Monday, February 21, 2011

"Silvio Berlusconi trial to be presided over three women judges"

Or, you know, just three judges.

Which is also how the headline about Italy PM Silvio Berlusconi's trial for abuse of office and paying for an underage prostitute could have read.

I guess we are to infer something about the gender of the judges, something we are rarely, if ever, urged to infer when men preside over the trials of sex crimes.

Indeed, if Berlusconi's judges were men, it would go unmentioned.

Does this headline express rape culture's biggest anxiety- for women to use the power of the state to hold men accountable for the abuse of sexual entitlement to the degree that men have historically used it to perpetuate rape culture?

No comments: