I’ve been very uneasy reading the commentary about the pending rape and sexual misconduct charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Of course, I’m suspicious about the timing of Assange’s recent arrest in London, and the effort which international law enforcers put in to ‘catch’ him (whereas dude handed himself in, after keeping in touch with UK police for several weeks prior).
But I should point out at this stage that I’m a feminist. That is, I believe that men and women should be treated with the same respect at an interpersonal and an institutional level — and this extends to their presumption of innocence in media coverage of pending criminal proceedings.
As a commenter pointed out at the feminist blog The Dawn Chorus, where I’m a contributing editor, there’s been a pretty distasteful tone to the Assange trial coverage. The media seem to want to both pruriently detail the allegations against Assange, and to suggest these charges aren’t that serious.
Despite their identities being reduced to single initials, Assange’s two accusers have been named and “slut shamed” in the media. Their personal and professional histories have been analysed. Their online activities, hair colours and even the clothing they wore have been scrutinised with the aim of determining whether we should believe anything they have to say.
There have been various suggestions that the actions of the women, before and after they went to police, indicate that they were not really raped, but rather were vindictive, jealous or embarrassed at having been “played” by our snowy-haired Lothario (a media narrative we often see in allegations of sexual assault against famous men). Alternatively, they made up the rape allegations for political reasons: they want to “bring Assange down”.
I was pretty disappointed to find Crikey‘s own WH Chong participating in this speculation, opining that “the most sensible reading [of the ‘sex by surprise’ charge] comes from the mouth of babes, Assange’s son Daniel”. What? Someone on the other side of the world who knows as little about these incidents as anyone, and who hasn’t seen Assange for ages?
I was so disappointed, indeed, that I responded, “Political commentary doesn’t suit Chong; he should probably confine his thoughts to arts and culture, which is the remit of his Crikey blog.”
This angered Chong and his commenters, who called me variously a “loudmouthed bully”, “arrogant” and “anxiously reactive”. To be fair, it was kinda mean of me. Sorry.
Also, in a later response, Chong did clarify his position: “If Assange is guilty of rape, he should get what he deserves. And if the women have falsely accused Assange of the crime, then let’s be clear how malign and wicked that act would be. But clear is the last thing we can expect.”
Chong added that prejudging participants in such a media circus is “only human nature”. That’s may be true. But it’s not right.
Whatever our personal prejudices, it is the role of a Swedish court — not anyone in the media — either to vindicate or discredit the women who brought these charges. And no matter what we believe about the role of Assange and WikiLeaks in public affairs, we should strive to preserve the basic principle of presumed innocence. But that’s not happening in this case.
This Salon article is probably the best rebuttal of all the subtle, hearsay misogyny in the media coverage of this case, while this Feministe post neatly rebuts all the disbelieving sniggering that’s been going on over the charge of “sex by surprise”.
But most troublingly for me, some media accounts have suggested that these vexatious charges could only have been laid in Sweden, where feminism has become institutionalised. As Salon’s Kate Harding sarcastically puts it:
The only reason the charges got traction is that, in the radical feminist utopia of Sweden under Queen Lisbeth Salander, if a woman doesn’t have multiple orgasms during hetero sex, the man can be charged with rape. You didn’t know?
The feminist project has long aimed to reach and reform the highest political institutions, and this has happened in Sweden, “where even conservative male politicians call themselves feminists”.
Swedish law has also eliminated many of the subtle anti-victim legal biases that deter many women from reporting incidents to police. It is not being “politically correct” to point out that women are often treated callously, contemptuously and dismissively when they report sexual harassment or assault to authorities, and when these cases are reported in the media. We’ve previously documented many such incidents at the Dawn Chorus.
The idea that women can withdraw their consent is the backbone of the “sex by surprise” charge, and Swedish activists are now agitating for further reform that recognises that women can signal their non-consent in non-verbal ways.
But I’m getting the disquieting feeling that for the mainstream (and especially the conservative) media, Sweden is becoming a case study in the crazy, Kafkaesque shit that happens if we let those wacky feminists get their hands on the wheel.
