People still look on the outside to determine was is on the inside, every single day! The worse part about that is: it isn't the truth.

I'm in a hurry but I'll post more later.

I'll post more on this later, but what we do is raise hell. Is anybody here in a position to find the addresses, phone, email or fax numbers of the court in this case, the prosecutor's office, etc. ? I'm sure the lot of us can mobilize a nice block of feminist rage, expressed politely but firmly, insisting that this case be retried.

I know my opinions on of the more extreme on this board, but I really don't believe the system is going to give us anything, deserved or not. We have to use our numbers and we have to insist on justice if we ever want to be treated as anything but madonnas and sluts.

I agree with Morgaine on something? :)

I second that. If anyone has information about phone numbers or addresses where calls and letters can be sent, I would much appreciate that.

We are taught to fear the scary man hiding in the bushes with the knife, but the face of a rapist is rarely portrayed as one that might be handsome/rich/famous/influential. I think we need to dismantle this idea. While possible, I do not know any woman personally who has been raped by a stranger, but many have been by acquaintances. We need to talk about this at every chance. Just because a man has money or looks does not mean we all want to have sex with them.

There is this implication of guilt on the woman's part, whether she is gangraped or abused by a husband. I don't know why our culture still, as a whole, buys this notion of the victim as guilty or asking for trouble, but I am sick of it.

More women need to risk their reputations by coming forward and taking their rapists to court. In the meantime, they risk being slandered and libelled, but I'm not sure that we'll ever advance as a whole.

This is my first time posting to "We Have Brains"...but it seems like a feminist must-do. One of the reasons that I am so conflicted about how to approach the criminal prosecution of sexual assault is that it goes to the core of our justice system. I really, firmly believe that "innocent until proven guilty" is the presumption we need to work with--we all know that "guilty until proven innocent" pretty much amounts to a police state. So, as hard as it is, I think we need to consider alleged rapists as innocent until there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. My question is this: when did proving the alleged criminal's innocence come to involve proving the alleged survivor's "guilt"?