Thrilling news in the fight to make sure rape allegations are taken seriously by all involved. Last week (yes yes, I'm behind) it emerged that the young girl gang raped by some youths in a park - who phoned her mother to tell her all about it - was, according to their defense lawyer, glad of the attention because she was fat.
Okay, I can take the point that at some point, the poor, slightly chubby girl, may have wished that boys fancied her. And perhaps, when the youths first approached, she felt flattered. One would assume that that feeling (if it ever existed at all) disappeared at some point, given they proceeded to assault her. Surely, if she had felt *grateful*, there wouldn't be a court case at all.
It seems completely inhuman to suggest that it wasn't rape because she was fat and no-one would ever really fancy her. I would love to indulge in a more complex discussion of this, but I can't because (a) I'm too cross and (b) work has made my brain atrophy. Where do we draw the line then? If a woman is not a beautiful, paragon of innocence, preferably wearing a habit or shapeless tunic, then she can't have been raped? We are not all beautiful and we are not all slim, that is true. However, I'd state with grim certainty that this does not make us *grateful* when we are raped.
Monday, May 21, 2007
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