Female Sex Abusers Versus The Court

“Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality… And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women “cry rape,” that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives.”

In America, 1 out of 6 women fall victim to rape at some point in their lives—completed or not (“Victims of Sexual Violence” 1). However, this is only one form of sexual assault that women are forced to face. Groping and other non-consensual, sexual acts are also examples of sexual assault (“Sexual Assault” 1).. Many perpetrators of sexual assault roam free, practically unaffected and likely to commit another similar act, while the woman could feel the effects of this event for her entire life. This problem affects women from around the globe—and it’s time that we put an end to it, because if we don’t, who will? If boys were to be taught how and how not to treat women in their early years, sexual assault would not be as prevalent, thus, women, including us, would not have to worry as much about enduring this kind of torment.

“One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college” (Not Alone, 2014). In our class of twenty women that means that possibly five women have been sexually assaulted. Out of the five women that I stated could have been sexually assaulted they may have known the perpetrator and often will not report what has happened. According to the spring count of students completed by West Chester University, 9,211 of those students were females (“Headcount Enrollment”, 2014). If I go by the statistic mentioned earlier that one in five women is assaulted that would mean that 1,842 women have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Out of 1,842 possible assaults only four were reported last year. Two of which the victims knew prior to the assault. Rankin and Associates consulting conducted a Climate Assessment on West Chester University in September of 2010, a section of the results focused on sexual assault on students. According to the report seven people who reported a sexual assault to the university described their reactions to the universities response. Two students shared the way they felt the response was inappropriate or poor. One described that they felt the suspension for one semester was not an appropriate response to an admitted rape, that public safety lost the victims statement, judicial affairs painted the victim offender as innocent, and that the registrar protected the offender putting the victim in harm’s way and everyone

Start blaming the system, not the victim. Sexual assault is a crime that is very common, yet the punishment perpetrators receive is not as harsh as it needs to be to reduce the occurrence of these crimes. Laws concerning sexual crimes have been edited over decades to be stricter however, sex offenders typically receive little or no punishment. Sexual Assault is defined as any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient (“Sexual Assault”). Victims of sexual assault are often blamed as the reason for the crime being committed while the blame is taken away from the offender. Harsher punishment must be enacted on sex offenders because the victims suffer conflict from the crime throughout their

“ Case screening is the gateway to the criminal justice system. Prosecutors, acting as gatekeepers, decide which instances of alleged victimization will be passed on for adjudication by the courts” (Frohmann, 1991, p. 213). As Supreme Court Justice Jackson acknowledged in 1940, “the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America” (Davis, 1969, p.190). Frohmann examined the powerful discretion prosecutors have in their justification for sexual assault case rejections in her research article, Discrediting Victim’s allegations of Sexual Assault: Prosecutorial Accounts of Case Rejections. Her research was replicated

Sexual assault is one of the most challenging issues that must be dealt with within the Canadian legal system. Sexual assault is defined as sexual activity inflicted upon someone without their given consent. In order for a sexual assault to be eligible for that title, a person committing sexual acts must continue to engage without the consent of the other person. Sexual assault is also heavily related to the rape myths that exist within society and these are the decisive factors when resolving a sexual assault case. These rape myths generally target the victim of sexual assault blaming them for the actions that occurred. The first case involving consent and rape myths to ever reach the Supreme Court of Canada to be resolved is the case of

Within society, there is an engrained belief of what makes a person a legitimate victim and often their status as a ‘victim’ is questioned. This is especially true if the victim does not fit the typical stereotype of who is considered to be a legitimate victim. This is most widely illustrated in cases involving male victims of sexual assault.

During the trial, the defense questioned the victims ' credibility during cross-examination because of their criminal records. Yet again, rape culture has surfaced. A woman does not deserve to get raped no matter her criminal record. No person deserves or asks to get raped. Rape cases are always fought back by blaming the victim and making the victim seem like a bad person and that is why there will always be

University of Tennessee Knoxville was recently involved in a lawsuit for enabling athletes to sexually assault women by silencing the victims and failing to provide disciplinary actions or even investigation onto the accused. While this is a recent case, this is not the first time this sort of behavior involving a school has been brought into light. One in four women will be sexually assaulted by the end of their undergraduate career (Posluszny). Sexual assault happens throughout society no matter what the gender or age, seeming to be in increasing epidemic over the last few years. While the idea of sexual assault is largely met with public hostility in theory, actions often contradict this. This contradiction lies heavily in a culture that is unwelcoming to the victims and often leads to the perpetrators being tolerated. The existence of rape culture in western society occurs due to the preservation of violent media, patriarchal standards, and the state of the criminal justice system. This culture cannot be improved until we confront each of these problems to their roots.

