T. R. Mugler

Precedent doesn't always pave a clear path forward. Obstacles remain for women when it comes to applying the law in cases involving men and their perceived rights.

 

Whether at times of war, in a secluded dark alley, or the matrimonial home, the consequence for assaulting a woman is little to none. But the moment these victims fought back they became criminals in the eyes of the law.

Violence against women is as prevalent today as its always been. Sure, our leaders like to tout the unacceptable 'idea' of domestic violence, rape, and sex trafficking, but do little to nothing in preventing or stopping it. After all, the 'boys will be boys' mentality still persists.

 

When Judge Archie Simonson of Dade County Wisconsin voiced what all the men in the room were thinking, in 1977, he faced a recall election[1]. When he stated that a 15-year-old rapist was merely reacting normally[2] to sexual permissiveness of teenage girls, they drug him through the streets of a sensationalized media like the collateral damage he was, not because women were horrified by his remarks, but because his opinion cracked the tinted glass men have been hiding behind since Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem pulled the curtain down.

 

We need only look to the sensationalized story of Cyntoia Brown to see this mindset still playing out today. At 14 years of age, she killed a 34-year-old real estate broker, after he solicited her for sex. Claiming she felt threatened, and was convinced he was going for his gun, she reached for hers.[3] Tried as an adult, the prosecution argued that she shot him for the mere purpose of robbing him, she was a prostitute after all. Which is interesting, given the age of consent is 17–18 (depending on the state). We must have repercussions when a girl kills a man, regardless of what wrong he is doing, lest we knock the tower of patriarchy askew.

 

In 2019 Nikki Addimando was convicted of 2nd degree murder of her domestic partner, she claimed physically and sexually abused her for years. While photographs depicting deep bruises to her chest and face were present at trial along with pictures of rope-burns, the prosecution insisted they were self-inflicted. The prosecuting attorney, in full Schlafly style, not only insisted that if this abuse occurred, Nikki wanted it, or she would have left, she was also successful in suppressing video evidence of her boyfriend sexually assaulting her, that he posted to pornographic websites without her consent.

 

Although the presiding judge agreed Addimando was the victim of abuse, he decided it wasn't perpetuated by the man she killed. Proclaiming his belief that she consented to horrific incidents, such as having her genitals burned, and being sodomized with her partners gun, he sentenced her to 19 years to life, following a 2019 conviction of 2nd degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.[4] In 2021, her sentence was reduced under the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, to just over seven years.[5]

 

Fifteen-year-old Piper Lewis was charged with first degree murder when she stabbed her rapist to death in 2020. Acting in self-defense after a man forced her at knife point to go with him to his apartment, where he raped her repeatedly. When he eventually fell asleep, Piper grabbed the knife from the bedside table and stabbed him over 30 times.

 

While the prosecution did in fact believe she was sexually assaulted, they felt a sleeping man was not an immediate threat and she should have just got up and left. The juxtaposition of the law itself leaves justice lying somewhere between an illusion and a right, dependent on your race, your belief system, and most certainly on your gender.

 

The prosecution had the audacity to complain when Piper called herself a victim, proclaiming it an example of her not taking responsibility for stabbing a man to death and leaving his children without a father.[6] Wait…what?!

 

Piper Lewis eventually pled to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury. She was sentenced to 5 years of supervised probation, along with a mandatory restitution to the 'victims' family of $150k![7] Surviving rape always comes with a price.

 

Just another case of an assaulted woman becoming a criminal, the moment she fought back. Cases such as these are far more commonplace than anyone wants to believe. A simple internet search quickly renders dozens of similar cases across the nation.

 

 

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346835

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/26/archives/judge-who-suggested-boy-in-rape-reacted-normally-draws-more-ire.html

[3] https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749025458/cyntoia-brown-released-after-15-years-in-prison-for-murder

[4] https://westandwithnikki.com/case

[5] https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2021/07/14/murderer-nicole-addimando-sentence-reduced-domestic-violence-act/7967311002/

[6] https://www.npr.org/2022/09/14/1122904939/iowa-teenager-pieper-lewis-killed-accused-rapist-ordered-pay-150000

[7] https://www.npr.org/2022/09/14/1122904939/iowa-teenager-pieper-lewis-killed-accused-rapist-ordered-pay-150000

The more women demand equality the least safe we become. The 1967 bullhorn over the segregation of 'want ads' in the New York Times quickly morphed into a rallying cry for autonomy on the steps of the United States Supreme Court. By 1973, Roe v Wade was handed down and the E.R.A (Equal Right Amendment) passed legislation. In the midst of the battle everyone went home. Confident they had won, the volume came down and women's liberation became a distant reverberation of a housewife's fever dream.

