In keeping with the “women who hate women” theme we sort of had going last week, let’s take a quick look at Arizona Judge Jacqueline Hatch. Judge Hatch, you see, presided over a recent case involving a Flagstaff, Arizona police officer who was found guilty of sexually abusing a woman in a bar. According to the Arizona Daily Sun,
Prosecutors contended that he drank eight beers and then drove himself to the Green Room, where he flashed his badge in an attempt to get into a concert for free. While inside, he walked up behind the victim, who was a friend of a friend, put his hand up her skirt and then ran his fingers across her genitals.
When bouncers threw him out, Evans told them he was a cop and they would be arrested.
The cop faced up to two years in jail for his assault. But Hatch apparently felt the officer, who’d lost his job and served four whole days in jail, had already been punished enough for his crime, and let him off with two years of probation.
She also gave the victim a patronizing little lecture. Again, according to the Daily Sun,
Bad things can happen in bars, Hatch told the victim, adding that other people might be more intoxicated than she was.
“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Hatch said.
Hatch told the victim and the defendant that no one would be happy with the sentence she gave, but that finding an appropriate sentence was her duty.
“I hope you look at what you’ve been through and try to take something positive out of it,” Hatch said to the victim in court. “You learned a lesson about friendship and you learned a lesson about vulnerability.”
Hatch said that the victim was not to blame in the case, but that all women must be vigilant against becoming victims.
“When you blame others, you give up your power to change,” Hatch said that her mother used to say.
Hatch has now offered a half-assed apology for her remarks, saying, in part:
As a Coconino County Superior Court judge, it is my responsibility to ensure that all victims and defendants are treated fairly and in a respectful manner in the courtroom. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously. I also believe victims should not be blamed for coming forward to report crimes.
In a recent case, my in-court comments to the victim at sentencing did not further these important tenets. My comments were poorly communicated and for that, I am truly sorry if they caused the victim further distress.
No, you communicated pretty clearly. The problem is what you communicated.
Yeah, blitzgal, also, he disagnosed women with hysteria if they admitted to masturbating. Same with many of his contemporaries.
The internal anatomy of the clitoris. Which wasn’t studied in any depth by scientists until 2009. Seriously.
Btw, if you don’t click, the clitoris is HUGE. The internal structure is enormous compared to the external and it extends deep through the pelvis.
There’s a theory that all orgasms are actually clitoral, given the wrap around structure of the clitoris and how it sort of hugs the vagina (ergo that penetration stimulates the clitoris too). I’m not entirely sure I buy that one, given how wildly women’s sexual responses vary, and that sex involves more than just a couple of organs.
What’s fairly clear is there is no such thing as a “mature” orgasm. I really hate that construct because it’s an attempt to make women feel insecure about orgasms not being the “right” kind. Just… really?
More on the anatomy here: http://blog.museumofsex.com/the-internal-clitoris/
It was waaaaaay up the thread but just had to say how much I giggled at Pell’s phrase “walking free with impunity.”
Like, walking freely is a crime from which women have been exonerated by FEMINAZI JUDGES.
Seriously, the idea that you can orgasm the wrong way. Pffft. Talk about brain-washing.
I think that in my situation, my “vulnerability” is my pregnancy. I’m 8.5 months pregnant and even though I walk tall and with a straight back and looking determinedly and alertly, I still get targeted by creepy gross people a lot. I think that this is because I walk and bicycle a lot- I don’t shy away from public spaces and I don’t really care to drive a car if I can help it. I think that a lot of women depend more on their cars, even in areas where they don’t have to drive short distances and could otherwise walk because of the fact that most of us are targeted in public spaces where we can’t “get away” immediately (and I have short legs, so unless I’m on my bicycle, the average person could overtake me if they walk quickly).
Of course, the thing is, I also get a lot of positive attention as well- people who see me on the street and smile or ask nicely about my pregnancy and wish me well. And since I work for a government agency, I know a lot of the people in public agencies around the County so I ended up making a lot of positive associations with them and end up seeing people a lot while out and about.
It just sucks that part and parcel of being a woman in public is being bombarded by people who KNOW they are acting badly but actually take solace in the fact that they WILL NOT be punished for their terrible behavior.
Unfortunately, there are some cops that believe that their profession makes them above the law, especially for crimes like sexual assault and domestic violence. My aunt’s ex-husband was a police officer that physically abused her severely and frequently, and his buddies on the force believed him over her. Luckily for her, he left her for another women, but it’s sad to think some other women is now married to him. I think now there are more police stations that take dv more seriously, and will fire officers that abuse their power like that. But that has come with a new type of victim blaming where people will blame a woman that accuses a cop of rape or dv, because she might “make him lose his job”.
BTW, I understand that there are many male cops that do treat women respectfully, and there are female police officers that are misogynists. But I’m suspicious about cops that call other officers’ wives and girlfriends “badge bunnies” or “holster sniffers”, because they are the kind that think of women as possessions rather than people.
Meanwhile, one of the treatments for hysteria or female dysfunction WAS masturbation. Doctors invented the vibrator, because their hands were getting tired from diddling their patients. True facts.
Pell calls women “females” almost exclusively, and collapses like the Austro-Hungarian empire in a cupboard when you say his name three times.
There’s noch things a rape in Nature
Fake Scottish: the best accent to use when espousing Fake Natural History. Although, interestingly, it is impossible to rape a female porcupine. Och a’ wee noo!
@Blitzgal. Exactly, yes. And this subject will soon be explored in the movie “Hysteria,” starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. Ah, real life…stranger than fiction.
I missed a Pell-splosion?
What a great description of the phenomenon.
