When I was younger I used to think that women who wore next to nothing on nights out, who got completely bladdered and who would flirt outrageously with men couldn’t then complain when those men had sex with them – whether they were unconscious or not.
That was when I was younger. I might have mentioned how I grew up in an era when sexism was rife and an everyday occurrence. I had been groped, I had been subjected to verbal abuse and I had been treated in some cases, like a lower class citizen. I was made to feel that it was my fault if a man paid me unwanted attention. The skirt I wore was too see-through or too short, the bar I was in was too old for me, I had given out the wrong signals, I had stood too close to them, I had worn make-up.
There was a saying in the town where I grew up; if a man bought you one drink, you owed him a kiss, if he bought you two drinks then you owed him a grope. Three drinks and he was entitled to a shag. It never occurred to me to question this way of thinking – surrounded by it as I was, I just accepted this and thought the onus was on the woman to prevent herself from being raped. So I would carry a rape-alarm on me. I would wear jeans and baggy tops and I would never put any make-up on.
A few years have passed now and during the course of my adulthood I’ve been privileged to have come across many strong feminists. I have listened to their views and I have found myself re-educated. I no longer believe that it is up to the woman to prevent herself from being raped – I now believe that it is up to the men to prevent themselves from raping. For to think any other way is an offence to the intellect of men; it is stating that men are incapable of rational thought and are merely guided by their surging hormones. I think all men have a clear idea of right and wrong no matter how much they have had to drink.
But then what has marked this case out and sparked such a debate is that the woman in question was drunk – very drunk. She willingly went back to a hotel with another footballer, so surely that is a sign that she was willing to have sex? Perhaps yes, but the footballer she did have sex with was not convicted of rape – his friend Ched Evans was because whilst she may have gone back to the hotel with one footballer to have sex, she did not give her consent for another to have sex with her, nor did she give her consent for the whole thing to be filmed. In fact she cannot remember giving consent to anything at all.
The point in question was – was she too drunk to be able to give her consent freely? CCTV footage shows her in a kebab shop, falling over and swaying. Once outside she again had problems keeping her balance. The night porter of the hotel gave evidence to say that she was completely drunk, in fact he was so worried about her at one point that he went to the room to check what was going on but decided not to interfere.
So did the two men who had sex with her realise she was too drunk to consent? Or was she ‘fair game’?
Let’s look at it another way. Let’s imagine it was a man who was stood there, very drunk and unable to stand up properly. Let’s imagine that he agreed to go back to a hotel with the footballer and that the same thing happened to him. There would be an uproar of course because whilst male rape might still be quite stigmatised and not spoken of, you don’t get many people commenting that “he was clearly asking for it”.
In fact most men can happily go out on a Saturday night, get as bladdered as they like, fall asleep somewhere and still be fairly certain that no-one is going to come along and rape them.
It doesn’t matter what your view is on women who go out and get completely shitfaced. It doesn’t matter if you frown at the tiny outfits that young girls wear to go clubbing. The fact remains that men do not have the God-given right to have sex with a woman who is clearly incapable of giving her consent. This is about seeing women as individuals who have the right to make choices and decisions concerning their own lives – and seeing that they still have those rights even when pissed.
Ched Evans’ website still protests his innocence. It claims that his conviction was “a gross miscarriage of justice” and that his family and friends know the true facts of the case. Surely the “true facts” of the case came up in court? Those facts were upheld by CCTV cameras, numerous witnesses and the night porter at the hotel who all willingly gave evidence to the effect that the girl was extremely intoxicated. It is also a fact that the girl did not go to the hotel with Ched Evans – that Ched Evans had managed to secure a key card to the room by tricking the night porter and that after he had sex with the girl, he went out through an emergency exit.
Their case is that the girl had planned the whole thing to extract money – yet the girl had not planned on Ched Evans getting a key to the room. She had not planned to meet any footballers that night. Their meeting was accidental, she agreed to go back with one footballer, she was clearly very drunk and even if she goes out now and spends all that money – THAT IS NOT THE POINT. It doesn’t matter if the girl is money-grabbing or unlikeable, she still deserves the same justice as everyone else and men need to understand that women are not there purely to satisfy their sexual needs.
Yet support for Ched Evans has been overwhelming. During the court case the girl’s name was circulated throughout Twitter and she received plenty of abuse herself which forced her to change her accounts. Some of the comments which still circulate on Google suggest that if drunk women cannot consent then there are hundreds of rapes every weekend.
Opinion is still divided on the case with Judy Finnigan and Michael Buerk both unwisely seizing the opportunity to criticize the victim for being drunk and going back to the hotel. This just demonstrates how widely held the view is that women are responsible for not being raped and that rape can have different levels. Somehow we have ended up with a society in which some believe that rape of a drunk and unconscious woman is not rape at all but a normal Saturday night out.
I have one daughter and one son. I will not be teaching my daughter how not to get raped, instead I shall teach my son how to respect women – drunk or sober. We should not be educating people on how not to become victims but we should be educating them on how not to become criminals. Until we realise that then there will always be those who blame the victim, particularly if she’s a woman.
