This world we live in

If you haven't already, I strongly urge you to read this post by yarn harlot, about an American rape case in which the Judge has banned the use of emotive words such as 'rape', 'assault', 'forced' and 'victim'. Apparently he feels that words like that imply that a crime has been committed (really? here was was thinking that court rooms were for hosting tea parties). It turns out that it's not rape until the jury says it is. This begs the question of how one is supposed to convince the jury without using any of those words, especially when the jury do not even know about the language ban. Saying 'he had sex with me' is hardly likely to do it. While the court is on the subject of semantics they might want to rethink the term 'justice system'.

Rape and sex are in no way the same thing and forcing (whoops) the victim (whoops again) to describe what happened to her without calling it what it is just makes her look and feel stupid, as if she hasn't been through enough already. No wonder so many rapes don't get reported, those woman have been through such a hard time already and then the ones who are brave enough to report it have to go through an even greater psychological ordeal.

This 'blame the victim' mentality is sending us back to the 50's, when woman were just supposed to lie back and take whatever the man dished out. Assault victims should be supported in every way possible, not made to feel guilty for speaking out against their attackers.

I'd say 'only in America', but the sad reality is that this could happen anywhere, it is only the amount of outrage that varies.