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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Trigger warning: Germain Greer's opinion on rape...

568 replies

LokiBear · 03/06/2018 09:36

I can't actually get my head around this. How can a woman think like this? I have two daughters and comments like hers frighten me. I teach consent to 15 year olds and this goes against everything I try to teach them. I just dont get how anyone can think like this.

news.sky.com/story/germaine-greer-says-most-rape-is-bad-sex-not-violent-crime-11390855

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JamieVardysHavingAParty · 03/06/2018 09:46

Hang on a minute. Are you arguing with what she said, or the headline?

She's not saying rape isn't rape, she's saying that any kind of non-consensual sex is rape. She has a point- a lot of people think it's not rape if it's not accompanied by force.

JamieVardysHavingAParty · 03/06/2018 09:47

The PTSD tweet sounds indefensible, though.

TheStoic · 03/06/2018 09:54

She’s saying that any unwanted sex is rape, and that most unwanted sex happens in relationships, isn’t she?

LokiBear · 03/06/2018 09:55

I disagree with both the headline and her argument that a rape that isnt violent isnt traumatic and warrants a lesser sentence. The sky news link was a little lighter on details than some of the other articles. I will try and find a better one.

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CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/06/2018 10:01

I've a sneaking suspcicion that, yet again, she was being provocative and made more sense inthe whole, rather than in sound bite!

A lot of this happens, social media, twitter etc promote the soundbite, people don't read/hear the whole message, the whole context. They hear a snippet and focus on that!

If you remember she is a deliberate provocateur and then look at everything she is reported to have said through this filter, what she said at the start, then some of those soundbites make more sense:

"“I want to turn the discourse about rape upside down. We are not getting anywhere approaching it down the tunnel of history"

For example the quote "“Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal rights, he is raping her,” actually ends with her saying, in her 'resigned' voice “It will never end up in a court of law.” That isn't her saying that marital rape is right, that is her saying it is fcking difficult to prosecute!

And when she talks about rape not being a “spectacularly violent crime” but a “lazy, careless and insensitive.” act, she is saying that in the context of film rape. She references Tarantino rape scenes, women held down, brutalised. She is saying that, for most women that is not how they were raped their rape was much less violent, was more mundane. Normal sex, but without consent.

She is saying that we women do not have to internalise that brutality and see ourselves as having been victims of the most violent crime ever, we don't need to be destroyed by it. By insisting that rape, which often leaves very little incontravertable phsyical evidence and often comes down to he said, she said, is a highly violent crime we are making it very difficult to succesfully prosecute.

She says that where it's hard for lawyers to prove that the perpetrators truly did not have consent then, instead of humiliating trials we should punish rape less harshly but make it easier for women to push claims through

She also suggests that these 'mundane rapists' need to be tattooed wth a visible R and given community service - so they can be seen to be punished.

And that those rapists who are violent should be punished for that violence and the rape!

Her whole message is different from the soundbites. Her whole message is one I feel should be properly considered!

TheStoic · 03/06/2018 10:03

For the most part, I agree with her.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/06/2018 10:03

The PTSD tweet sounds indefensible, though. In her wider context it makes much more sense!

nolongersurprised · 03/06/2018 10:05

My interpretation of what she is saying is that rape - including in intimate relationships - is much more commonplace and more nuanced than is generally described. Presumably if the “severity” of the crime is lowered then the the bar for prosecution of rape (currently very high) could also be lowered.

Overall I don’t agree but she’s right that the current legal process for rape prosecution is broken.

LokiBear · 03/06/2018 10:05

I think your dissection is very articulate and shows a considered understanding. You are right in many ways, I read it and was immediately outraged. I worry that her soundbites will be misinterpreted, particularly by younger people. I throughly disagree that rape leaves victims without injury though.

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wheezing · 03/06/2018 10:08

Pretty reasonable, nuanced opinion from her I think.

You can’t compress complex things into headlines.

RoadToRivendell · 03/06/2018 10:14

The PTSD comment is obviously provocative, but seems a reasonable line of question.

Writersblock2 · 03/06/2018 10:15

The soundbites will cause outrage, they always will. She knows that - she’s promoting for her upcoming book on rape. Her detailed, reasoned argument, however, is nuanced and clever. Can’t wait to pick up the book!

LokiBear · 03/06/2018 10:16

Perhaps it is me. I just cant get my head around her argument. The idea that for womem to be believed we would have tk accept a lower judicial sentence. I feel like she is labelling all rapes as either violent or 'bad sex' or without consent. Rape within relationships tends to be part of a wider domestic violence issue, surely? Too many grey areas to apply her level of simplification.

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CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/06/2018 10:17

I throughly disagree that rape leaves victims without injury though.

If you refer to my post, you missed a bit, showing how easily that can be . I said often leaves very little incontravertable physical evidence

If you mean what she said, she wasn't saying there was never physical injury and that society insisting in portraying rape as devastatingly violent is part of the problem for rape victims. remember she starts off with saying that she thinks rape is far more prevalent than even the best statitics show. She thinks it happens so often as to be a 'boringly mundane' happensatnce. And then remember she is ttrying to get us to accept that and to change our laws to more properly, more regularly, more successfully prosecute rapists!

I'm not sure that has come out as I meant it!

Dljlr · 03/06/2018 10:20

Rape within relationships tends to be part of a wider domestic violence issue, surely?

No, not always, but the fact my ex had never been at all violent to me convinced me at the time that he hadn't raped me. He did.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/06/2018 10:20

Rape within relationships tends to be part of a wider domestic violence issue, surely? Yes, and that is part of what she is saying, though she would probably sau abuse rather than violence.

Too many grey areas to apply her level of simplification And that could be why she is simplifying it. The grey areas are what makes it difficult to prosecute. What we have been doing, legally and societally, hasn't stoppedmen raping women. Maybe redefining it, simplifying it might change how we see it and how we prosecute it!

Mammyloveswine · 03/06/2018 10:23

Curious you have paraphrased beautifully exactly what she was saying.

I think she totally makes a valid point about "classifying" rape... there are different classifications of all sorts of crimes and this would hopefully encourage more prosecutions and more people to report rape.

JamieVardysHavingAParty · 03/06/2018 10:23

Re PTSD, is she saying that the high rate is evidence that we don't currently acknowledge all cases of rape as rape, e.g. rape in marriage, and only consider the most clear-cut instances as such? That if we counted all instances of rape, we'd find the statistical prevalence of PTSD amongst all rape victims was much lower than 70%?

CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/06/2018 10:41

Jamie I think so! She gets quite exasperated by the seeming acceptance that all rape has the same psychological repercussions as seeing your mate get blown apart by an IED!

I agree, that devalues the criminality of 'marital rape' and insists that victims of rape must be destroyed by the experience. Many women say that is not true for them... the corrollery would be to assume that their rape was lesser than, not so much of a crime! That isn't acceptable.

Manny thanks, I wasn't sure. It is all so convoluted!

TuTru · 03/06/2018 10:44

Tabloids are scum

Pengggwn · 03/06/2018 10:46

From the comments I read, she is very definitely minimising/apologising for rape. 'Most rape is just bad sex' fundamentally misunderstands or pretends to misunderstand the law and the dynamics of rape. A feminist she is not.

Pengggwn · 03/06/2018 10:47

She came across to me like an idiot.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 03/06/2018 10:48

You see Pengggwin soundbites!

You haven't heard her speak, you haven't read the transcript, you have no idea of how she framed what she said... and I thought I had explained it quite well.

You are wrong!

LokiBear · 03/06/2018 10:52

I cant reconcile my own feelings on this, despite some of the arguments made here being very helpful.

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