OK, Here's How the Legal System has to Work...

Yesterday Bill Roach was cleared of the allegations of sexual assault that had been brought against him. I'm not a legal expert. I have no clue as to the details of this case as I didn't even really follow it on the news so I don't feel qualified to comment on the verdict or trial. I am, however, a resident of the United Kingdom and therefore I do have a right to comment on the reaction I saw last night.

 

The Twitter search function is completely useless so I couldn't find the tweets I read last night that made me so angry to quote so this is probably going to read a bit like story time. But please bear with me. There is a point. Someone re-tweeted a tweet into my time line calling the women who'd brought the complaints against Roache 'disgusting', 'liars', 'the worst kind of people', 'whores' etc. I clicked through to the hashtag and saw that this tweeter was not alone in their feelings.

 

Because Roache was found innocent it seemed OK to declare open season on the prosecution. Clearly they had to be lying (and 'money grabbing' to boot, although I never found an explanation for this). And because they were lying they themselves should go to prison, have their right to anonymity removed and probably whipped through the streets.

 

THIS CANNOT BE HOW A LEGAL SYSTEM WORKS!

 

How anyone can think it is alright to punish people who bring unsuccessful cases to court is staggering. Can you imagine what kind of a world we would live in if that were the case? The only people who would report a crime would be those who were certain of the verdict going in their favour. It would be a tiny minority who had the power and influence to ensure cases were ruled the way they wanted them to be. Everyone else would be terrified to make a complaint in case they themselves were prosecuted. It would be an outrageous way to conduct things. It wouldn't just leave the most vulnerable amongst us without access to the justice system, it would leave damn near all of us without it.

 

That, and there is a reason it is called 'not guilty' rather than 'innocent'. It means the jury didn't feel the case had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn't meant it didn't happen (although I feel I should point out it also doesn't mean it did, and Roache may very well be innocent. I just don't know). For what it's worth I think this should be how it works. Any doubt and the jury should go with 'not guilty', but that's a rant for another time. My point is these women could have been telling the truth. A 'not guilty' verdict does not automatically mean the prosecution were lying and it's not up to random upstarts on Twitter to decide that they are.

 

Incidentally, I noticed a lot of people last night railing against the CPS for bringing the case to trial. This also baffled me. If every case the CPS brought to trial went in favour of the prosecution what would be the point of the trial? It also irked me that these people assumed the CPS 'hadn't done their job'. Who are you, disgruntled avatar, to tell the CPS how to do their job?

 

The other thing that really made my blood boil is that this was a sexual assault trial. The CPS has recently been criticised for the dwindling numbers of such cases that they refer to the courts. That suggests to me that this would not have gone forward had it not been felt the case was pretty robust. 

 

And now we come to the delightful misogyny these views betray. 'The worst type of people', 'whores', 'money grabbing sluts'. Yet again the myth that being accused of rape or sexual assault it worse than being raped or sexually assaulted. That, my friends, is cast iron bullshit. It must be awful to be accused of such a serious crime if you haven't done it, but it's a whole lot worse to have to life with the aftermath of rape and sexual assault (that, and regardless of what idiots may say, false rape allegations are pretty damn rare). Yet we seem to live in a culture where it's acceptable, even expected, that women in these cases are not believed. That doesn't hold for any other crime, and it is not OK. I can't help but feel these women would not be vilified to the same extent had Roache been cleared of stealing their handbags. Also, I think we can see from the aftermath of Ched Evans' guilty verdict, they wouldn't have been treated any differently had Roache been found guilty.

 

As for naming the women involved....just read this post at Sian and Crooked Rib because it explains the reasons why those who report rape and sexual assault should remain anonymous far more eloquently than I could. 

 

In short, random angry people baying for the blood of women who may not even have done anything wrong, get the fuck over yourselves.      