 

Women believed they had finally conquered man. Yet the journey for states to ratify the E.R.A hit an unexpected wall, built by a woman, Phyllis Schlafly. Phyllis may not have filled the classroom history books like Steinem and Friedan, but she certainly had a lasting impact on women's rights. A loud whisper in a room held by men, she continued to voice her rhetoric and distaste for the ideal of equality between men and women.

 

At the National Women's Conference in Houston Texas, November of 1977, Phyllis was asked about federal dollars being used to establish shelters for battered women, her response spoke volumes. Insisting that giving a wife who has been beaten a vacation at the taxpayers' expense isn't going to solve her problem.[1] Though a self-proclaimed Catholic Conservative she insisted the woman only needed a divorce lawyer.

 

Her anti-feminist campaign not only stalled the Equal Rights Amendment but had long reaching effects on social policy and conservative politics until her death. She vehemently opposed The Domestic Violence Against Women Act, insisting it promotes the breakup of marriages, divorce, and hatred of men.[2]

 

From physical abuse to violent rape, Domestic Violence is real. It's a very real nightmare that millions of women live in every day. What do you do when your rapist isn't a stranger, but the man lying in your bed every night, the one you swore to love in sickness and health. The man whom you can't wake from. When your husband is your attacker, who can a woman turn to?

 

Phyllis Schlafly once insisted "by getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape."[3] Schlafly wasn't alone. Spousal rape exemption clauses can be traced back to the 17th century jurist Matthew Hale, in which he proclaimed a man cannot commit rape upon his lawful wife, as the marital contract itself established consent. This common interpretation affected women's lives for centuries. In thirty-eight states the exemption would include unmarried men, who cohabitated with a woman.[1]

 

The first state to repeal such an exclusion was Nebraska in 1976.[2] Many states followed in some form, but it would take until 1993 before Oklahoma and North Carolina joined the ranks. Repealing spousal exemptions weren't all they promised to be, as many went a step further in creating a difference between rape and spousal rape. Allowing the punishment for spousal rape to be less harsh, not much changed for women.[3] As recent as 2002, only 24 states had completely abolished marital rape exemptions.

 

Assault against women has many forms, and sexual is only one. The beating of one's wife was often viewed as a private domestic issue. Going back only 60 years, states like New York referred domestic violence cases from criminal court to family court, where only civil procedures could apply.

 

Yet four years later, a change to New York Domestic Relation Law included physical abuse. A beating, as a form of cruel and inhumane punishment by a spouse, finally became valid grounds for a divorce. However, the 1966 ruling required the plaintiff to establish a sufficient number of beatings had taken place. What was considered 'sufficient' remained evasive when the Court of Appeals held that two beatings did not constitute enough reason for divorce. The court would also question the validity of such a claim, if the woman continued to cohabitate following an act of cruelty.[4] Any woman that stayed, clearly enjoyed a beating or was making it all up for attention. A woman with limited resources, would be required to flee her home and in many cases for a predetermined amount of time, before a judge would grant her a divorce on such claims.

 

Getting a divorce is only one barrier for a woman seeking safety. When Francine Hughes divorced her abusive husband in 1971, he refused to leave and continued to reside with her and their children. In March of 1977, after yet another physical altercation, she poured gasoline near the bed he was passed out in and lit it. Charged with murder, the court set a groundbreaking precedent when she was acquitted on grounds of 'temporary insanity'.[5]

 

As though in her last breath, Phyllis Schlafly's final book The Conservative Case for Trump, released in 2016 the day after her passing, she attempts to sway the minds of the masses once again by proclaiming more government interference in things she found repulsive, would equal less restrictions and a more comfortable life for conservative Christians like herself.

 

In 2023, we can be certain the Phyllis' of the world are still here, still fighting and still rebelling against the majority, in the hopes of a minority rule. In the wake of the Dobbs[4] decision, we must not falter in our step nor retreat in a perceived defeat. We must rise, as never before, and lift those behind us as we climb. Our daughters are watching.

