Talking about gender equality. I don’t usually talk about gender issues. But the following two reports caught my eye and I couldn’t help notice the gender bias – towards the fairer sex.
Case 1
Woman charged for sex with teen
Oct 15, 2008
IN THE first case of its kind here, a former woman school teacher has been hauled to court for having sex with a 15-year-old boy six times.
The 32-year-old woman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the boy, was produced in a district court last month.
The alleged offences took place over a two-month period between March 10 and May 8 this year.
Under the Penal Code, any person convicted of sexual penetration of a minor under 16 can be jailed for up to 10 years or fined or both.
The woman who is represented by Senior Counsel Sant Singh will be back in court on Nov 7 for a pre-trial conference.
Case 2
Man had sex with minor
Oct 15, 2008
A 26-YEAR-OLD man was charged in a district court on Tuesday morning for allegedly having sex with an underaged girl at a HDB staircase landing sometime between June and July 2006.
Court documents said that Adrian Chong Yuan Kit had sex with the girl who was under 14 years at the time at Block 644A Bukit Batok Central.
He is currently in remand and will appear in court again on Oct 22.
How is it that concealing the name of the woman offender in Case 1 protects the underaged victim, but in the case of Case 2, a male offender, naming him does not cause detrimental effect to the victim?
I recall an incident some years ago, where there was discussion if there should be a law to prevent the name of an alleged rapist from being revealed to the public – until he has been proven guilty.
The rationale was to protect the suspect, because there have been cases where women have unscrupulously made false rape reports. In many of these cases, when it was proven the suspect was innocent, the real perpetrator (the woman who made the false report) was let off scot-free. In the meantime, the man, an innocent party, had to go through the psychological and emotional turmoil, of the social stigma of being branded a rapist. Even after he has been proven to be innocent, the stigma remains with him.
AWARE came up strongly against the proposal, arguing that real victims of rape will suffer if the proposal was accepted. How that reasoning supports that argument is beyond me. How is it detrimental if BOTH the suspect and the victim’s names are withheld?
In an attempt to protect the rights of women, the rights of men are ignored.
Today, we can say that the above two reports by the media bear an uncanny semblance to AWARE’s illogical thinking process. If the offender (or suspect) is male, shame him. If it is female, spare her.
So much for gender equality.
Singapore Time
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Same offence, different gender, different treatment
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Gender Issues
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23 comments:
From reading the newspaper article, I think the woman was the school teacher of the boy.
If this is true, then naming the teacher could allow people to trace the boy's school.
But how would that be detrimental to the boy, unless he was the unwilling party?
If not, then maybe the boy may want to boost that he had sex with a woman and not a girl and his classmates may be jealous about it too.
dont u know that sg morals are dictated by women? read that papers. women journalists are mostly behind sexual issues.one wonders whether they have been deprived of it or repressed in life. but there is a definite slant in reporting. the bias is self interests i suppose. torn between can't keep the men and yet don't want men to stray so they carry this spite everywhere. in a nutshell, that's the sg story.how to keep our people from straying to greener pastures.
let religious women rule.
Saltwetfish,
Whether or not the boy was an unwilling party, the law protects minors -- which the boy is, as he is only 15 years old.
That is why his teacher is not named, because naming his teacher could possibly reveal his identity.
Randomcharacter,
I do not agree with your argument because of these 2 points.
1 – Remember Mr Ding, ex-teacher from ACS? Not only his name was mentioned, his face was splashed all over the newspaper. And he was finally acquitted. No consideration to the boy victims then?
2 – If naming the female teacher in Case 1 gives away the school she taught and hence, gives away the identity of the boy victim, why then in Case 2, mentioning the address of where the sex took place, won’t give away the identity of the girl victim?
Saltwetfish,
By your same argument, how can it be detrimental to the girl victim, because she too willingly had sex and probably wanted to boast to her friends that she is able to attract mature men?
The fact is that the same offence was committed, yet different treatment was meted out by the media.
Good points Solo Bear. I didn't think of that.
I have no answers for this...
Defendants are routinely named in most criminal cases (whether for sexual assault or otherwise), although false accusations can take place in any sort of offence (wehther sexual assault or otherwise). The reporting of the fact of your accusation may have embarrassing consequences (whether or not sexual assault is involved) but that is something that we generally accept as part of the price of a transparent legal system. Hence we name those who are prosecuted (and acquitted) for violent assault, theft, fraud etc. To me the question is straightforwardly whether there is any countervailing interest (for instance, in protecting the victim) for not naming the perpetrator.