Also in the news today, a California gynecologist who sexually assaulted a female patient. But of course she should have known that was going to happen when she took her clothes off in the examination room, amirite?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-doctor-sex-case-20120911,0,7720610.story
Given the rate at which Pell’s linguistic abilities are degrading, within a few more posts he should just be spouting random words interspersed with slurs.
In the town where I live we had a woman kidnapped at gun point from outside a hospital at about midday, driven to the middle of nowhere then raped and returned to a McDonalds near campus. Since the attacker came near campus we got an emergency e-mail about it.
I have absorbed victim blaming so much that this scared me more than average. Normally if you aren’t doing anything “wrong” (I do wrong things all the time) such as going out at night alone (even to the supermarket), going out to clubs/parties, meeting with men, walking (even in the day), answering the door at night (although I guess in the day is bad as well) or living alone or having a bedroom on the ground floor, you think you are safe. However that is not the case. A lot of people failed to get what disturbed me about the case as this type of thing is apparently not even news worthy in a large American city.
The day after the case when I was trying to check he’d been caught (he didn’t try to hide so even by the time of the e-mail the police had his registration plate) I found a similar case within the last month which was listed as noteworthy because the perpetrator had taken the victim to buy condoms at gun point (this was a house invasion).
I don’t really know what the point of this is, other than it scares me and I hate America (I am probably being naive but someone being forced into sex at gun point in the middle of the day would be shocking in many European countries). I guess I just want reassurance that it was a bad thing to happen and not just one of those everyday occurrences. (I wasn’t the victim but even the report effected me).
That is a possible defense against disorderly conduct (ARS § 13-2904(A)(2) in Arizona:
“Judge, the club had music at 115dB which is quite clearly too loud for the patrons to be heard at a normal tone.”
And that is the only possible defense for that one charge. It is not a defense against a charge of sexual abuse.
In fact, Arizona law actually specifies what the defenses are:
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/13/01407.htm&Title=13&DocType=ARS
Not the lack of “it was a noisy club where he was drunk” as a defense.
No. There is no expectation nor should there be that a certified peace officer (or anyone) will be drunk and stick his hand up your skirt even at the world’s nosiest club.
ARS § 13-503: Temporary intoxication resulting from the voluntary ingestion, consumption, inhalation or injection of alcohol…is not a defense for any criminal act or requisite state of mind. (emphasis mine)
I just checked ARS § 13-1407 and surprisingly enough (not really) knowing a victim is not a defense to assault.
Newsflash jackass, he was charged with sexual abuse, not sexual assault. ARS § 13-1404(A): A person commits sexual abuse by intentionally or knowingly engaging in sexual contact with any person who is fifteen or more years of age without consent of that person or with any person who is under fifteen years of age if the sexual contact involves only the female breast. (emphasis mine)
For the rest of it, piss off.
@Thebionicmummy: There was a case a few years ago here in Sweden, with a male cop (Göran Lindberg) who HELD CLASSES IN FEMINISM for other policemen. He was eventually found guilty of buying sex (in Sweden it’s legal to sell sex but illegal to buy it) as well as several cases of rape (the youngest victim was fourteen). All the rape cases were with prostitutes – if they didn’t want to do everything he wanted to do, he’d rape them.
Well sure. I mean, it’s kind of hard for someone to sexually assault your imaginary friends.
Aww, it’s at least refreshing to see the hate so clearly spelled out. The next time you get a fraudulent charge on your credit card I’ll tell you to stop whining, it’s not like a little theft was harming you.
Hilarious that Pell says this:
And follows it up with this:
So is it a nice, safe world where only horrible, lying evil bitches think rape or sexual assault or harassment occurs, or is it a world where all women should just expect to be raped/assaulted/harassed?
Honestly, I wonder that more bar and club owners don’t get more pissed off at this “this is what you get for fucking existing in a club/bar”. Less people at a bar means less money. Not that bars are the only place where this shit happens anyway, as most people have mentioned.
I’m new here. Is he a Poe or just a garden variety troll?
This is exactly what I was thinking of when the vulnerability = creep magnet idea came up: you can’t look confident while wearing a burqa.
If he is a Poe, he is remarkably dedicated. He’s been here under, what, seven or eight different handles now?
Yeah, it’s that “if you’re a woman, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t” style of logic that I love most of all….
If you are raped/sexually assaulted/harrassed, then you were most likely asking for it due to where you were located/what you were wearing/how you were speaking/etc.
If you are mindful of where you are located/what you are wearing/how you are speaking/etc., because you’re wary that you might get raped/sexually assaulted/harrassed, then you’re a rabid, misandric, man-hating feminazi that thinks all men are rapists.
And he calls David Futrelle a stalker! LOL!!
@Niktike:
Well obviously half the shit he says is made up, and it’s made up deliberately to piss off feminists; so I could be convinced that he doesn’t actually, literally believe that clitoral orgasms aren’t real orgasms, that the vast majority of accusations of rape are false, that any woman who disagrees with him is fat and unattractive. But he takes pleasure from upsetting women with these ideas. He doesn’t give a damn if he hurts real victims of assault. So, he hates women. The specific details of that hate aren’t interesting to me.
He is saying stuff to purposefully upset people and get an emotional reaction so yeah he is a troll in the most basic sense. Gonna ditto viscaria that I don’t care what his reasons are or how much of what he believes is true he is still a misogynist prick. He is probably doing it “for the lulz” like most adolescent males with little empathy, without any attempt to make someone look bad (aka poe troll).
I just find it a little hard to believe that people like him actually exist. I’ve been reading through the archives, and I’m getting pretty horrified. Do guys like this just walk around every day like normal people?
A great many of Pell’s specific details are obvious fabrications, but the underlying attitude ain’t. There’s far too little self-awareness evident in his bullshit for it to be satire.
And I find it hard to believe anyone who would go so far out of his way to emotionally abuse women on the internet could be motivated by anything but misogyny.