Catharine MacKinnon Quotes

At the time. the Islamic government supported forces in Sudan systematically raped as many women as they could in order to intimidate the Christian rebels. At around the same time, a village council in Pakistan had ruled that a Pakistani woman should be gang raped as punishment to her family for the alleged transgressions of her brother. African rebels were also using the tactic as an intimidation tactic.

Pakistan follows a version of Islamic Law—Sharia—which provides that a man can be convicted of rape only if there are at least 4 male witnesses. Since it is virtually impossible to ever get 4 witnesses to a crime like that, there will never be a conviction. However, the complaining victim runs two additional dangers. First she is admitting to fornication and or adultery and can be jailed or even killed for that. Further, Pakistan males regard her as a prostitute and the police will also rape her very often.

This proverb which actually has the force of de facto law in much of the Arab world, while detested by many sophisticated Westerners and Americans in particular, was actually a custom in America for many years. Under the principle, a rapist is not a rapist if he marries the girl. A seducer is not a seducer. In the Bedouin culture there is no difference between the rapist and the seducer. The reason that the practice is so hateful is that it assumes that when a woman is raped or seduced the damage is to the woman’s male relatives—to their honor. Therefore, the “crime” can be remedied by marrying the girl and satisfying the male relative’s sense of honor. Then no harm has been done, except of course to the woman who often becomes the double victim, first of the rape or seduction and then of a forced marriage. In modern America the honor of the male relatives has no standing in law, yet even today some judges and prosecutors will go easy on a statutory rapist or worse if he marries the girl and the girls family goes along with the arrangement. The term “shotgun wedding” stems from a time when family members would force the alternative on seducers.

There are over 600.000 reported rape cases in South Africa each year. Since most rape goes unreported the real total is much larger, making South Africa the worst country in the world on a sexual violence scale. There are many reasons suggested for the South African extreme. However, since apartheid was overthrown, all ANC Governments had had a reluctance to have heavy police action for anything and there is a general reluctance to imprison people as this was what the apartheid regimes did. So all criminal activity is relatively high in South Africa.

The Armed Services had then a terrible problem of sexual assault on female troops with an attitude on the part of many officers and commanders that would tolerate these assaults and not treat them seriously. The situation was so bad the the General repeated that he was not kidding about the major priority in that he realized a large number of senior officers would find it surprising the the Chief of Staff would make the issue the number one army priority.

Note that in pre-Muslim Arabia, a woman was not punished if she was raped as is currently done in some Muslim countries.

This early New England law illustrates some interesting aspects of Colonial law enforcement and philosophy. Massachusetts was perhaps the most religiously rigid and orthodox of the colonies. Yet in the case of rape, they did not always follow the Mosaic Law as some other colonies did. Instead, they had the concept of judicial discretion built into their sentencing. The other point of interest is that there was an “age of consent” albeit, for a female it was 10 years old.

The other Southern States had similar legal principles while still maintaining the hypocrisy that their legal system was grounded on Christian morality.

This statement is believed by many people who would blame the female victim of rape for the way she dressed. Rape is a heinous felony, and it is never excused by the way the victim dresses. Few who hold this view publicly will state it, but this public statement triggered a set of demonstrations throughout Canada which spread to the United States and Europe. See {623723}.

At the time, the Congo was notorious for the huge number of rapes and the fact that rape was being used as a tool of intimidation by the government troops who the government claims are there to protect the public and also by the rebel forces who claim to be fighting for the people including the women they rape. In reality, the Congo is very rich in natural resources and the battles for control of the country are all really driven by the money to be made from the resources. The absurd denial by the ambassador has got to be one of the more hypocritical denials in diplomatic annals.