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Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
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North Berwick flowers
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
When women
say no, they
mean no
Perhaps we should not be too surprised at John Cameron’s (22 March) shameful advocacy of a new offence of ‘rape-lite’. After all he comes from that religious tradition – and I don’t mean just Christianity – which regards women as at best second-class citizens and at worst mere chattels. Anyone in doubt should consider the triumvirate of misogynists currently vying for the hearts and minds of Republican America.
Let’s get rid of the two red herrings that he drops into his argument. The first is the ‘wisdom’ of Germaine Greer who ceased to have any credibility among 21st-century feminists long before her appearance on the jungle version of ‘I’m a Celebrity’, somewhere around the time she attacked fellow journalist Suzanne Moore for wearing sexy shoes. The second is his call for gradations of sexual assault crimes. There already are. The many problems contributing to the low conviction rate in all sex-related crimes have little to do with lack of clarity in the law.
So we are talking about rape. Here is a simple definition: rape is the forcible, ie without consent, violation, vaginally or anally, of one person by another. It makes no difference to the heinous nature of such a crime that the perpetrator is a husband/partner, a date or a stranger. Man on woman rape – and let’s face it, that is the most common variety – has nothing to do with lust or uncontrolled libido. It is, rather, misogynistic power-play, the assertion of the crudest kind of superiority. There can be no excuse or plea in mitigation for this most inexcusable of crimes: not what the victim is wearing; not the degree of inebriation of the assailant; not any pre-existing relationship between victim and perpetrator.
Teaching men the truth about rape does not need a week-long seminar and Power-Point presentations, because it’s really quite simple. Only the likes of the Taliban regard men as paramount and women as subordinate, so respecting the equality of worth of men and women is an excellent starting point. That means embracing two further truths: women have the right to wear what they like without being called provocative sluts and when they say no, they mean no.
Rose Galt
Islay McLeod (21 March) was right to highlight a truly unique and totally unforgettable moment of community celebration in Kilmarnock on Sunday. It was indeed a rare sight – the good side of Scottish football.
Such a shame that Peter Campbell’s inaccurate counterblast was published. John Finnie Street like Hampden rang out with cries of the Killie Boys (not the Billy Boys) and it was poor old Ayr United who were the target and providing the blood. Sometimes you only hear what you want to hear but sometimes, just a very rare sometimes Peter, it’s not all about you.
Ronald Partridge
On behalf of the good folk of Kilmarnock I’d like to put Peter Campbell, in his distant hotel armchair, to rights about the singing of the Kilmarnock fans at last Sunday’s cup final. What he heard the Killie fans singing was not the ‘Billy Boys’, but the ‘Killie Boys’. It’s something he might have wanted to clarify a bit before impugning, not just the Killie fans, but also the commentators he was listening to from the comfort of that armchair in Denver. With his permission, we’ll restore the gloss to the Kilmarnock victory, the dignity to the club’s fans (because it wasn’t a tiny minority doing the singing), and the reputation to those erroneously maligned commentators.
Chik Collins
