STRICTLY PERSONAL IT’S NOT just women’s groups who are stunned and outraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling that extreme drunkenness can be a defence against rape charges. Add me, as a father, husband, brother-in-law, cousin and friend of women, to the list. My reaction is fury and disgust, trite as that may sound in print. My heart actually sped up with anger when I read about the decision in favor of such an absurdity. , What could the learned judges possibly have been thinking? Is com- mon sense in such disrepute that the highest court in the land has ne use for it? Drunkenness is no excuse in a car accident. Drunkenness is no excuse in a murder case. Why on earth should be it be an excuse, under any circumstances, in a rape case? Rape crimes are already vastly under-reported because most women don’t trust the courts enough to believe they’ ll get fair weatment, so they simply try to pull their lives back together and get on with things rather than put themselves through the meatgrinder of the so-called jus- lice system, Trememiber as a young reporter having to cover rape trials, and they amounted, as far as | could see, to another kind of mental, emotional and psychological rape as lawyers for the defence went to work trying to tear the victim apart. I saw far too many cases where the accused left the courtroom with a smirk on his face, and the woman, reduced to (ears, was sent away with her reputation in tatters for having dared to seek justice. Having seen the courts at work in these nyatters, my own thought for many yedrs has bees that tf anybody ever raped one of niy daughters or my wife and | knew who he was, iff thought | could take him, I'd go after him myself, and if E didn’t think I could beat him, I'd get a couple of friends, a baseball bat, and go admin- ister some rough justice of my own, That's because I have little faith in the courts when it comes to deal- ing with rape. And I’m a male! Over the years, there have been a few reforms here and there to bal- ance the scales, but then along comes a tidiculous ruling like this onc, and whatever progress might have been made is tossed out the window overnight. Alcohol is involved in most rape cases anyway. Why it should be an excuse of any kind is totally beyond me. It is my decision to take a drink in the first place. It is my decision to take a second drink. If, after the 20th drink, i don't remember taking any more, why should f be allowed to use thal as an excuse for anything? After all, a part of the decision on the first drink was the knowledge that if ! carry on too long I'll lose control. North Vancouver-Seymour Provincial Riding and DANIEL JARVIS, M.L.A. DANIEL JARVIS Invite You! to “Just Desserts” TOWN HALL MEETING Tuesday, Gct, 18/94, 7:00 pm Jaycee House, 1251 Lillooet Rd. {on bus route, north of Coach House) 1. Ask your MLA ??? 2. Dessert will be served. North Vancouver-Seymour Constituency Office #4-1501 Lynn Valley Rd., N. Van. 984-2692 IS outrage If, after Ve lost control, 1 slant killing, running people over, or rap- ing someone, Edon’t believe fora moment I should be fet off the hook on the grounds that ! didn’t know * what f was doing. I knew what I was doing when [took the first sip. Everything that follows is my responsibility. ! don’t think drunk drivers should be forgiven because they were impaired, or murderers because they slopped back a few vodkas before wielding the knife or squeezing the trigger, Why some different logic should apply to rapists is impossible to imagine, unless iis the ancient, observable truth that male-dominated courts don't see sextal assaulls on wonen as being as heinous as other crimes, ft is fashionable among males at the moment to dismiss the women’s movement as a bunch of lesbians and whiners. This is partially because extremists have seized part of the agenda, and any notions of solidarity among woman have long since been dashed on the rocks by infighting over race, color, class and sexual ori- entation. Also, far too many women have become sexists themselves over the years through the habit of dismissing all males as inherent, genetically imprinted sexist snakes. Sunday, October 9, 1994 -- North Shore News — 7 The problem with that is if you call a man a snake, and really believe that’s all he is, you don’t leave him anywhere to go except, ultimately, to acvept the idea of snakehood, and act accordingly. Partially because of that, although mainly because of feelings of being threatened by women’s advances, there is an obvious backlash among men against what gains women have managed to make in the last genera- tion. US Tam astounded, for instance, by the number of vicious anti-female jokes | hear lately. Whereas, in the past, sexist jokes were mainly, in my view, just jokes that happened to be about sex, nowadays there is a genre of “women” jokes wherein the point of the humor is to put down uppity women. Maybe the Supreme Court has been listening to this kind of humor. Certainly, its latest ruling is a sex- ist joke itself. DRAPERIES BY S. 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