Dubois’ chapter really tied
together the week for me. Law of consent is progressive in Canada, and did
innovate and it was a victory. However, it is really important that this isn’t
where the conversation stops. Yes, Canada is seen as moving towards affirmative
consent standards which is awesome, but what’s the point in lobbying for law
reform when it isn’t used in practice? In theory, we are ahead of other
countries – and everyone knows that sexual assault is seriously underreported.
It’s so common for people, upon hearing that someone experienced a sexual
assault, to push that person to report. As a volunteer at SAC at the
university, so many clients feel pressured to report. And when a client wants
to report, that’s awesome – but I do need to gently talk to them and explain
the process of reporting to them. People assume that because the police are
here to protect us that they will be taken seriously, and ultimately will find
justice through reporting. I really cannot describe anger that I feel when a survivor
comes in and talks about how he/she went and reported to the police and it
wasn’t taken seriously, they were blamed and minimized, and had an overall
terrible experience. Secondary wounding at its best. It’s so infuriating that
we have amazing consent law that helps to dispel a lot of rape myths – that
alcohol/drug use is NOT cause, taking reasonable steps, etc – but if they
aren’t put into practice or understood by the police it really does not help to
serve the survivor. This gap between legislation and practice is crucial.
One part of Dubois’ chapter that
really rattled me was the part right before the conclusion, describing a
reporting scene where the reports were not classified as sexual assault because
“ they cannot remember saying no” (208). That they were too incapacitated to
remember saying no in itself should be a clear signal that if they were unable
to remember, they were unable to consent. This happened in 2003, and our
consent laws definitely covered that aspect. So the law itself is good – but again,
if the police still have this engrained mentality biased upon rape myths then
it doesn’t seem to matter. It would be really interesting to see what training
that the police go through entails; and hopefully find a way to educate law
enforcement better on this subject. Maybe I’m being idealistic, but it seems
like once this barrier is addressed and the reporting process will be
significantly less traumatic.
The idea that the law of consent is progressive in Canada and yet not implemented consistently has been frustrating for me. I have lost my faith in the system and just realized how flawed our infrastructure really is. How then am I supposed to feel safe knowing that I might not get my day in court or be taken seriously, I could be swept under the rug, a name on an inexistent folder.
ReplyDeleteThe police are considered "the law" and that's only because they are meant to impose it and uphold it. My CSL placement has been a great learning experience but it has also been frustrating and draining. To me logically and rationally, I understand what consent is and what I am entitled to but there are some women who don't, because they have been constantly told that who they are or what they do for a living is the reason they are beaten and raped, they are told it is their fault. The case we talked about in class of the girl Rehtaeh Parsons made me think of how rape gets shadowed away into a corner because “cyber bullying” or “drunk driving” seems to be more important. Not that I am implying those things aren’t important, however, I find it troubling that those problems become the focus and rape is casted aside as something that is harder to prove or less likely to happen. I also wonder if it would have been so public, within social media if the girl attacked was maybe a Native-Canadian, African-Canadian or Hispanic. Or are we to assume that only certain ethnic groups are more likely targets than others when it comes to rape. In class we have been talking about presentations on consent being offered at schools, but then I think about the police officers who know the laws on consent and laws on sexual assault and yet don’t enforce it, so how can we expect kids at junior high or high school level to take it seriously.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that it is important for us to recognize that the law of consent is not where the conversation stops. This past weeks readings, in particular, made me even more cynical about police practices when it comes to reporting instances of sexual assault. Although I want to add that I did pause for a moment of reflection while reading your entry, a moment where I reflected upon our theoretical location. Specifically, when you state that “in theory, we are ahead of other countries.” It is here that my pause made me think about our location in a Canadian context and I do not necessarily think that this is a case where we should juxtapose Canadian laws with ‘other’ countries. Perhaps this is just a case of me being hyperaware, but I think it is productive to keep our views localized to a Canadian/ Western neoliberal context. With this context in mind, I do see where you are coming from when you say that there needs to be more of a drive to put these theoretical approaches of sexual assault into practice. The gap between legislation and practice, in other words, is indeed crucial in examining police investigations of sexual assault.
ReplyDeleteYour blog entry importantly highlights the pervasiveness of rape myths operating in police investigations of women’s reports of sexual assault. I also found the presence of rape myths in these police assessments to be unnerving and rattling. For instance, in the example you use on page 208, the police investigator clearly perpetuates victim-blaming when they suggest that each woman “remembers more than she is admitting and that she is trying to believe that she was raped in order to justify behaviour that she regrets” (207). Not only does this police investigation render these reports as unfounded, they also, as you say in your entry, do not take the law of consent at that time into serious consideration. Dr. Gotell mentioned, during last Thursday's group discussions, that ‘unfounded’ statistics were no longer collected after 2003. Indeed, DuBois points out that “It is difficult to and expensive to obtain statistics on the rate at which sexual assault reports were ‘unfounded,’ and it is even more difficult to access qualitative information that would lend insight to the question of why sexual assault reports were ‘unfounded’ at such high rates. Even where data is made accessible, it is difficult to compare data across jurisdictions, given that Canadian police forces do not use uniform collection procedures” (209). These insights lead me to wonder if the reason why audits of wrongful “unfounding” cases ceased after 2003 – along with the difficulty of collecting data that DuBois highlights in the above quotation – has anything to do with the fact that these reports clearly highlight the explicit systemic corruption inherent to police investigations of sexual assault in Canada? Indeed, the fact that there is presently no uniform recording procedures in police forces across Canada seems particularly problematic. The conversation on the law of consent certainly cannot stop here.