“Too many of us believe women lie about rape. In fact, they rarely report it.” Source: Julia Baird, journalist, historian, broadcaster and author. Ms Baird hosts The Drum on ABC TV. 1/28 #March4Justice #GraceTame #BrittanyHiggins #KatharineThornton #Auspol
“For centuries we have upheld the hoary myth that women lie about rape. This is why it matters so much that Linda Reynolds shamefully called Brittany Higgins a “lying cow” in earshot of a group of people in her office.” 2/28
“The Defence Minster said she was not referring to her former staffer’s rape allegation but other statements Higgins made regarding the poor response from her superiors. It matters because when you call a person a liar, you undermine their credibility on all matters.” 3/28
“And because for too long women have been falsely accused of fabricating charges of sexual assault. In 1975, American author Susan Brownmiller wrote a “startling”, seminal book called Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape.” 4/28
“One of the myths she was most determined to cut down was that women make up fibs about sexual assault for revenge or giggles. “While men successfully convinced each other and us that women cry rape with ease and glee,” she wrote,” 5/28
“”the reality of rape is that victimised women have always been reluctant to report the crime and seek legal justice – because of the shame of public exposure, because of that complex double standard that makes a female feel culpable, even responsible…”” 6/28
“their accounts are received with a harsh cynicism that forms the first line of male defence.” And here we are, again, today. Four in 10 Australians think women fabricate sexual assault to get back at men, the National Community Attitudes Survey revealed in 2018.” 7/28
“One in 10 think women are “probably lying” about rape if they don’t report it instantly. Almost a third think women who say they have been raped have often “led the man on”... Exactly a third reckon rape results “from men not being able to control their need for sex”.” 8/28
“And more than one in 10 thought non-consensual sex was fine if the women initiated intimacy in a situation where they had just met. And one recent study showed half of tweets doubt or undermine the stories of women accusing men of rape.” 9/28
“This is the rape culture former Sydney private school student Chanel Contos has spectacularly exposed by gathering 4000-odd stories of young women assaulted by young men. (In 2018-19, the highest number of sexual assault offenders were aged 15 to 19.)” 10/28
“...What’s important to remember is that only about 10 per cent of rapes are reported. Of those, while it is very difficult to ascertain exact numbers in different jurisdictions, about 5 per cent are found to be false (a Victorian study found 2 per cent were).” 11/28
“It’s a tiny fraction of the whole.. The most important questions are why 90 per cent don’t report, why so few go to jail. Of those reported, only about 7 per cent result in convictions. So 7 per cent of 10 per cent. Ponder that stat when you think about the rule of law.” 12/28
“Consent, we keep hearing, is a fraught concept when it comes to young men on the prowl. Although many blokes seem to be perfectly clear about consent when a gay man or transperson is involved.” 13/28
“So much so that, for decades, the gay panic defence provided that a man could plead that he was so provoked, offended, enraged or rendered insane by a sexual approach from another man, even just a verbal one, that he was driven to murder him.” 14/28
“This defence allowed the charge to be downgraded to manslaughter – or even lead to acquittal. Gay, or “homosexual advance” – panic was not abolished in NSW until 2014, Queensland until 2017. It could still be used as a defence in South Australia until a couple months ago.” 15/28
“A few years before its removal in Queensland, two men were jailed for kicking to death a man who made an advance to one of them in a church courtyard. With the gay panic defence, they were charged not with murder but manslaughter.” 16/28
“It’s recent history, steeped in homophobia and transphobia and prejudice. Just this week, Virginia became the 12th US state to ban the gay panic defence – but 38 states still allow it. I mean, who wouldn’t slaughter someone who made a pass at you?” 17/28
“Oh wait, maybe millions of women, including the thousands who have emailed Contos with stories of harassment and sexual assault. These young women haven’t tried to kill their rapists, or even take them to court.” 18/28
“As their testimonies show, too many of them, racked with unresolved trauma, have tried to kill themselves instead. The stories are horrific in volume and bustle with common themes – of women waking up to find penises or fingers inside them, being forced to give oral sex,” 19/28
“being masturbated on or slut-shamed, or discovering photographs of them naked had been taken and shared without their permission. Of depression, PTSD, and self-doubt.” 20/28
“They have caused principals, politicians and parents to jolt upright with horror, and these are stories that will hopefully fry and distill our complacency into myriad preventative actions.” 21/18
“Contos tutors principals, meets politicians and hosts television interviews.. as stories continue to pour into her inbox, a thick torrent of pain, hurt and anger: a reckoning.. just a fraction of the women in this country who have not gone anywhere near a court...” 22/28
“A large part of the reason #MeToo happened, and was played out in the media by rape survivors and investigative journalists, was because the law has not protected women, and has in myriad ways failed victims of sexual assault.” 23/28
“American law professor Catharine MacKinnon wrote in 2018: “This mass mobilisation against sexual abuse, through an unprecedented wave of speaking out in conventional and social media, is eroding the two biggest barriers to ending sexual harassment in law and in life:” 24/28
“the disbelief and trivialising dehumanisation of its victims. Sexual harassment law – the first law to conceive sexual violation in inequality terms – created the preconditions for this moment.” 25/28
“Yet denial by abusers and devaluing of accusers could still be reasonably counted on by perpetrators to shield their actions.” Women, she wrote, weren’t believed when they reported abuse and assaults, and: “Even when she was believed, nothing he did to her mattered” 26/28
“as much as what would be done to him if his actions against her were taken seriously. His value outweighed her sexualised worthlessness. His career, reputation, mental and emotional serenity and assets counted. Hers didn’t.”” 27/28
“The cry “believe women” doesn’t mean the abandonment of law. It means the precise opposite – the abandonment of bias, and the equal application of the law.” 28/28 #March4Justice #GraceTame #BrittanyHiggins #KatharineThornton #Auspol
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