Gok Wan's Rules of Attraction

Before we start I’m going to freely admit something; I quite like Gok Wan. It’s probably because on telly he’s always so sweet and nice to everyone but I always thought that he’d be really lovely in real life as well*. I can’t imagine him getting disproportionately angry if you forgot to record Downton Abbey for example. I also, and this could just be my soft spot for him, genuinely believe he wants to do his best for the people that appear on his shows. He does want them to feel better about themselves. My only problem is, I think he’s going to wrong way about it.

I love about 70% of the stuff he does on How to Look Good Naked. I get a bit uncomfortable by his constant reinforcement that all women must look smaller all the time but I also understand that, as that’s the message that’s constantly around us in society, that is what makes a lot of women feel good. Maybe I’m asking a bit much of Gok to challenge that assumption (his is, after all, just trying to make a bit of light entertainment) but I wish he’d make a bit of an effort.

However, I was pretty disappointed in last night’s fare, Gok’s Style Secrets. This time around not only is Gok giving out fashion advice, but dating advice as well. Whenever I see the phrase ‘dating advice’ alarm bells start ringing. If the advice is not ‘be yourself, surround yourself with people who like you to build up your confidence and then go talk to people you fancy’ then the advice is likely to be dodge. If the advice is not what is previously stated (or a version of it) there’s a pretty high chance that this will tell you to change yourself in order to meet someone. I have reason to believe that Gok’s advice is in the second category as it states on Gok’s own website he’ll be telling you what to do, say and wear on a date. The answer to all three is ‘whatever you want and whatever feels comfortable’ but that can’t be stretched out for an hour.

This advice is overwhelmingly aimed at women, and it overwhelming tells women to appear more ‘sexy’ and demure, to quieten down, to wear different clothes, to not laugh too loud or burp or talk for an hour about your favourite album/film/football team/breed of dog. As well as being oddly inaccurate (I’m as obnoxiously gassy and badly dressed as they come and I’ve never had problems getting into relationships. Or bed) it seems very strange to change yourself to appeal to someone else. Because then they’re not attracted to you. They’re attracted to the sanitised version you’ve chosen to portray. What if your dastardly plan works and you get married? Spending your whole life not farting and avoiding interesting topics of conversation sounds like just about the worst thing I can think of. You see this advice all the time, in magazines, in rom coms, even sometimes from ‘friends’ (who, if they think you need to change that dramatically, have no business calling themselves your friends).

The other aspect I find problematic is the focus on appearance. Setting up a woman for dating by telling her to be ‘sexy’ suggest that there is only one way to be sexy and this is the most important part of a date. What’s that? You think it is? It’s not. Finding someone physically attractive has nothing to do with how hard they tried to look sexy. Also looks are not the be all and end all of attractiveness.

And these looks are so prescriptive. The lady on last night had a very specific and personal style. Clearly she wasn’t sure it was working or else she wouldn’t have contacted Gok but other women might see that, look down at their crushed velvet dresses and think so is this wrong? It’s not, it’s not wrong. You wear what you want to wear, and it doesn’t matter if it looks sexy to someone else, or even to you, because it’s OK not to look sexy all the time.

This is the problem I always had with Snog, Marry, Avoid, although they occasionally let women who dressed in a punky or gothic style off the hook because they were ‘individuals’ it still told women even more specifically than Gok that being attractive was the most important aspect of appearance (the clue is in the title) and that only certain looks were sexy. If a girl wants to wear layers of fake tan and eyelashes with pink feathers on the end then what, really, does it have to do with you? These women will see themselves as just as individual as the goth girl whose just been told by Gok she looks scary.

So, I’m sorry Gok, but you’re assumptions are wrong, your delivery is wrong, your emphasis is wrong and I’m still gonna rely heavily on Doc Martens, band t-shirts and thick black eyeliner. And my lady loves it.

Maybe it’s different for lesbians.

*I did actually meet Gok Wan once. It was when I lived in Manchester and drink might have been consumed. I saw him on Canal Street, ran up to him, told him I thought he was ace and I wished I’d met him when I was sober. He patted me on the shoulder and said 'I wish you’d been sober when you met me too, love’. So he’s quite funny as well as sweet.