Media have taken pains to report the statistic that in 2006, six people were convicted of rape in Sweden, though almost 4000 people were reported.
The fact this is being couched as a “bad thing” betrays an alarming misconception that women “cry rape” purely to punish men. But what if it’s the other way around — that the Swedish system encourages women to believe that they won’t be punished for reporting a crime that — for myriad reasons — may not result in a conviction?
And it’s curious that another key statistic is missing — an analysis of the Swedish media’s reporting of rape cases. It would be interesting to see if women who bring charges are as routinely — and as viciously — prejudged and shamed in Sweden as they are in Australia, the US and the UK.
The central hypocrisy of the Julian Assange coverage seems to be that it’s a good thing for information to be free, but women should be kept down as much as possible — or where would society be then?
What a tragedy the two issues have become entangled. We all want Julian to be kept safe from govts that want to hurt him just because he oversaw the leaks that embarrassed world leaders. But we also want women to be safe, and for victims of rape to be treated with respect and the full support of the law.
We dont want fake charges to be successful against an advocate of freedom of speech in democracies. But we dont want such a man to avoid punishment by the law if he has raped someone.
The timing of the rape charges makes it look pretty suspicious. But how tragic for the women if it is all true. And how tragic for Julian if it is not.
I agree with this, as they appear to be, the sexual misconduct complaints/charges seem valid.
As Rundle reported yesterday, the issue is not the charges themselves – which if the women agree, should be followed up, but the process, as an example no charges have been laid against Julian Assange, and details of the complaints were not provided in English..
Given the circumstances it is the Swedish prosecutor that should be under pressure to follow due process, not the women themselves.
The most disappointing thing about this case is how badly it’s been handled by Swedish authorities. That has done the complainants no favours, and only fuelled speculation that both the complainants and the authorities are not acting in good faith but are instead politically motivated.
I cannot agree with this statement by Mel Campbell: “The central hypocrisy of the Julian Assange coverage seems to be that it’s a good thing for information to be free, but women should be kept down as much as possible — or where would society be then?”
I think this misconstrues the situation. I understand that Assange has sought information from, and to be questioned by Swedish authorities, for some months. Instead of conveying information to him about the nature of the allegations against him, and indeed, putting those allegations to him, Swedish authorities have bumbled around (incompetence or political skulduggery, who can tell?), presenting little or no evidence. Oh, and leaking the fact of the complaints to the media before Assange was told about the allegations. Hardly due process, or doesn’t that matter if a woman is making a complaint?
As for statistics, I’d like to see the statistics on how often Sweden has handled cases like this, how often they pursue accused persons with European Arrest Warrants, and how often decisions are cancelled, cases taken to other prosecutors, etc etc.
Before the matter goes to court, a decision has to be made to prosecute – on the basis of available evidence. Some evidence on social media sites has been tampered with and removed. Hardly a good look for sincere complainants, if in fact they were responsible for that removal of evidence.
I’m a feminist too. I’d like to see people, regardless of their sex, gender, race, political beliefs or activities, treated equally and with equity. I thought that was the great feminist project. Assange is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Or is that only afforded complainants in the Swedish legal and political system?
I also thought that notwithstanding the ranting misogynists climbing on to their soap boxes, the main problem was the botched prosecution process. The rape charge was first applied in respect to W, then to W&A, and then to A. And…the withdrawal of consent issue has been dropped altogether.
Moreover, the arrest warrant for rape was quickly issued, quickly withdrawn and then reinstated a week later on 1 September. The only noticeable thing that happened between 1 September and 28 November when the Arrest warrant was issued was JA being refused an interview with the prosecutors and then given permission to leave Sweden. And JA still hasn’t been charged and nor has he been given full information about the evidence against him.
Who cares what the ranters say? They’ll always be there and they’re not the issue.
Poor article by Campbell.
THis case is going to end up being bad for Julian’s reputation, and that of feminism. 4000 reported, but only 6 found guilty? That’s a shocking indictment – think how bad the 3994 innocent men feel to have gone through that [1] , and the damage to their reputation.
[1] Ok, even if you assume the courts got it wrong a few times, that’s still a lot of innocents.