What is the feminist view of the Julian Assange stand off

[TeamGBsometimes]

It should be simple shouldn't it. The man is wanted for questioning in Sweden for a sexual assault allegation. Sweden is a western democracy, not a country known for human rights transgressions. I'm sure it's not 100% squeaky clean, nowhere's perfect.

Are Ecuador right or wrong to allow him to asylum in their embassy? Should we just be looking at the sexual assault charge and ignoring the wiki leaks background?

[grimbletart]

Also, people conflate being 'left' with automatically being a feminist and make assumptions. Bad mistake.

[MerlinScot]

SGW, in Scotland you still can be interviewed without any legal representation. I was but because I had no choice when that happened so I wanted to get through the questioning soon and declined to have legal representation.

So now the difference is that you can't be interviewed without police officers asking you if you've a legal assisting you during the questioning.

[MerlinScot]

In reference to the whole issue Assange-estradition, I think Assange and his lawyers are quite cunning in using the wikileaks supporters who think he's kind if a hero in order to let him get away with a horrible crime.

I've already commented on few Assange threads and very often people who idolize him are ready to believe any rape myths of the planet to make him appear not guilty.

Concerning Equador embassy, I can understand their point of view, maybe negotiating for some free money out of the whole situation.

To be honest, if after his trial (if there'll be one) in Sweden, he goes to jail and then he's extradited to US.... well I don't really care.
I still don't grasp why this guy gets a free ticket for everything, for me he would have been in US ages ago.

[charitygirl]

I think you're onto something KRITIQ. Confronting their male privilege for straight men would just require them to make too many actual changes. Better to rationalise it away...

[LeggyBlondeNE]

Excellent post KRITIQ. "They just hope no one will notice that's what they are doing." Or indeed can't consciously acknowledge that's what they're doing. Cognitive bolstering is a powerful thing. You can believe all kinds of things which keep you from experiencing psychological stress like that.

(Stress is a bad word but it's the basic underlying issue in these things. Too stressful to believe you're capable of sexual assault/your mate is a rapist/you're benefiting from unearned priviledge. So you end up favouring the beliefs/attitudes that bolster you.)

[LeggyBlondeNE]

Oops, more important point of course is how to combat that and reduce the cognitive dissonance in the first place to prevent the bolstering happening.

Which I guess comes down to education, talking to young men so they grow up already comfortable with it, men who understand the situation talking to grown men who don't (less threatening, easier to show how the transition to being a 'real' good guy can be done).

I wonder if it's worth a MN campaign to get those fantastic anti-rape ads in ... some English county (or was it Toronto?! I'm thinking of a couple of sets of pictures) ... national. You know - 'just because she's not saying no...' And one of the great campaigns had a gay couple in it too. Something like "when he said he wasn't sure, I stopped".

Those videos for teenagers are good, but big posters on the Tube and in schools etc get to so many more people.

[TheDoctrineOfEnnis]

Thanks, Leggy. There's a great poster on the Education threads who teaches sex ed in schools and who really gets to the bottom of consent issues. I wish all schools could have her.

I think another part of the problem, not just a left-right thing, is the widespread misunderstanding that rape is about sex and that an attractive, well-to-do man who would be likely to find a sexual partner freely would have no 'need' to rape.

If the accusation was of another kind of violence and entitlement e.g. if said man punched a delivery guy for bringing the wrong kind of pizza, I think fewer people would say "I don't believe he did that, he didn't 'need' to, he could afford to buy a second pizza after all, if it did happen, the guy must have provoked him." I think they would be more likely to say "what an entitled, violent prick" or words to that effect.

I have no studies, just a feeling.

[MerlinScot]

theDoctrineofEnnis, what a smart comparison!! I remember when Russell Crowe had the infamous phone-throwing incident there were people actually wondering why he had to beat a receptionist up given that being rich he could use his mobile phone to ring his wife in Australia (I don't know if someone remembers that he lost his marbles after he couldn't reach his wife through the hotel's phone lines). Nobody doubted he did that, he was guilty from the beginning. I wonder what people would have said if he had raped or attempted to rape a woman... probably that he's too charming (or he was) and he didn't need to force anyone to do that.... :/

[GothAnneGeddes]

Thanks for all the links on this thread.

There has indeed been Olympic level throwing - of women under the bus that is.

KRITIQ is spot on as to why men have this blindspot relating to sexism/misogyny.

One glimmer of light will be if this had lead to a wider discussion about consent and men actually taking that on board.

[EldritchCleavage]

lookat this very interesting take on the Assange debacle.

[TheDoctrineOfEnnis]

Do you know what I am finding today?

Around the boards there are women asking "was I raped" "was I sexually assaulted" ...when they are describing events where it was clear they didnt consent.

As a positive nearly every poster, and not just WBY regulars, are saying "yes you were I am sorry"

But if so many women are unsure in themselves that something was rape, which was so clearly is when described to an outside observer, whither the "women cry rape" logic?

I am sure far more women don't recognise that they were raped than ever "cry rape" before we even start the numbers of those who know they were but never told, only told a friend, went to the police but didn't progress etc.

I hope that is clear. I am sad about it all today.