That was when I was younger. I might have mentioned how I grew up in an era when sexism was rife and an everyday occurrence. I had been groped, I had been subjected to verbal abuse and I had been treated in some cases, like a lower class citizen. I was made to feel that it was my fault if a man paid me unwanted attention. The skirt I wore was too see-through or too short, the bar I was in was too old for me, I had given out the wrong signals, I had stood too close to them, I had worn make-up.
There was a saying in the town where I grew up; if a man bought you one drink, you owed him a kiss, if he bought you two drinks then you owed him a grope. Three drinks and he was entitled to a shag. It never occurred to me to question this way of thinking – surrounded by it as I was, I just accepted this and thought the onus was on the woman to prevent herself from being raped. So I would carry a rape-alarm on me. I would wear jeans and baggy tops and I would never put any make-up on.
A few years have passed now and during the course of my adulthood I’ve been privileged to have come across many strong feminists. I have listened to their views and I have found myself re-educated. I no longer believe that it is up to the woman to prevent herself from being raped – I now believe that it is up to the men to prevent themselves from raping. For to think any other way is an offence to the intellect of men; it is stating that men are incapable of rational thought and are merely guided by their surging hormones. I think all men have a clear idea of right and wrong no matter how much they have had to drink.
But then what has marked this case out and sparked such a debate is that the woman in question was drunk – very drunk. She willingly went back to a hotel with another footballer, so surely that is a sign that she was willing to have sex? Perhaps yes, but the footballer she did have sex with was not convicted of rape – his friend Ched Evans was because whilst she may have gone back to the hotel with one footballer to have sex, she did not give her consent for another to have sex with her, nor did she give her consent for the whole thing to be filmed. In fact she cannot remember giving consent to anything at all.
The point in question was – was she too drunk to be able to give her consent freely? CCTV footage shows her in a kebab shop, falling over and swaying. Once outside she again had problems keeping her balance. The night porter of the hotel gave evidence to say that she was completely drunk, in fact he was so worried about her at one point that he went to the room to check what was going on but decided not to interfere.
So did the two men who had sex with her realise she was too drunk to consent? Or was she ‘fair game’?
Let’s look at it another way. Let’s imagine it was a man who was stood there, very drunk and unable to stand up properly. Let’s imagine that he agreed to go back to a hotel with the footballer and that the same thing happened to him. There would be an uproar of course because whilst male rape might still be quite stigmatised and not spoken of, you don’t get many people commenting that “he was clearly asking for it”.
In fact most men can happily go out on a Saturday night, get as bladdered as they like, fall asleep somewhere and still be fairly certain that no-one is going to come along and rape them.
It doesn’t matter what your view is on women who go out and get completely shitfaced. It doesn’t matter if you frown at the tiny outfits that young girls wear to go clubbing. The fact remains that men do not have the God-given right to have sex with a woman who is clearly incapable of giving her consent. This is about seeing women as individuals who have the right to make choices and decisions concerning their own lives – and seeing that they still have those rights even when pissed.
Ched Evans’ website still protests his innocence. It claims that his conviction was “a gross miscarriage of justice” and that his family and friends know the true facts of the case. Surely the “true facts” of the case came up in court? Those facts were upheld by CCTV cameras, numerous witnesses and the night porter at the hotel who all willingly gave evidence to the effect that the girl was extremely intoxicated. It is also a fact that the girl did not go to the hotel with Ched Evans – that Ched Evans had managed to secure a key card to the room by tricking the night porter and that after he had sex with the girl, he went out through an emergency exit.
Their case is that the girl had planned the whole thing to extract money – yet the girl had not planned on Ched Evans getting a key to the room. She had not planned to meet any footballers that night. Their meeting was accidental, she agreed to go back with one footballer, she was clearly very drunk and even if she goes out now and spends all that money – THAT IS NOT THE POINT. It doesn’t matter if the girl is money-grabbing or unlikeable, she still deserves the same justice as everyone else and men need to understand that women are not there purely to satisfy their sexual needs.
Yet support for Ched Evans has been overwhelming. During the court case the girl’s name was circulated throughout Twitter and she received plenty of abuse herself which forced her to change her accounts. Some of the comments which still circulate on Google suggest that if drunk women cannot consent then there are hundreds of rapes every weekend.
Opinion is still divided on the case with Judy Finnigan and Michael Buerk both unwisely seizing the opportunity to criticize the victim for being drunk and going back to the hotel. This just demonstrates how widely held the view is that women are responsible for not being raped and that rape can have different levels. Somehow we have ended up with a society in which some believe that rape of a drunk and unconscious woman is not rape at all but a normal Saturday night out.
I have one daughter and one son. I will not be teaching my daughter how not to get raped, instead I shall teach my son how to respect women – drunk or sober. We should not be educating people on how not to become victims but we should be educating them on how not to become criminals. Until we realise that then there will always be those who blame the victim, particularly if she’s a woman.