I’ve watched and listened to the words expressed about what went (goes?) on between female interns and lawyers, especially it seems (but I’m sure not only) at Russell, McVeigh whose spokesperson says the sex was consensual. And the only thing that surprises me is that people are surprised. These lawyers have power over the interns. There can be no situation where both are unaware of that. As well as the imbalance of power the interns were drunk on booze supplied by the lawyers. And the lawyers are telling me the sex was consensual?
Look how lawyers, especially male ones, deal with rape cases that get to courts. These are the cases where the woman has already endured police questioning, already been asked how long her skirts were, why was she out at the hour, how much had she had to drink, were any drugs taken, that the accused has said the sex was consensual, what has she to say to that? Whatever your age these are the questions you get asked.
I suppose its some sign of progress that now when young women go to the police station and say they’ve been raped they’re not strip searched. In the 1980s before the Homosexual Law Reform (and sometimes after) If a lesbian woman (just walking along the street) was picked up by the police simply because she looked different (you thought profiling was a new thing?). She was automatically taken back to the station and strip searched. And of course they had to call in a few of their mate cops to watch when they ordered her to ‘bend over’. Strip searching wasn’t to find out if she was carrying drugs although that was the excuse the police trotted out. Strip searching was used as a way to demean and reduce the woman, show her who was boss. Show her she was never safe. She had no rights. Show her that the very people allegedly there to protect her were among her worst nightmares. This happened with prostitutes too, in fact anyone the police took a scunner against.
Why didn’t these people go to a lawyer? You’re joking, right? The cops and the lawyers drank at the same clubs or pubs. They were members of the same gang, just different patches, that’s all.
You think I should realise that things have changed in the last nearly forty years? Well, the wrapping might have changed, darlings, but the actual box of tricks inside has not. The brains are still set on the same old tracks. Only now they’re saying it was consensual.
Attitudes, ‘unconscious’ bias, racial profiling, are phrases/terms trotted out, always implying the actions are not intentional but interns come along every year. Lawyers know there’s going to be a new crop every year. A lot of law firms are like little fiefdoms. You walk inside and you’re there on their terms and you’re a subject to their inhouse expectations, unspoken rules, illegal actions.
Where does the buck stop? If the very people who are charged with bringing justice to the people they deal with are engaged in unjust and illegal practices, where is the justice?
If these lawyers (maybe married or in a partnership, maybe have children, almost certainly earn good money), enjoy these parties where its ‘normal’ to drink too much, ‘normal’ to expect young women to agree to have sex on the board room table, know they can get away with it because if any of the young women complain these particular representatives of justice will simply say the sex was ‘consexual’, then where’s the justice?
If these particular lawyers have these sort of attitudes, how can any woman expect justice from them in the courts anyway?
There are a lot more female lawyers now but the only one (so far) that I’ve read, who is a straight-talker on the subject is Linda Clark (see her great article in the Spinoff). The others I’ve heard have talked largely about what should happen, or that ‘we must look after our young people’. Fine-sounding phrases.
Questions. Is sex consensual if the young woman is too drunk to know what she’s agreeing to? Is sex consensual if there’s a power imbalance? If its made clear she better came across or her future in the legal profession is over?
We have had wake up calls from Me Too, following on from the Hervey Weinstein mess. If those lawyers from Russell McVeigh (and other firms, there will be others) have determinedly slept their way through all the calls for change over the last fifty years and all the other years before, isn’t it time we demanded (again) that they wake up? Or at least learn what consensual means?
Listen chaps, it simply couldn’t be clearer. If she doesn’t want a cup of tea, or is too drunk to know what tea is, then don’t force her to drink it.
And if that metaphor doesn’t work for you, how about this for the office noticeboard?
If you fuck a drunk woman and say it was consensual, you’ll lose your job and the reason for that will be made public.
Dream on Renée