Any involuntary, unwelcome, and nonconsensual sexual interaction or activity, including touching, kissing, and any type of sexual intercourse would be defined as sexual assault. It is not likely for one to be aware of the law governing sexual assault, until one is placed in a position that requires knowledge of it. (Constance Backhouse, 2016). Rape myths and stereotypes in the Canadian Court system and legislature will be ascertained in the following paper. First, rape myths will be discussed, moreover, it will be shown that regardless of the fluctuations in the Canadian law, sexual assault rates remain high, reporting and conviction rates remain low, and rape myths continue to operate. These rape myths are existing in Canadian universities and in the Canadian Court Houses. Many social constructions that are present in the Ewanchuk case are a result outcome because of the judiciary system and the university system. Furthermore, the rape myth and stereotypes in law and universities can relate to the social constructions of gender, race, masculinity/femininity, and heterosexuality. In this essay the focus will be directed to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R. v. Ewanchuk case, [199] 1 S.C.R. 330, and argue how the rape myths then are still present in today’s society despite feminist attempts to amend criminal laws to be more unbiased in resolving conflicts.

Firstly, how is law enforcement supposed to prosecute victims if the crimes are never reported? Secondly, the women who don’t report these crimes are only hurting themselves in the long run. There needs to be a campaign to ensure that these crimes are being reported, perhaps by offering a reward to the women who speak up.

The crime is not in what they did do, but rather what they failed to do. Although they had no hand in the abuse, these women are being tried and convicted for failing to notify the police of the abuse that was occurring. Over twenty five states have specific failure-to-protect laws and nineteen others have more general laws by which a parent can be tried for negligence of a child. For one to be liable for failure to protect, the defendant must have a legal duty to protect the child, the defendant must have notice of abuse, the child was exposed to the abuse, and the defendant failed to prevent said abuse (United States vs Webb). These laws in their conception were gender neutral however in their application, are far from it. Research has shown that women are tried far more than men for failing to protect their children and in many cases, the women themselves are being abused (Apell 1997). While women are tried more, they solely perpetuate about 38% of the child abuse in the country (NIS 4). Although those that commit child abuse, are criminals, there is a problem in criminalizing parents that along with their children were victims of

One of the philosophies not commonly used with sexual assault crimes is incapacitation. Although a perpetrator is placed in prison, rehabilitation immediately occurs. As for incapacitation, it does not require any assumptions about the criminal’s rationalism or “root causes” of the criminal’s behavior. Having the perpetrator incarcerated is beneficial because the physical restraint of incarceration prevents the commission of further crimes against society during the duration of the sentence. Reducing crimes is the most important factor is setting punishments (Muhlhausen, 2010). The problem is that sexual assault is one of the hardest crimes to prove. There are many factors that come in play such as the victim’s behavior, evidence and how it was handled by law enforcement. However, it the process goes through, then incapacitation will be able to reduce the problem.

Perception is not reality. The common assumption that the court system often treats female sex offenders differently than male sex offenders, the punishments of female sex offenders are more lenient than men who commit the same types of crimes, and the differences between male and female victims are all perception and not reality. Objective considerations to additional factors make the perceptions baseless. These additional factors solidify the factual differences between male and female sex offenders.

The movie “The Accused” portrayed a lot of violence such phsyical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and political, which intersected with race, class, gender, ability, and sexuality. Often times women like Sarah are often called horrible names because of her actions, and many would say that she deserved to be rape because of her behavior. However, I would have to disagree that Sarah should have not been raped. By no means, should I would feel uncomfortable at any times whether she is under the influence or not. It is a horrible feeling that we have people in the world to think that rape is okay because of someone’s action.