[MerlinScot]

"But if so many women are unsure in themselves that something was rape, which was so clearly is when described to an outside observer, whither the "women cry rape" logic?"

Because the women cry rape logic exists a lot unfortunately. I'll venture a bit more saying that many of the false rape allegations are staged making the police believe the woman was raped following the prejudice and the rape myths. Very often the liars report the rape with their clothes shredded, with possibly self-inflicted scratches, crying like a baby tehy were raped by those brutes of their exes, etc.
Many women aren't believed because they're unsure themselves about what happened. Unfortunately, that's the norm.

I reported my ex for DV the first time, because I was living in fear of his threats, abuse, and violence. In the first report, I stated that I had been sexually blackmailed (my ex asking for sex or he would have done this and that) and abused. Only one month later, speaking to a Women's Aid volunteer I reported him for rape because I had been forced and had physical damages happened in 4 occasions.

[TheDoctrineOfEnnis]

Merlin you have shared some of your story before and I am so sorry

Looking after DS right now but will be back later.

[Whatmeworry]

Are Ecuador right or wrong to allow him to asylum in their embassy? Should we just be looking at the sexual assault charge and ignoring the wiki leaks background?

IMO in this particular case its very risky to ignore the bigger picture, for a whole lot of reasons. The one that concerns me most is the increasing evidence emerging over the last few days that Sweden could have interviewed him in the UK, continually chose not to despite being invited, but still won't give their reasons why not. (BBC, here for example)

Incidentally, it would seem that both Naomi Wolf and Women Aganist Rape are against extradition.

[LeggyBlondeNE]

Whatmeworry - someone already mentioned this link above which touches on the 'questioning' thing...
www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-myths-about-assange-extradition

What I've read elsewhere is that second-stage interviews (after arrest, before charging) have to take place in Sweden/on Swedish soil (and the murder interviewed in Serbia or wherever was taken back for that second interview). If that's the case and Assange doesn't want to risk being kidnapped by the CIA en route to Sweden (which is the only thing that would make leaving the UK riskier than staying put wrt extradition) then he should volunteer to go to the Swedish embassy which is technically Swedish soil. I've not heard him make that offer.

The UK court judgement (linked from said article) makes good reading.

[EldritchCleavage]

Sweden could have interviewed him in the UK, continually chose not to despite being invited, but still won't give their reasons why not

That has been canvassed on another thread. I think it was Kladdkaka (Swedish, or at least resident in Sweden) explained it. He has to be interviewed in a police station, and they can't use fiction of just designating some where in the UK as one. It would only delay the inevitable anyway-they question him, say 'OK, come back to face trial' and he would still say no.

People also don't seem to realise he is now in the formal prosecution process-the procedure and language is very different from the UK and so misleading. Sweden has a very different system, they formally 'charge' at the last moment and trial must then follow within 2 weeks. All this was explained in the UK court proceedings and the 3 courts all accepted JA is at a stage equivalent to being charged in the UK. So it isn't a case where the Swedes are still deciding if there is a case to answer. They are prosecuting him for these alleged offences, as I understand it.

[MerlinScot]

EldritchCleavage, thanks for explaining that.

Anyway, Assange seems to act like he knows he's guilty of the charges... why did he hide in the Ecuador embassy in the first place? Because he knows he can't be extradited from there, it is like Equadorian soil...

This seems like a copy of what happened with the famous Italian murderer and terrorist Cesare Battisti.

I don't know why everybody is fooled by the whole mess CIA-USA-wikileaks. It seems Assange is using that excuse to escape a conviction, not the opposite.

[HipHopOpotomus]

A lefty barrister friend of mine (like many others) gives the Swedish govt's involvement in rendition, as a valid reason for JA not going to Sweden.

Thanks to MN and the brilliant info/threads here, I was able to point out in return that the Amnesty report of Sweden's involvement in rendition was in 2006. However in 2010 JA himself chose Sweden as the safest possibly harbour for him to settle in Europe. Until he was about to be charged with rape that is -then he fled the country the day before.

It's fairly safe to assume that JA, being such a well informed person in these matters, was well aware of Swedens involvement with rendition yet still chose it as the best place for him to reside & work.

[EldritchCleavage]

But we were much more involved in rendition. So why did JA come here?

[HipHopOpotomus]

Good question - why did he come to UK?
Large influential English using media perhaps?

[Whatmeworry]

Naomi Wolf isn't a feminist and Women Against Rape have some fairly dodgy feminist credentials

...ie they disagree with you. They are the Wrong Sort Of Feminists, clearly :o

[Whatmeworry]

That has been canvassed on another thread. I think it was Kladdkaka (Swedish, or at least resident in Sweden) explained it. He has to be interviewed in a police station, and they can't use fiction of just designating some where in the UK as one. It would only delay the inevitable anyway-they question him, say 'OK, come back to face trial' and he would still say no

The link I pointed to is later than that and straight from the BBC Radio 4 interviewing Karin Rosander, Director of Communications for the Swedish Prosecution Authority. In it she says clearly they could have/can interview Assange in the UK, the case prosecutor doesn''t want to, but won't say why. I doubt its procedural.

[Whatmeworry]

But we were much more involved in rendition. So why did JA come here?

That is a damned good question.