In these two cases, naming the woman could lead to identification of the victim, whereas naming the man doesn't really. (I don't understand how the address would identify the victim since there's no reason to believe she lived there).
You've cited an earlier case where the man was named despite the possiblity that this would identify his victims. That certainly strikes me as unacceptable, but more because it jeopardised the victims rather than because it's evidence of a more general 'double standard'. There is routinely reporting of incest cases, for instance, where the male perpetrator is anonymised - which makes yoru example seem more like a one-off than anything else.
- Jolene (www.glass-castle.org)
Jolene wrote:
“In these two cases, naming the woman could lead to identification of the victim, whereas naming the man doesn't really. (I don't understand how the address would identify the victim since there's no reason to believe she lived there).”
Me: But I don’t understand your argument. How is it that naming the woman leads to the identification of the victim, but naming the man doesn’t?
If you think naming address hurts not, I too don’t understand how identifying the school the woman used to teach in will be able to lead to identifying the victim – the reason randomcharater used.
My point is consistency in arguments. At least randomcharacter admitted her argument is not consistent. You have yet to realise yours isn't either.
As randomcharacter said, naming the woman may make it easier to identify her students (and therefore the victim). This is not true of naming the place where the act took place since there may be no connection between that place and the victim.
I've already said I think it was wrong to name the chap in the other case you mentioned from some years ago, if the students could have been identified by those means as well.
The whole point of not naming the woman is to protect the boy, not to protect the perpetrator of the assault. There is no indication whatsoever that, were the roles reversed - the male perpetrator a schoolteacher who preyed on his students, the female perpetrator someone whose name resulted in no connection to the victims - the female perpetrator would be similarly anonymised. By contrast, there are many other cases (the incest cases I have mentioned) where male perpetrators are not named, so as to protect the victims.
In the generality of cases, we see rape defendants named, just like any other defendants, unless there is a countervailing consideration such as victim protection.
- Jolene (www.glass-castle.org)
If you want to convince people, your arguments must be consistent and logical.
It must be remembered that the male offender and the female “victim” KNEW each other and they CONSENTED having sex. By naming the address where the sex took place, can’t the female “victim” be identified?
It is not that that she was raped. It was a case she willingly had sex. So can’t the editors of the ST think that because of that, the place where she had sex was also familiar to her? A place she might frequent? Won’t neighbours see her on a frequent basis?
That being the case, publishing the address would give her identity away, isn’t it? Much, much more so than naming a school, where there are hundreds and hundreds of boy students, isn’t it?
You have not been consistent on that point.
As for the incest argument, most victims do not consent. Rape is usually involved. The sex offences cited by the ST are not rape, but sex with minors. Two very different scenarios.
A rape victim is usually very traumatized and will have to go through a period of social stigma. What stigma do adolescent teenagers go through, consenting to sex with people older than themselves? If at all, it would be a whale of a time for them.
You have not presented a logical argument, by likening a rape victim to an overly (s)excited young pubescent girl experimenting sex with an older man.
The crux of the matter is that the same offence was committed – sex with a minor, yet two different treatments were meted out by the media. Better to admit that ST has been gender biased, (as you have pointed out with Mr Ding), than trying to defend the indefensible.
Sex with a minor is rape. Minors cannot meaningfully consent to sex with an adult. This is the entire basis for criminalising sex with minors.
I do not agree with your analysis of why the address leaves a clue as to the identity of the victim. It might or it might not: your suggestions depend on a large number of contingencies, and I expect the court has considered the question and determined that, here, it does not.
BTW, it is not clear that the decision not to name a perpetrator is an editorial decision by the Straits Times. I believe in such cases, the requirement of anonymity is often imposed by the courts, on consideration of the interests of the victims.
Finally, please note that the argument here is in defence of the interests of a boy. Are you seriously arguing that that indicates bias against male persons?
- Jolene (www.glass-castle.org)
We all know that sex with minor is considered (statutory) rape. But that isn’t the point of argument, is it? The point of argument is the DIFFERENT TREATMENT towards male and female offenders for the SAME offence. The fact remains that in BOTH cases, whether it was a male or female offender, or whether it was a boy or girl victim, BOTH are considered stat rapes – yet, the different treatment when it comes to naming the offenders of the crimes.
