The Case for a Rational Reconstruction of Consent in Criminal Law

This article argues for consistency in criminal law and the need for 'rational reconstruction' of the law where necessary to achieve this. It focuses Parliament's failure to respect the need for consistency by passing a statutory definition of consent in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which appears to apply only to sexual offences. As a result, the law on consent risks being a patchwork of statute and ad hoc case law, without any overarching principle to deal with new situations and different offences. The consequent lack of certainty, accessibility, predictability and fairness is compared to the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights. The statutory definition of consent in the context of the sexual offences is assessed critically as a model which could be used in offences against the person and property offences. The article concludes that until Parliament responds to the need for certainty and consistency by legislating on consent, there can be no rational reconstruction of consent under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.     

Discipline, Punishment And The Homosexual In Law

This article examines the creation and legacy of the 1957 Wolfenden Report, arguing that current trends to simplistically address the Report, along with a long standing academic focus on Foucault and the nineteenth century, have disregarded the productive and revolutionary nature of its recommendations enacted in the Sexual Offences Act 1967. Contrary to the common emphasis placed on Victorian medical discourse, and the 1895 trials of Oscar Wilde, it was the Wolfenden Report and the twentieth century that created the homosexual identity in law – an identity created not with a view to freedom, as is regularly assumed, but with the objective of the control of recalcitrant bodies in the forms of men's homosexual sex, and women's prostitution. Dr.Kate Gleeson is Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Thanks to Helen Pringle for the heads-up on Discipline and Punish. And thanks to Aleardo Zanghellini for helping me to clarify this argument.     

美国女性主义法学及其启示

女性主义法学以其独特的方法论剖析法律问题,提出女性问题方法、女性主义实际推论方法、提高觉悟方法以及用社会性别视角观察历史、文化、社会现象,从而展现出与以往法学理论研究的不同进路。女性主义法学是一种对女性及性别进行全方位认识的法学流派。其"硬核"已经并非单纯要求女性在婚姻、家庭、劳动就业和社会福利保障等方面享有与男性同样的权利,它更要求在分配和界定上述权利的过程中,乃至在以法律为核心的整个现代法治结构中加入女性的视角和女性的生存体验与思维方式,要求立法中的社会性别意识,从而使两性关系、婚姻、家庭乃至社会健康协调地发展。     

The civilised Self and the barbaric Other: ex-rebels making sense of sexual violence in the DR Congo

This article addresses discourses on gender and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on discussions with 101 ex-combatants, we examine how former FDLR members make sense of sexual violence by studying prevailing gendered images of Self and Other. This analysis of potential perpetrators' mindset is part of the puzzle to find preventive measures. The findings demonstrate that ex-combatants attribute overwhelming power to biological ‘givens’ such as ‘urges’, ‘basic needs’ and ‘domination’ in their interpretation of sexuality. They also differentiate themselves from out-groups - enemy fighters and other nationals, especially Congolese - by attributing the latter with lower degrees of restraint. These insights demonstrate that a process of Othering is at work at the intersection of sex-gender-nation within the Congolese warscape, which complicates existing knowledge of sexual violence. The findings also suggest that the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of sexual violence in war needs to place the notion of intersectionality central stage.     

Rethinking ‘Rape as a Weapon of War’

One of the most significant shifts in current thinking on war and gender is the recognition that rape in wartime is not a simple by-product of war, but often a planned and targeted policy. For many feminists ‘rape as a weapon of war’ provides a way to articulate the systematic, pervasive, and orchestrated nature of wartime sexual violence that marks it as integral rather than incidental to war. This recognition of rape as a weapon of war has taken on legal significance at the Rwandan and Yugoslav Tribunals where rape has been prosecuted as a crime against humanity and genocide. In this paper, I examine how the Rwanda Tribunal’s record of judgments conceives of rape enacted as an instrument of the genocide. I consider in particular how the Tribunal’s conception of ‘rape as a weapon of war’ shapes what can be known about sexual violence and gender in the Rwandan genocide and what cannot, the categories of victims legally recognised and those that are not, and the questions pursued, and those foreclosed, about the patterns of violence before and during the genocide.

“I made myself small like a cat and ran away”: workplace sexual harassment,precarious immigration status and legal violence

This article examines the intersection between workplace sexual harassment, immigration status, and insecure employment status (‘precarious work’). Although a rich body of literature explores how gender impacts all three fields independently, less is known about how they interact. Drawing on narratives from migrant women with precarious immigration status in Toronto, Canada, I propose that experiences of sexual harassment illuminate the workings of migrant illegalization through ‘legal violence’. Furthermore, findings demonstrate that precarious status migrant women do not experience sexual harassment in isolation; other axes of oppression interlock to exacerbate it. Despite this, precarious status migrant women negotiate their experiences, sometimes enduring sexual harassment; referred to here as aguantar, and sometimes resisting it explicitly.     

Sexual Debut Timing and Depressive Symptoms in Emerging Adulthood

The association between sexual debut timing and depressive symptomatology in adolescence and emerging adulthood was examined using data from Waves I, II and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Respondents who reported never having sexual intercourse at Wave I and were 18–22 years of age at Wave III were included (n = 5,061). Twenty percent of respondents experienced early (<age 16) and 49% experienced typical (ages 16–18) sexual debut. In bivariate analyses, pre-debut depressive symptoms were associated with earlier sexual debut among female but not male adolescents. In models adjusting for demographic characteristics and pre-debut depressive symptoms, sexual debut was positively related to adolescent (Wave II) depressive symptomatology, but only among female adolescents age less than sixteen. However, sexual debut timing was unassociated with emerging adult (Wave III) depressive symptomatology for both male and female respondents. Findings suggest sexual debut timing does not have implications for depressive symptomatology beyond adolescence.

同性性犯罪的有关问题

在我国,由于社会传统文化的影响和法律制度的不健全,同性性犯罪中受害者的权利得不到有效保障。因此,有必要借鉴国外立法经验,加大对同性性犯罪的法律控制,加强对同性恋群体权利的研究和保护。