The problematic use of the word woman in a rape case in Canada

[Iamsplendid]

Apologies if this has already been posted. https://thepostmillennial.com/canadian-supreme-court-justice-says-use-of-woman-to-describe-rape-victim-in-lower-court-ruling-was-unfortunate-calls-her-person-with-a-vagina

I dispair, I really do.

Wow!

Unfortunate??????

Sometimes I feel we must just have a lot of stupid people in Canada.

I know it's no different than other places really, but every day I see people who simply accept the whole TRA narrative without questioning it at all. It's depressing.

I'm sort of beginning to think we'll deserve the climate apocalypse and the cockroaches taking over.

We're wasting time on this shit while the rest of the planet burns (and the rest of the entire animal kingdom knows what a female is).

As a species, I think our brains are now an example of run away evolution where the 'magical thinking' end result is now EXTREMELY maladaptive in the actual physical environment we find ourselves living in.

I guess the only positive from this is when the end times come, if any humans survive it will only be those who have some recognition of material reality. They'll be the ones ensuring they have home generators and flood proofing their homes while everyone else pisses about changing the meaning of words, getting offended when people use the old meaning, and identifying as not in the middle of a climate catastrophe.

Gosh. I feel I need more detail. Did someone complain about the use of the word woman and, if so, why? Or did the judge does randomly take it upon themselves to make this statement? Was it because only "people with vaginas" could know what it feels like, whereas "male women" couldn't, therefore use of the word "women" was deemed inaccurate?

On a simiar vein, to what Pronouns said, my 20 yo commented the other day that people who decide to self sterilise are a good example of Darwinism in action.

I was wondering that. And whether the judge would have minded a male being called a woman, or if 'woman' is now like 'lesbian' and a man-only thing, where if you're female and call yourself one you're being naughty, because it implies you have sex based preferences and naice girls call themselves queer or pan (or a uterus carrier), but if you're male and call yourself a lesbian or a woman everyone is supposed to cheer and clap and tell you you're amazing.

Ah Canada. Forever striving and leading the world towards greater heights of batshit.

It's interesting that those most in thrall to this reality denying bullshit are wealthier people.

Poorer people can't isolate themselves from physical realities quite so much - so are the ones being harmed by it.

So the only good thing about all of this is that when the end times come a large proportion of the 1% will be too busy worrying about misgendering to have taken any practical steps for survival and it'll be the rest of us who have a better chance.

Small silver lining.

I'm intrigued to know whether the victim in this case minded being called a woman because really that should be all that matters, right? It's all that matters when it's a male demanding it?

What? how could the word 'woman' possibly be confusing in that context? The piece calls the complainant 'she' so presumably not a transman or 'nonbinary' female.

Sadly I have also thought this.

The judge making this pronouncement seems to be a woman, going by the name at least. I can't understand what she means by 'confusion' in this context either. I wonder if she's thinking that transmen might also recognise the feeling of vaginal penetration. But why bring them into it if this specific case is clearly a woman vs a man? Unless it's about setting a precedent.

Just scanned the actual ruling which is about two rape case convictions overturned at the court of Appeal

The Supreme Court reinstated said convictions.

This was a complex ruling setting out the parameters of a Court of Appeals role in cases where the victims credibility is called in to question.

The original convictions were based on victim testimony that they were in fact penetrated, (the perps both denying this) The judges in the cases both determined that a woman would know this had occurred, drunk or not) and held they were telling the truth.

Canadian sexual violence case law and protections from victim profiling is much better than ours it would seem.

I could not find the reference to the claims made by the press in the actual ruling, maybe that occurred at appeal court.

So this is a red herring.

But wouldn't both males and females (who in Canada can both be classed as women) know what penetration feels like?! Just any human.

Canada is utterly mental. South Park The Movie was right.

@Musomama1 The ruling was very specific to two female victims and was clear that if a woman says she knows she was penetrated then that is credible evidence, confronted with a denial that it happened.

I could not find any reference to the quote in the headline, but if it is there she was having to make a distinction of people with vaginas because yes Canadas laws are batshit.

I would like to think the Judge was having a side swipe about that.

This is a (motivated?) misreading of the judgement, which was perfectly sensible, and nothing to do with gender-woo or messing around with language.

At the original trial, victim said that she woke up with the defendant's penis in her vagina. The defence case was that she was mistaken about that. The trial judge said "It is extremely unlikely that a woman would be mistaken about that feeling" and found the defendant guilty.

At appeal, the appeal judge found that the trial judge's very broad statement was not justified by the evidence - there had been no expert evidence on the physiology / psychology / etc. that would be necessary to make such a wide statement. Since the judge's ruling relied on this general statement, the verdict was therefore set aside.

The supreme court's judgement was that the judge was really only making a claim about the victim - that she would have been very unlikely to be mistaken. And that therefore the lack of expert testimony didn't matter. It was "unfortunate" only that the original trial judge said "a woman" (generalization) rather than "the victim" (specific). Quote from the appeal ruling: "it is clear that the impugned statement, while perhaps unfortunately worded, was in fact not a generalization at all, but a specific articulation of the judge’s response to a theory advocated by the defence."

Well if that's the case then the way the 'clarification' was expressed seems rather 'unfortunate'.

Imagine if the world was divided into 2 separate states - one with gender critical culture and laws and the other with gender affirmation culture and laws. Each individual can decide which state to live in and can switch if they want to.

How long would women chose to live in the gender affirmation state. They would have no separate single sex facilities or sports. They would have no separate sex classifcation in science or biology and therefore no same sex attraction. History would be re-written. There would be no safeguarding for children and sexual fetishes would be public and celebrated.

There's nothing for women in a world like that and yet that's where we're headed if governments continue to apply gender affirming culture and stonewall laws.

This is interesting and is definitely a different interpretation than the article implies.

But tbh there had been no expert evidence on the physiology / psychology / etc. that would be necessary to make such a wide statement.

Is what the first judge said really something that required 'expert evidence' even if it was a generalisation ?

@ErrolTheDragon The Supreme Court held that an expert is not required to find in fact that a woman would know she had been penetrated, and that the victim’s testimony was the evidence to find fact on. Not some expert on a woman’s physiology. The ruling was important because it shuts the door on this as s source of appeal, ie, an accused can not argue that an expert should be imported to find fact, regarding a woman’s experiences of a rape.

I would think if you are going to make a statement about something so broad, unless it's already been accepted as a principle in judgements, you would, even if it seems obvious or conventional wisdom.

People do assume a lot of things are true or universal when in fact they may not be.