How the life of me you consider giving a specific address does not give away the name of the girl victim (how many residents and visitors can an HDB flat hold?), yet buy the argument that naming the teacher (which does not even name the school) can give away the name of boy victim (can’t thousands fit into a school compared to only about a few family members and friends in an HDB flat?), is beyond me.
As I mentioned in earlier comments, your argument is not consistent.
You wrote:
“Finally, please note that the argument here is in defence of the interests of a boy. Are you seriously arguing that that indicates bias against male persons?”
Me: That is the hypocritical reverse sexist part I am referring to. The decision by the ST to name the male offender but not female offender is double standards, yet it goes to pretend to protect boy victims instead – which we all know is BS, looking at Mr Ding’s case.
I suggest you just admit that there was gender inequality in this case, and stop defending the indefensible.
Actually statutory rape has been removed from the statutes - now underaged sex is just an offence, but not called statutory rape. This is likely academic for all but legal scholars though.
And I agree with Jolene here. The woman was probably the boy's teacher. So knowing the woman's identity would give you some information about the boy's identity.
However, why should the place where the man had sex with the <14 year old girl help you identity who she was?!
For one the girl may not have lived in the HDB block they had sex in. Any 2 idiots can visit a HDB block and have sex in the staircase.
In fact, only huge idiots would have sex in their own block's staircase, since their relatives and/or neighbors are more likely to see them. Unless they get off on the fear of discovery, but we cannot assume that.
And even if they did have sex in the girl's home block (a big if), there're so many families living in a HDB block, and anyway it is easier to identity people by their schools than by the HDB blocks they live in.
On the other hand, tracing a student to a teacher is a lot easier, not least due to all the school gossip.
Agagooga,
Whether you agree with Jolene or not, is not the point. The point is that while the ST hypocritically says it wants to protect the young male victim because naming the adult female offender may give away identity of young male victim, it gave no hoot, when it splashed Mr Ding’s face for the world to see – and even name the school …….. A-C-S ……..to boot, without any consideration for the young male victims then.
Jolene’s answer to that is she said naming Ding was wrong. So? What she says count not. What counts is that ST published Ding’s face.
So how does Jolene’s argument demolish the fact that ST was gender bias, by naming male teacher offender, but let female teacher offender off the hook?
My main assertion here is that ST is gender bias. You may agree with Jolene. That too does not demolish my claim ST is gender bias and has been inconsistent.
I'm glad that you recognise that naming Mr Chong was not unwarranted.
And I think all of us agree that with regard to Mr Ding, the ST was wrong.
My point is that there is definitely gender bias on the part of ST. Whether we agree it was wrong to have Mr Ding’s published for the world to see, is just a side issue. Our agreement has no bearing on the point that the reason for ST not to publish name of woman offender was to protect young victim, is pure rubbish, because it has shown that it cares not for victims, when Mr Ding’s name was published.
As for naming of Mr Chong, I have been silent on that. It does not mean that I have bought Jolene’s argument. I was silent then, because I did not want to detract from my point that ST is gender bias, using Mr Ding as an example to support my claim.
Jolene said that it was normal for any criminal or suspect to be named. Fine. What she fails to realise is that using her same argument, all victims of crimes have been named too. Be it victim of fraud, theft, assault etc.
The reason why molest and rape victims are not named is because of the trauma and social stigma the victim goes through. The police are afraid that if victims are not protected, they would not come up to testify.
By the same reason, innocent suspects of alleged rape or molest will go through trauma too. What we have is unscrupulous (women) who have falsely alleged rape or molest, yet get off scot free even when proven that they have lied.
So exactly what is wrong with protecting identity of suspect until proven guilty? Will it hurt investigations? Would that make it difficult for prosecution to proceed with the case? Would that stop real rape or molest victims from coming up?
If all the above are no, why can’t we protect innocent men who have been falsely accused of rape?
I don’t buy Jolene’s argument, just like I never bought AWARE’s argument on the point that we should not be protecting name of rape or molest suspect until proven guilty.
Actually they name people who are charged in all cases, not just sex crimes, but yes in sex crimes even the allegation of impropriety is enough to damn a male.
All criminal defendants face difficult and embarrassing consequences from being named, and false allegations can be made in respect of any kind of crime. It's difficult to see that sexual assault is substantially different. Just being investigated for theft or financial impropriety for instance can have serious effects on your future employment prospects. Given that (1) it's almost impossible to have a public conversation about rape or sexual assault without hearing the ideas of "false accusations" or "the victim must take responsibility" being made a central feature, whereas the notion of lying or morally undeserving complainants is a less entrenched meme in other contexts; (2) the historically low comparative rates of reporting and conviction for sexual assault compared to other crimes; and (3) the continued existence of laws such as marital rape immunity which minimise and trivialise the reality of sexual assault, I'm inclined to doubt that complaints in sexual assault cases are given undue weight.
