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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Is this Deputy head accused of rape a man or woman?

88 replies

MissyB1 · 29/10/2021 14:39

Genuinely confused. BBC report on their website today - sorry can never successfully link from their app.
It’s about a school deputy head from Wigan called Julie Morris who is in court on child abuse and sex abuse charges - including two counts of rape. Her co accused is a man called David Morris. They are both accused of a horrific string of crimes, but it specifically says Julie is accused of rape.
Correct me if I’m getting this wrong but can women be charged with rape? I didn’t think so, but maybe they can if it relates to a child? 🤔

OP posts:
wavingwhilstdrowning · 29/10/2021 17:19

Rose West, Myra Hindley, Shauna Hoare, there are lots of these women who commit horrific crimes with men. It might suit us, as feminists, to say that they do it because they are scared to or forced to by an abusive man, and yes some are. But many are very involved in planning the crime and some instigate the violence. Rose West first murdered her step-daughter when Fred was in prison. Some women are truly evil.

BloodinGutters · 29/10/2021 17:41

@wavingwhilstdrowning

Rose West, Myra Hindley, Shauna Hoare, there are lots of these women who commit horrific crimes with men. It might suit us, as feminists, to say that they do it because they are scared to or forced to by an abusive man, and yes some are. But many are very involved in planning the crime and some instigate the violence. Rose West first murdered her step-daughter when Fred was in prison. Some women are truly evil.
Some women are every bit as evil as men are (I’m not religious so agreeing with your word choice doesn’t have any religious significance to the term evil).

But i disagree there are ‘lots’ of women who do this. Maybe there’s ‘lots’ in terms of numbers, because let’s face it when there are any number of anybody doing such horrific things to children it feels like ‘lots’. But proportionally to the men who do this there’s very very few women.

Like I said up thread my mother was one of them. While she was a victim as a child, although not of sexual abuse from what I know, she most definitely wasn’t a victim of a man who made her do this as an adult. She was a single parent from the start, had me later in life so was financially secure, was a professional (working with children too disturbingly) and she never was in a position where the men she brought into my life to abuse me lived in her house, so she was never in a position of no power. They were very much just boyfriends, mostly she preferred men who were already married so she didn’t have to put up with them wanting to move in or more, she never wanted a family from them. She just wanted them to want her more than anyone else, and my body was something she used to hook them, I was something she could give them that made her more special than any other woman. I don’t know how she knew which men would want to rape a child, but men being predators is fairly common so I doubt it was hard for her to sniff them out.

There are women who are living with a vey predatory violent man who then assist while he abuses children, that happens at times also, but wasn’t the case with my mother.

But like I said up thread it’s utterly loathsome to use the rare example of women like my mother to try and suggest that there are lots of women out there who are evil just like the numbers of men who are. The crime stats in no way support that and it’s fucking disgusting to use the experiences of those of us who are victims of women to suggest women are just as predatory or to down play the seriousness of sexual violence against women and girls being a crime almost always committed by those who belong to the sex class of male.

There’s nothing inherent about being female that prevents women from being predators, so it absolutely happens, but it’s the exception not the rule and misrepresenting that has serious consequences for safeguarding.

KimikosNightmare · 29/10/2021 17:44

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I think women can be charged with rape if they "assist" e.g. hold someone down.
That's correct.
verymiddleaged · 29/10/2021 17:47

I agree with @BloodinGutters after twenty years in child protection focusing on sexual abuse, women who abuse or actively facilitate abuse are a very small percentage of abusers.
They exist, their existence should always be considered a possibility in a case
But I wouldn't describe them as lots they are few and far between compared to abusive men.

MadameMaxGoesler · 29/10/2021 17:48

While the offence of rape requires a penis (see below), women can and have been charged with and convicted of rape under the joint enterprise principle.
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/1

GoodnightGrandma · 29/10/2021 17:51

I think a woman can be charged with rape if she penetrates with something, as she doesn’t have a penis.

LaetitiaASD · 29/10/2021 17:59

@GoodnightGrandma

I think a woman can be charged with rape if she penetrates with something, as she doesn’t have a penis.
[woman acting alone] I am pretty sure that is assault by penetration and not rape
prh47bridge · 29/10/2021 18:28

@GoodnightGrandma

I think a woman can be charged with rape if she penetrates with something, as she doesn’t have a penis.
No, she cannot. The crime of rape specifically requires penetration with a penis. Penetrating with something else is sexual assualt.

