Many women—and some men—on babble have been the victims of sexual assault. The crime is personal and emotional and any discussion of the subject brings up boiling anger. Understandably, it’s difficult, if not impossible, for many of those babblers to have a detached and objective discussion about the subject because anger overwhelms them. And, they may have little interest in discussing the nuances of the legal system. They want it fixed. They don’t care how but they want it fixed...and now.

The other perspective is more analytical and concerned with the practical implementation of proposed solutions. Susan Estrich, a rape victim herself, is a law professor and has written extensively on the subject (four key law review articles and a book in the 1990s). Although a victim of sexual abuse and angry, she has looked at the issue analytically and proposed various changes to the system to make it fairer for victims. As a practicing attorney, this is how I view problems as well. No matter how angry or emotional a client may be, I’m paid to look at problems as objectively as possible.

What sparked a long debate between me and BCG yesterday was the issue of the “he said/she said” dilemma. Her approach, I believe, is to fix it now. Nothing wrong with that. But, when she said that it’s “really really really sexist and hateful thing to say” that a dispute can come down to a “she said/he said” dispute, I questioned her about the practical difficulties of formulating an alternative to avoid that.

Perhaps BCG is simply not inclined to discuss the issue at that level. That’s fine. But, I got the impression that many think it’s never appropriate to get into a discussion at that level of detail because it ignores the emotions of the subject and is too “sanitized”. In my view, practical change to a system cannot occur without an alternative system to replace it. If the current system is destroyed and not replaced, then there would be no means to address any rape cases. In contrast to Catchfire’s slavery analogy, it would be more akin to arguing for the abolition of income tax but not addressing an alternative tax system for funding government. Sure, you could eliminate the income tax and not address an alternative, but the government would collapse. Same with the judicial system.

Men = Logical and clearly more able to determine what works.
Women = Hysterical and incapable of rational thought regarding rape and the justice system.

Sven you sure can be a sexist ass. Might I remind you that I have a master's Degree in Criminology as well as experience with and in the justice system. But hey, I'm just an emotional hysterical woman who can't possibly be trusted to think rationally about a subject I bet you have almost zero experience in.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
What Sven is really saying is, how about we discuss this from this point of view:

Men = Logical and clearly more able to determine what works.
Women = Hysterical and incapable of rational thought regarding rape and the justice system.

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Did I say that only men can be rational and that only women can be irrational? No. But, I think you want to read it that way. And that's not fair. In fact, I gave a specific example of a woman (a rape victim) who does not meet that dichotomy (Estrich).

No problem with the thread I closed for length being continued, but it doesn't look like this is going to be it. Off to a bad start by bringing over the worst from the last one.

[ 15 June 2007: Message edited by: oldgoat ]