Helena Kennedy QC

[Ameanstreakamilewide]

I'm so disappointed by this, that i don't know where to start...

This article was written by Caroline Criado Perez, in October last year, so apologies if this has been previously discussed at length.

amp.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/14/eve-was-shamed-how-british-justice-failing-women-review-helena-kennedy

Caroline Criado Perez writes:

But when it comes to the nuances and complexities of housing trans women in female prisons, her usually fiercely critical eye is strangely absent. Our prison system, she writes, “too often locks up transgender prisoners according to their genitals rather than their chosen gender identity, and often with tragic consequences”, as if these choices are clear-cut. It is perhaps not fair to pull Kennedy up by citing the case of multiple rapist and paedophile Karen White who was housed in a female prison and subsequently sexually assaulted two female inmates, since it was made public after Eve Was Shamed went to print, but this situation was surely foreseeable. In 2014, convicted rapist Jessica Hambrook was jailed for sexually assaulting two women in Canadian refuges, having gained access by claiming to be a trans woman. Both Hambrook and White were housed according to their gender identity rather than their genitals – can Kennedy really claim that this was inarguably the right choice and that there are no competing rights at stake here?

I expected so much more from her, I really did.

She was also very supportive of Julian Asange.
I remember discussing that on here with Dittany.

No one woman is going to be right about everything.

I'm hoping MurrayBlackburnMcKenzie will shift perspectives on the issue of males in the female prison estate.

Alongside the work of the fragrant Karen White in the field of sexually assaulting incarcerated women

You're absolutely right that no one is going to be right about everything, Super.

But I was really hoping that HK's stance on the prison issue would be pretty cut and dried.

And indeed, fingers crossed about MurrayBlackburnMcKenzie.

It's a constant tension for me - seeing someone prominent with a feminist stance and hoping she will further the causes I'm invested in, then realising they're prominent either because their analysis is quite palatable to the mainstream or because (I think this is likely in this case) a pragmatic decision has been taken to stick to a party line in order to keep pushing at an open door instead of finding it slammed in your face.
I mean those words sound like someone else wrote them for her tbh.

www.thenational.scot/news/17840656.feel-betrayed-woman-behind-myth/ Shona Craven being much more articulate than me

The article's behind a paywall, but i've got the gist from Shona Craven's pinned Tweet.

Do you know what Shona's torpedo question was, please, cos it sounds like it was absolute dynamite??

Matthew Sweet's recent interview of NK nearly made my toes fall off, with all the curling they did. So my opinion on her has been pretty low since then, I must confess.

We did have a thread about this at the time, but you're right, it is depressing. Helena Kennedy used to be somebody I admire, and if she, with her passion for supporting women in the criminal justice system, can't see that it's wrong to put men in prison with women, then I despair.

No one in any position of power actually cares about the public.

Men not happy with being locked up with men.

There's solutions to this. In male prisons. Better mental health care, support, vulnerable prisoner units, trans units.

Men (with violent sexual offending against women in their history and we all know how evidenced to the nth degree and severe it has to be to even get inside a court room, never mind end in a prison sentence) made happy by being locked in with women. Well yippee for the happy men.

How do the women feel about this? Does anyone care? What about the right to shower or undress without some male leering at you, as we're being told by prisoners and guards is happening right now? How many vulnerable, unable to escape women are you going to toss to these guys to keep them happy, give us a ball park figure? How many rapes and assaults and pregnancies are ok?

You can't support this unless a) you believe men change sex on saying the magic words and have managed somehow to block out all the many, many issues around sexual offending, male behaviour belonging to males and not identities and all the vast rest of it and b) you think women are worthless, have no independent needs or existence and are on this earth for the use of men.

It's beyond tragic that a woman QC is so blinded by ingrained sexism they honestly don't see their own sex as fully human.

There are other ways to help these men than throwing women to them like bloody joints of meat to fucking hyenas.

I am becoming so angry about the constant stream of messaging that women are worthless: women being harmed is an acceptable price, worth it if it helps men. Women are subhuman: they shouldn't be given equal consideration to men. Women don't matter. Women shouldn't be listened to or asked, there's no need, and how they feel about matters that affect them isn't relevant. Mens feelings are crucial and should always be valued and supported: women's feelings are a nuisance and they should get over them.

And women should resist this nicely in kind words, never getting cross (because that puts people off their message) and with understanding and patience and compromise.

Fuck. That.

Do you know what Shona's torpedo question was, please, cos it sounds like it was absolute dynamite??

I think this is the question.
twitter.com/shonacraven/status/1162660167990702081

Thanks, Old...apologies for not fully reading Shona's thread.

That is an absolute beaut of a question, no doubt about it.

But met me guess - the answer was nonsense?? 🤨

She has written in the past of representing a trans client many years ago and being moved by their predicament. Since then she's been very pro-trans – which of course, being a wealthy straight woman is quite easy because trans rights don't impinge on her in the way they do on lesbian women or women seeking a haven from DV in shelters and so on. I hoped for so much better from her, but she's woke.

Indeed, Pat.

I've heard HK interviewed about that particular case, as her client had been raped and 'ridiculed' by the police sufficiently enough for her client to drop the case.

And i was sympathetic up until 1:50...