[1] https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1248&context=ggulrev

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sop.2009.52.4.505#:~:text=Despite%20this%20resistance%2C%20in%201976,eliminating%20their%20spousal%20rape%20exemptions.

[3] https://msmagazine.com/2021/10/13/can-your-husband-rape-you-california-law-spousal-rape-exemption/

[4] https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1207&context=jcred

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/francine-hughes-wilson-whose-burning-bed-became-a-tv-film-dies-at-69/2017/03/31/a1799db8-161c-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html

[1] https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1999/07/29/delicious-irony-the-now-cookbook/

[2] https://www.berkshireeagle.com/archives/only-the-favored-get-equal-rights/article_eb479b03-5fbe-5f5e-b688-4d63c29e50fa.html

[3] https://www.biography.com/activists/phyllis-schlafly

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization#:~:text=The%20majority%20held%20that%20abortion,to%20regulate%20access%20to%20abortion.

Part Three: The Gender of Justice

The ultimate crime against a woman, rape, wasn't always viewed as a crime at all. From an acceptable tactic in war to the bedrooms of marital bliss, rape has always been about control. Control over women, in an effort to control men and prove ones virility.

 

Raping the women of ones adversary was once considered a conquerors right, "…[to] destroy all remaining illusions of power and property for men of the defeated side." Unfortunately, by its reputation alone, rape is the easiest accusation to make, and the hardest to prove.[1] The truth is much darker, as studies estimate one in six women will be forcibly raped in her lifetime, less than 40% will be reported to law enforcement.[2]

 

The burden of proof is a steep climb for any victim. Prior to 1974, many states, including New York, required a corroborating witness for all cases of rape before the law would consider a claim, after all no woman can be a reliable witness to her own assault.

 

If she had such evidence, her claim would then be subjected to several objective criteria. First up is the 'consent' factor. Did you fight them off to the 'utmost' of your ability? Did you scream for help? Did you verbally refuse?

 

Compliance for any reason, including fear, was viewed as consent. If you weren't struggling with maximum of might, screaming your head off the entire time for them to stop, you consented. Without these, how was a man to know you didn't want it?

 

It was and is a wide belief that women lie about lack of consent for several beneficial reasons; because they desire forceful intercourse, they are seeking vengeance, as a means of blackmail or they simply imagined the rape happened. Women cannot be trusted.

 

In 1974, thirty minutes after Inez Garcia of Monterey California, was raped, the two men responsible threatened her, promising worse if she didn't leave town. She didn't wait, she went after them with a rifle. Killing the man that forcibly held her down, her bullet missed the man who raped her. The judge refused to allow evidence of the rape to be presented at trial and she was convicted of murder in October of 1974. During a retrial in 1977, her attorney argued self-defense and was allowed to present Garcia's account of the rape. She was finally acquitted.

 

In the same year, Joan Little was charged with murdering her jailer after he raped her. Pleading self-defense against sexual assault, she was charged with first degree murder, although the victim was found naked from the waist down inside her jail cell, with semen on his leg. She stabbed him in the temple and chest with an ice pick, he had brought into the cell. Her acquittal in 1975 was the first of its kind in cases of rape.

 

While the #metoo movement may have turned on a light, millions of women still suffer alone in the dark, every day. At the hands of men, women continue to be blamed for the actions of their oppressors. Until women are equal citizens under the law, they will continue to be treated as a footnote in our collective history.

 

 

[1] Brownmiller, Susan. Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Simon and Schuster, 1975

[2] https://www.wvnstv.com/news/rape-is-one-of-the-most-underreported-crimes-heres-why/#:~:text=Despite%20the%20fact%20that%20studies,are%20reported%20to%20law%20enforcement.

 

Part Two:

 

If women could not be kept under man's control, then they must be punished more extensively than a man. The 1913 Muncy Act of Pennsylvania dictated a mandatory and exclusive sentencing provision for women convicted of a crime, to be imprisoned for more time than a man convicted of the same crime. Most women received indeterminate sentencing under this rule, that led to the long-term incarceration of women.

