become a better place than it was before the war. The world needs more of these prominent leaders, who use their traumas to teach others wisdom, and thus not letting their horrific experiences revolve into aggression and revenge.

This article is based on the article “Women, Religion and Peace Leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina” by Zilka Spahić Šiljak and the books “Mass Rape: The war against women in Bosnia-Herzegovina” edited by Alexandra Stiglmayer and “Bosnia: A Short History” by Noel Malcolm.

By Zarifa Dag

Photo Credit:

Sarajevo, Béatrice BDM, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Women of Srebenica, The Advocacy Project, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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