If you just look at this thread, for example, you will see people doubting the reality and gravity of the boy's victimisation (see the first comment by 'saltwetfish'). The notion that the protection of a victim is the central rationale of the anonymisation policy has only been grudgingly accepted by Solo Bear after 17 comments. I'm not seeing a great rush to credit complainants and look after their interests here.
- Jolene
Jolene,
My point to you is, how does concealing identity of suspect obstruct investigations?
>>
The notion that the protection of a victim is the central rationale of the anonymisation policy has only been grudgingly accepted by Solo Bear after 17 comments.
>>
You should stop fibbing yourself. I am for keeping identity confidential - BOTH for male and female victim AS WELL as for suspect.
It is YOU who are against keeping name of suspect confidential.
>>I'm not seeing a great rush to credit complainants and look after their interests here.
>>
You are naive. I can argue BECAUSE of the stigma being a suspect, they stay away from the topic. Howzat for a counter-argument?
You have yet to address this after 18 comments - how does concealing identity of suspect obstruct investigations?
Solo Bear,
Anonymising the defendant goes against the principle of a public and transparent legal system, which we recognise as justifiable in every other criminal case - and in all those other cases, I have already pointed out, false accusations are just as possible, and also have a damaging effect on innocent defendants. Do you support anonymising the defendant in all criminal cases, or are you just making a special exception here? If the second, the burden of proof is on you: why is sexual assault so special? Especially when you consider how widespread beliefs are in the unreliability and doubtful human status of many sexual assault complainants (Glass Castle has covered example after example of this showing up in media reporting and the approach of authorities).
I think I've made my points clear, and I will bow out of the discussion here.
- Jolene
>>Anonymising the defendant goes against the principle of a public and transparent legal system, which we recognise as justifiable in every other criminal case - and in all those other cases,
>>
Publishing names of criminals AND suspects have ALWAYS been the de facto mode of the press. It has NOTHING to do with a transparent legal system. You are trying to justify a mode taken by the press, which is more interested in increasing readership for the sake of profit, with a legal system which does not even care two hoots if those names are published or not.
You are just bringing up points you can think of along the way, aren’t you?
>>Do you support anonymising the defendant in all criminal cases, or are you just making a special exception here?
>>
I am for consistency. If the reason for keeping name of victim is because of the stigma of rape, then surely that justifies why suspect too should not be named – until proven guilty – because suspect (if innocent) does not deserve to go through that stigma, which is so different from other crimes.
>>
why is sexual assault so special? Especially when you consider how widespread beliefs are in the unreliability and doubtful human status of many sexual assault complainants
>>
Let’s talk Singapore context – because that is what this thread is about. You have still not answered this - How does keeping name of suspect of rape/molest confidential make it difficult for investigation?
>>(Glass Castle has covered example after example of this showing up in media reporting and the approach of authorities).
>>
Show me the link.
>>I think I've made my points clear, and I will bow out of the discussion here.
>>
I have always maintained an open space for free speech. Note that I don’t moderate comments. Anyone is free to come or leave.
Solo bear
Forget it. Some people take to dogma and irrationality rather than hard facts and logic.
The massive logical fallacy is already evident from the disparity between the two reports as mentioned. One intentionally omitted the name of the [female] offender, citing the protection of victim's identity as the reason. Another flashed the offender's [male] name for all to see. There are no reasons at all to justify this difference in practice. This is gender bias.
Whether aggressor's name should be published at all is another issue altogether. Personally, I agree with bear that withholding perpetrator's name until the final verdict is delivered is the wiser thing to do. Our legal system emphasizes presumption of innocence, therefore the state prosecutors have to prove the accused's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Until an outcome is reached, name should be withheld because reputational damages are irreversible.
On a side note,
You shouldnt get overly upset over Jolene's post. The Internet is a highly unregulated place whereby anyone of any calibre and background can post their comments freely. So once in a while an ignorant and uneducated person would post in here. Just take it lightly. Because slowly you will realise, ignorant people remain ignorant, no matter how bright the light of logic is. No amount of persuasion is going to change the views of one so deeply rooted in irrationality and stupidity.
Irony is dead.
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