My guess is that she has been charged with aiding and abetting as per earlier reports, but it is possible she has been charged with rape on the basis of secondary liability (which is what common purpose or joint enterprise are called these days).

Please remember that she hasn't been convicted yet. It is possible that she is entirely innocent of the charges. There are a number of posts on this thread that seem to assume she is guilty.

KaycePollard · 29/10/2021 19:00

And it drives me crazy when anyone uses examples like my mother as women do it too.

Absolutely @BloodinGutters 98% of sexual crime is committed by men.

And I'd bet that a fair proportion of the tiny minority of women who are charged or convicted of sexual crimes were or are abused themselves - either as children, or through an abusive/coercive relationship with a man.

It is a real difference between the sexes, statistically speaking.

wavingwhilstdrowning · 29/10/2021 19:22

@BloodinGutters
You're absolutely correct. 'Lots' was a very poor choice of phrase

BloodinGutters · 29/10/2021 19:34

@KaycePollard

And it drives me crazy when anyone uses examples like my mother as women do it too.

Absolutely @BloodinGutters 98% of sexual crime is committed by men.

And I'd bet that a fair proportion of the tiny minority of women who are charged or convicted of sexual crimes were or are abused themselves - either as children, or through an abusive/coercive relationship with a man.

It is a real difference between the sexes, statistically speaking.

I don’t think being abused as a child has any bearing on it.

The official stats I think are that 1 in 8 kids who are abused go on to become abusers, and those studies were all male (the ones I’ve seen, it’s been a while to be fair). The ones I had seen were also always selective groups of males, like males in residential schools, which may not be representative of all men. And certainly isn’t at all representative of women at all.

The common pattern when a child is abused is revictimisation not to pose any risk of abusing children, in fact most of us end up working in areas that helps survivors in some way.

I’ve known one woman who ‘let’ her daughter be abused by her own father and grandfather, who had also abused her as a child. But while the mother wasn’t technically a victim of there’s as an adult she was hugely vulnerable still due to her mh problems from the abuse and from some ld also. So she was very dependant on her father and grandfather and likely less able to face that the abuse she suffered at their hands was now happening to her daughter.

It’s what 1 in 4 girls who will be sexually abused before turning 16, yet women only make up less than two % of all sex crimes? So it doesn’t add up that being abused could have any effect on adult women abusing children.

My own mother had a horrific childhood, watched her abusing alcoholic father get murdered by her brother, but wasn’t sexually abused, unlike many of her siblings (they were also her mother and aunts as she’s a child born of incest). But she became a social worker and had no addiction problems herself, likely had npd but not diagnosed, and never faced any violence or abuse in her adult life that I ever saw. All of the abuse she let happen to me was because she invited these men into our lives/house to get access to me. They never lived with us, the house was always hers, she was never without a job or car or food in the cupboards, or a support circle who she had believing she was perfect (it was a lot like she was a cult leader tbh). She did it because she wanted to, because she saw me as an object, an extension of her to use as she pleased, because she enjoyed the power over me and the appearance of power she got over men she used me to attract.

Her reasons were no different to men who rape. Women who are predators like this are every bit as evil as the ted bundy’s of the world. It’s just that women like my mother are very very very rare. And the men like her aren’t that unusual.

Chicchicchicchiclana · 29/10/2021 19:59

@verymiddleaged

I agree with *@BloodinGutters* after twenty years in child protection focusing on sexual abuse, women who abuse or actively facilitate abuse are a very small percentage of abusers. They exist, their existence should always be considered a possibility in a case But I wouldn't describe them as lots they are few and far between compared to abusive men.
I think everyone understands and acknowledges this.
ArabellaScott · 29/10/2021 20:18

Flowers Blood, I'm so very sorry.

BatmansBat · 29/10/2021 20:32

BloodinGutters I am so very sorry 💐. I agree that women can be every bit as evil as men. I just don’t understand women like that. I despise male sexual abusers, they are scum, but I can somehow see that they have some weird fetish are getting off on it. But women? I cannot for my life understand the motivation.

