Dear Judy Finnigan - please don't apologise
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Version 0 of 1. On Monday Judy Finnigan joined a TV debate on the future in football of Ched Evans, a player currently serving the last few days of a jail sentence for rape. Here’s a verbatim transcript of her comments: He’s served his time. The rape – and I am not, please, by any means minimising any kind of rape – but the rape was not violent. He didn’t cause any bodily harm to the person. It was unpleasant, in a hotel room I believe, and she was – she had far too much to drink. And, you know, that is reprehensible, but he has been convicted and he has served his time. “Now when he comes out, what are we supposed to do? Just actually refuse to let him do his job even though he has already been punished? Someone’s done a crime, they serve their time and when they come out they shouldn’t be punished for the rest of their lives.” She was talking about someone’s right to continue their professional life after they’ve served their sentence. Agree or disagree, fine. She didn’t suggest rape was anything but abhorrent, but some people will take issue with the word violent - that’s its own debate. What bothered me was that Finnigan was viscerated and forced to apologise, and that her daughter Chloe Madeley was subjected to rape threats in some bizarre interpretation of retaliation. Much of the underlying discomfort over Finnigan’s remarks are more to do with the fact that rape is a crime so unevenly balanced between perpetrators and victims, with the lack of convictions for rape in this country truly shocking. Just 7% of reported rapes end in a conviction while 82% never go to trial. We have a situation where victims won’t report, police won’t investigate, prosecution services won’t risk a woman’s word against a man’s, juries won’t convict. The lack of convictions would be a national scandal if it were any other crime. Rapists get away with it. So perhaps its no surprise some people frustrated about this injustice might want one convicted man to carry the weight of all the unconvicted men. Because the truly awful fact is that too many people don’t really believe in rape - whether they are on juries, on Twitter, or in their homes hydrating their prejudices by soaking up a Daily Mail story about how some terrible twisted woman “cried rape” against some really quite nice chap. An Amnesty poll in 2005 showed a third of Britons believe a woman who acts flirtatiously is to blame for being raped- more than a quarter also believe a woman is partly or fully responsible for being raped if she wears sexy or revealing clothing, or is drunk, the study found. Only 4% of the British public thought that there were more than 10,000 women raped in the UK every year. The figure of reported rapes in 2005 was 12,000 - thought to be around 15% of actual rapes committed. (This week the Office for National Statistics show a worrying rise in the use of knives when rape is committed. ) Finnigan is a journalist and probably very firmly in that 4%, she’s far likely to be more aquainted with the true picture of rape in this country than most. While you can understand a huge sensitivity to a perceived understating of the crime, she’s a pretty ridiculous target when 96% of the population remains blissfully ignorant. For all our sakes please don’t apologise Judy. This week the Scottish Daily Mail ran a front page story on Nicola Sturgeon who it had just been announced will be Scotland’s first female elected leader - it focused on her haircut. Finnigan herself has had bucket loads of sexist cruelty thrown over her throughout her career. So I’d suggest that while there remains a whole establishment-full of energy out there working to demean and put down women, it’s the apologising from women that has to stop. An apology suggests that next time she might stay quiet. For every women who says sorry for her belief or opinion then we have another victory for misogynistic trolls whether on Twitter or a jury bench. |