Instances involving gamers spanning many years have come to mild. Worse, victims are shamed and accountability is lacking.
In July, former Vancouver Canucks ice hockey participant Jake Virtanen was tried on a cost of sexual assault. The trial in Vancouver ended with the jury delivering a not responsible verdict. Although the jury didn’t present causes for his or her verdict, we do know that the defence lawyer representing Virtanen offered a litany of sexist stereotypes about ladies who report rape, their motivations for doing so and the way they behave throughout and after sexual assault.
The complainant made clear and highly effective statements. “I believed saying no, I don’t wish to do that and bodily pushing him off of me was sufficient,” she mentioned. “What else did I’ve to say?”
Nonetheless, within the cross-examination, she was pressed repeatedly to clarify her actions: Why did she go to his lodge room within the first place and why didn’t she depart after the rape? If she actually hadn’t wished the intercourse; why didn’t she fabricate an excuse corresponding to having a yeast an infection or that she was menstruating, she was requested. Though the defence lawyer subsequently apologised for the latter line of questioning, the jury was uncovered to strategies that girls are answerable for anticipating and stopping rape.
Feminists have labored steadily for many years to shift the general public’s understanding of the rape myths used to discredit ladies in varied spheres. Whereas there’s now widespread consensus on the need to finish rape tradition and its systemic roots, this recognition has but to bear fruit in terms of holding males accountable by the felony justice system.
The ladies who name us in resistance to the violence they’ve skilled and resolve to report back to police, accomplish that understanding that the percentages are stacked in opposition to them. They maintain onto a sliver of hope that the justice system will eventually defend ladies.
The Virtanen case befell in opposition to the backdrop of an unfolding scandal involving Hockey Canada, the game’s governing physique within the nation, and experiences that Canadian male hockey gamers at an elite degree had been alleged to have perpetrated two acts of gang rape.
Earlier this 12 months, a lady alleged that she was sexually assaulted by eight intoxicated gamers, together with members of the nationwide junior crew after a London occasion organised by Hockey Canada in June 2018. She filed an announcement of declare searching for $3.55m in damages from Hockey Canada, which then settled the lawsuit out of courtroom for an undisclosed quantity in Might 2022. This monetary settlement put Hockey Canada beneath intense scrutiny from the federal government, company sponsors and the general public.
Then, on July 22, particulars had been revealed of an assault that befell in 2003 in Halifax through the World Juniors event involving Canadian gamers. The assault was filmed. In line with information experiences, a participant spoke to the digital camera and informed the viewers they had been about to see “a f***ing lamb roast.” The video reveals a number of male gamers taking turns raping a non-responsive girl laying face up on a pool desk.
These brutal assaults illustrate absolutely the disregard for ladies’s humanity inherent in sexual violence. With instances spanning many years, it has turn out to be clear that the present buildings governing males’s hockey in Canada each protected perpetrators from significant accountability and did not curb additional sexual violence from occurring. Rightfully, calls for for management change have emerged, ensuing within the board chair resigning on August 6.
In fact, this ambiance of males’s sexual entitlement to ladies’s our bodies isn’t restricted to hockey – or certainly to sports activities. It’s, in reality, reflective of what we hear on our disaster line each day. Whereas a fact-finding mission and investigation into Hockey Canada continues on, we all know that till there are tangible penalties for individuals who commit and allow rape, it’s ladies who are suffering the inaction.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.