Rapes committed by women - JKR got me thinking

[scratchedbymycat]

JKR just tweeted again. I agree wholeheartedly with her views, but some of the responses have got me thinking.

Why does it matter if crime stats say women rape?

(I promise I'm not trolling here. In fact, I'm hoping for some startlingly clear objective responses to fuel my arguments.)

For me, I find it downright hateful, after all the violence and hate directed towards women by men, that stats will now say 'women are doing it to women'. That makes me so damn angry. But is feeling offended by this, on principle, enough?

On crime stats and recording... Seth Abramson (I know) on Twitter commented that the fact the perpetrator has a penis will come up in the court case. So the court will know they are not biologically female.

Also, if we say a woman raped another, doesn't that also immediately tell us the rapist was transgender? (The only group who identify as women but are also bepenised).

How does a biological women rape another? Because I've seen claims on Twitter that some biological women have been found guilty of rape. Is this a lie?

I'm trying to tease my thoughts out. Only just starting to comment about the gender identity consequences for women to friends etc, and just want to be super clear when I say anything, and not to slip into emotional anger (which happens a lot for me).

Women can and have, rarely, been found guilty of rape under joint enterprise as an accomplice. Eg this case www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/mar/17/sarahhall

But there is always a man committing the rape in those cases and without whom it would not have happened.

If crime statistics are not kept accurately then what is the point of them?

JK Rowling’s point wasn’t about whether women commit rape. It’s about how rapists with penises aren’t women.

It’s worth being extremely clear on this because a lot of mendacious/stupid people have distorted what she was saying into “women never commit rape.”

The distortion of crime statistics matters in the aggregate because there’s an intensive and ongoing propaganda effort on multiple fronts to disguise the realities of male violence against women.

And the lies about the perpetrator’s identify matter at the individual level because of the impact on the victim.

And the lies about the perpetrator’s identify matter at the individual level because of the impact on the victim.

Plus the rapists then end up in women’s prisons, which mean that women prisoners are stuck locked up with them.

"Rape" is an odd one out, as it's male-specific in English law. Except that a female could be an accomplice, thus get recorded that way.

So what we see in the stats for rape must be either males, or female accomplices. I don't believe we've managed to pull this apart.

Except then there's another wrinkle in that sentencing guidelines and some aggregate stats group together "sexual assault by penetration" with rape. There was a balancing done to make it so that in practice those carry the same sentencing guidelines and are treated the same, despite being different offences in law. IIRC one of the main stat sources groups them so its "rapes" could be women, the other doesn't.

How much that matters in practice, we don't know. It may well be the case that female accomplices to male rape are far more common than female sexual assaults by penetration... But are either as common as male rapes recorded as female?

But for all other violent offences, there's no way to just say "oh, well that must have been male". Certainly when you see that someone was violently attacked there's a very high probability it was male - and certainly whenever I see such a headline about a "woman" offender I currently assume it's a male - but you can't rule out the offender being female.

Stats have shown a big uptick in all sorts of "female" violent offences since around 2010, and it does seem safe to say that's largely due to increased recording of males as females. But again, we don't know for certain.

And those garbled stats showing less clear 98%+ ratio of male:female are then used to justify relaxing rules on males because "women do it too"...

And the lies about the perpetrator’s identify matter at the individual level because of the impact on the victim.
Exactly. It is already traumatic to be a victim of rape. Having to refer to your male attacker as a woman is awful. But it seems that when it comes to choosing whether to help the rape victim or avoid hurting a rapist's feelings, amazingly too many people choose the latter.

This is just another men’s rights activists tactic (tra’s are a part of that whole movement) to breakdown the safeguarding and the boundaries of women.

If you can no longer say men are the most likely to rape and be sexual offenders, then you can’t argue for safeguarding for women and children. “Women do it too” is their argument. And they seem to be winning the argument from what I see.

If a rapist identifies as a woman he can be housed in a woman's prison.
With vulnerable women, who can't escape from the rapist.

Also, if we say a woman raped another, doesn't that also immediately tell us the rapist was transgender?

If you say a woman raped another, it means you believe transwomen are women.

"Also, if we say a woman raped another, doesn't that also immediately tell us the rapist was transgender? (The only group who identify as women but are also bepenised)."

Or maybe you should just not define rape based on the ridiculously narrow and regressive definition in the UK law that classifies many forms of sexual assault as "not technically rape".

Imagine telling a woman who had her vagina forcefully penetrated by another woman that what happened to her wasn't rape due to some technicality of outdated British laws since it wasn't done with a penis.

Genuinely sociopathic shit.

That the rapist can end up in a woman's prison is the main one.

But just the principle that a woman's discomfort at having to call her rapist 'she' is trumped by the rapists discomfort at being referred to as 'he' makes me so angry.

If principles don't matter then it doesn't matter if the rapist is referred to as 'he'.

I thought only a person with penis can commit rape in England. Thank their countries have different rules. I do have a big problem with reporting - it dilutes and hides the problem.

"But just the principle that a woman's discomfort at having to call her rapist 'she' is trumped by the rapists discomfort at being referred to as 'he' makes me so angry."

We could, you know, default to referring to people by "they", but for some reason you lash out against that idea.

I read somewhere, probably twitter, that this is a thorny perjury issue.

If a woman is a victim of rape then she knows very well which sex her attacker is. The court system appears to be happy to FORCE female victims to commit perjury by referring to their attacker as a woman, in order to not hurt the feelings of the (alleged) dirty raping bastard.

The court is forcing women to commit a crime, in order to respect the wishes and preferences of a male person accused of a heinous crime.

Fucking hell.

No, it's judges and courts that would stop that happening, not feminists here. Court guidelines are to instruct the witnesses to use the demanded pronouns of rapists/assailants. No use of "they" allowed if the demanded pronoun is "she". And if you managed to give evidence of your rape by using the defendant's name or similar instead of the demanded pronouns then you run the risk of being condemned for giving evidence in bad faith and judged accordingly. See the comments made about the witness and victim in the assault case of a transactivist who assaulted a woman at speakers corner, who continued to use the "wrong" pronouns after being told to refer to her assailant as female and she/her.

I recall two cases , one from my home town , where women passing as men were tried for sexual.assault and deception , by using a fake penis or dildo (and hiding under clothes or bedding so never seen naked) to penetrate their female partners , but I dont think it was tried as rape . Ill do some digging and see if I can find out more , but I think for rape to occur under English law at least a penis has to penetrate a body .

@AssassinatedBeauty

Women can and have, rarely, been found guilty of rape under joint enterprise as an accomplice. Eg this case www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/mar/17/sarahhall

But there is always a man committing the rape in those cases and without whom it would not have happened.

This is the case being circulated on Twitter to counter JKR. But how is she literally, guilty of rape if she does not have a penis?

Quote from the article:

""If she was party to the group attack and if she was actively encouraging and therefore ready to lend a physical hand or if she was holding down while the offence was taking place, she in law, would be guilty of rape, although a female."

Can an argument be made then that rape is not always penetration with a penis, therefore women can rape?

@Floisme

If crime statistics are not kept accurately then what is the point of them?

I would have said exactly this too, but I've now been wondering exactly how the crime information is used...?

Can someone copy and paste JK's tweet please?

In the Daily Record

In the Daily Record:

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/jk-rowling-new-trans-war-25683438

@Snowdancer385

"But just the principle that a woman's discomfort at having to call her rapist 'she' is trumped by the rapists discomfort at being referred to as 'he' makes me so angry."

We could, you know, default to referring to people by "they", but for some reason you lash out against that idea.

If he has raped you with his penis, he is a he.

Why is this so hard to understand?

In the Daily Record:

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/jk-rowling-new-trans-war-25683438

@MarshmallowSwede

This is just another men’s rights activists tactic (tra’s are a part of that whole movement) to breakdown the safeguarding and the boundaries of women.

If you can no longer say men are the most likely to rape and be sexual offenders, then you can’t argue for safeguarding for women and children. “Women do it too” is their argument. And they seem to be winning the argument from what I see.

This.

@Animood

Can someone copy and paste JK's tweet please?

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman.

twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1470092815506063365?s=20