Earlier this week, a judge in Canada made a controversial ruling in a rape case.
After 40-year-old Kenneth Rhodes was found guilty of raping a 26-year-old woman, Judge Robert Dewar gave him a two-year conditional sentence that he will serve at his home.
This would already be considered a very lenient sentence for a rape case, but Dewar's ruling was made even more problematic by the remarks he made at the sentencing.
When giving the sentence, Dewar stated that "sex was in the air" when the victim was raped and that she "wanted to party." In the aftermath of this, many have stated their outrage at Dewar for his statements, calling it a particularly egregious example of victim blaming.
The Spectrum firmly agrees with this sentiment. Dewar's statements were appalling for many reasons. The most obvious one is that he is implying that it was the victim's fault.
This is never the case with rapes. No matter what situation leads to someone being raped, the fault should never lie with anyone other than the rapist.
Secondly, rulings like this create a culture in which women are afraid to come forward when they are raped. Many women are fearful of going to the police after they are raped because they believe they will be accused of lying or "asking for it." Rulings like this will only allow that problem to proliferate.
Admittedly, most people do not think the way this judge does. While victim blaming does tend to occur both in the United States and Canada, few would be so callous as to make a statement as blatantly thoughtless as Dewar's. His thoughts are hardly indicative of the majority opinion on this subject.
Still, it would be naïve to think a culture of victim blaming doesn't exist to a certain degree. When a woman makes an accusation of rape, the first questions tend to be whether or not she was drunk, and whether or not she initially said yes, and changed her mind.
Neither of those issues should matter. Rape is still rape, regardless of the victim's alcohol intake, and "no" still means no, even if it was preceded by a yes.
Even if Dewar's views on the subject represent the extreme, there are people with misogynist beliefs who act as apologists for rapists, and are quick to believe women are to blame for the crimes they are victims of.
What makes Dewar's ruling so troubling is that as a judge, he grants legitimacy to these beliefs. People who believe rape is less of a problem based on what the woman was wearing, or what kind of party she was at, will now have their beliefs validated.