I agree with the safeguarding concerns though. Everyone can be a predators, everyone should be under suspicion. But statistically it is more likely to be males. And this must be reflected in safeguarding.

FATEdestiny · 29/10/2021 20:39

Why is her photograph being widely published, but not his?

SCR0071 · 29/10/2021 20:40

A friend read this thread and contacted me - I have some understanding of the law in this general area from a professional perspective- also I am sure many of the contributors will be aware, chargeable offences sometimes bear little lucidity to the criminal act. Whilst I am not aware of specific details of this case or the charges - generally speaking any unlawful act of penetration (digital-penile-foreign object) could constitute a charge of rape. Obviously both males and females have the capacity to commit the offence.

Speculatively as the media hasn't reported any charges that would relate to an abduction or false imprisonment. I assume that the victim|s were known to the defendants in some capacity- the exact events from a point of lawful interaction to an unlawful act taking place will be scrutinised and if that chain of events involves coercion by one party to the extent that it is reasonable to assume the criminal acts would not or would have been unlikely to have taken place then the decision to charge both asfully accountable can be made.

ApplesinmyPocket · 29/10/2021 20:53

Rose West and Myra Hindley are always used as examples of 'women who do it too' because there have not actually been 'lots', however much some would like that to be the case. Their crimes were committed nearly 40 and nearly 60 years ago and yet they still get brought up - their names stuck in people's minds because it was and is rare for a woman to commit this sort of crime.

Thank you for your measured posts on the subject, BloodinGutters. I'm so sorry you went through what you did.

verymiddleaged · 29/10/2021 21:07

@Chicchicchicchiclana my post was just in response to someone using the words "lots of women"
They have gone on to acknowledge it was a poor choice of words in a later post.

NoDecentHandlesLeft · 29/10/2021 21:13

@IHateCoronavirus

I really struggle to get my head around cases like this, where two people harm someone together. How on earth does that happen? Is it a case of like attracts like? I just don’t get how somebody meets another person and gets to the point of ‘hey let’s go rape/kill/torture…’ but it happens. Look at all the poor children who have died horrific deaths at the hands of their family recently. I just don’t get it!
Don't understand either. How does the conversation even start? "You know what I would love to do...."? I don't mean this to sound flippant, I just don't understand.
NoDecentHandlesLeft · 29/10/2021 21:16

@GoodnightGrandma

I think a woman can be charged with rape if she penetrates with something, as she doesn’t have a penis.
The law was definitely penetration with a penis only, unless it's changed. Anything else is sexual assault. Morally not much difference, but in legal terms, you must have a penis to have raped someone.
KindChick · 29/10/2021 21:17

I know the full details/facts will come out in due course. It does state they are not related. Reading the list of charges they both face, they differ but one which is the same is around ‘2 counts of sexual activity in presence of a child’ so it does look as if they have been in a relationship (both having same surname just a coincidence) and a child has been involved re sexual activity. Horrific.

KaycePollard · 29/10/2021 21:18

It’s just that women like my mother are very very very rare. And the men like her aren’t that unusual.

Thanks for the explanation. Very powerfully put.

And one in the eye for those woman-haters who try to say that women are as bad as men.

Weird how we focus on those very very rare women, and take the “ordinary” behaviour as men for granted.

All decent men should be outraged at this, and put pressure on each other to ensure that men learn it’s not manly to behave this way. But they don’t. They just shrug and go #NAMALT

NoDecentHandlesLeft · 29/10/2021 21:20

Anyhow the article has changed to say she's accused of aiding and abetting rape now.

verymiddleaged · 29/10/2021 21:24

How does the conversation even start?
It is cycle of boundaries being broken often, step by step, one taboo becomes normal and acceptable in the relationship and then the next slightly more unacceptable thing becomes normalized and so it goes on.
If at any point the other person says wtf then a backtracking would start, just a joke, totally drunk didn't know what I was saying.
It is a type of grooming process although it can be mutual.

The other option is that someone is comfortable enough with stating what they want to do that they seek out similarly interested people on the internet.

BatmansBat · 29/10/2021 21:32

This is what I find so abhorrent in all this. The slow, chipping away at boundaries in our society. And the willingness of some people to allow boundaries to be pushed in the same of some political agenda.

Children need protection, always. Safeguarding need to be an absolute priority.