 

The constitutionality of the Muncy Act wasn't called into question until 1966 when Jane Daniels was charged with burglary, aggravated robbery, carrying a concealed deadly weapon and possession of a firearm. She was convicted and Judge Stern sentenced her to 1–4 years in prison on May 3, 1966. However, on June 3, he vacated his own sentence and resentenced her under the Muncy Act to an indefinite term of imprisonment.

 

She appealed, claiming a violation of the 14th Amendment, under the equal protection clause. The Muncy Act definitively provided a distinction between males and females when it came to sentencing, but the appellate court did not agree, and her appeal was denied.

[1]

 

Ironically The Muncy Act was repealed in1968, due to its violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.[2]

As we recognize the benefits, historical significance, and impact of women in our communities, across our nation and in the world at large, may we also remember the long, often winding, and difficult road it has been and continues to be, toward freedom.

 

[1] https://casetext.com/case/com-v-daniels-59

[2] https://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/supreme-court/1968/430-pa-642-0.html

Outside any courthouse you can find a blindfolded lady constructed in concrete, proudly holding the scales of righteousness, the sword of swiftness all while proclaiming justice is blind. A courtroom, the final stop on the road to the truth, promises equal treatment under the law.

 

It fails to mention this is reserved for men only, more specifically straight white men. The very law of the land, written by and for men, to protect men. The subjugation of women isn't merely a side effect, it's the whole damn point.

 

Monotonous statutes penned over centuries to ensure man's control. From the Comstock Act of 1873, to forced procreation, the law has a long history of infringing upon women. With over 120 laws introduced across the nation this year alone attacking the LGBTQ community, it's not surprising that many are aimed at stripping the right of Trans people to simply exist.[1] After all, we mustn't allow the indoctrination of our children to include the acceptance, and love of those deemed immoral by those in charge.

 

The more one investigates the decades of the women's liberation movement, the more you will find yourself face to face with the present. Like seriously, is there a cosmic mirror we are unaware of?

 

In this multi-part series, we peel back the layers of a deep truth long suppressed from the history books. Stories of women that are often twisted and reshaped to fit the narrative of those in charge for no other reason than for them to remain in power.

 

Let's get started, after all there is a lot to unpack and only a month to talk about it. We wouldn't want the celebration of women to outshine the perpetual legacy of old white men ruling over them. Speaking of men ruling over women…

 

Part One:

 

In 1873, Anthony Comstock celebrated congress passing the 'Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use'. While the statute didn't offer a definition of 'obscene', it sought to suppress the dissemination of, and possession of, information and/or instruments it deemed 'immoral', 'obscene', and 'indecent'. From pamphlets, books, pictures and drawings, the moral compass of the country was headed to hell and mankind was at stake.

 

Of course, no law would be complete if a woman wasn't specifically subject to his wrath, thus the inclusion of anything pertaining to contraception and abortion, even if written by a physician, was quickly added as a misdemeanor offense. Congress agreed women could not be trusted with such knowledge and designated Comstock himself as a special agent, giving him the power to arrest anyone he deemed in violation of the act.[2]

 

Resolved to prevent what he determined a crime and the inevitable corruption of children, Comstock set out to reset the moral compass of America. Setting his sights on Ezra Heywood, he would make an example of this threatening feminist, who studied women's role in society. When Heywood published Cupids Yokes, in which he asserted women should have the right to control their own bodies, Comstock swooped in and arrested him for making obscene observations. He even went so far as to arrest another man for mailing him a copy of this vile compilation.

 

Comstock more vehemently sought to enforce another aspect of the act, which included birth control and began arresting physicians for supplying written materials explaining pregnancy and how to prevent it. How dare women control the size of their families, even if they are poor- it wasn't their place and Comstock was making it his.

 

President Theodore Roosevelt tended to agree, when he penned a venomous letter in 1906 to a reverend in Nebraska for merely suggesting one purposely limit their family size. Roosevelt compared its immorality to that of prostitution and theft, proclaiming anyone disagreeing with him lacked intelligence and character. Accusing the reverend of blasphemy that would lead to the total destruction of the human race, Roosevelt made clear his position on women and their right to autonomy. He wasn't alone then, nor now.[3]

 

The United States and its Supreme Court continues to obliterate the perceived rights of women, reminding us at every turn, we were never part of the founding father's intention. When women are not full citizens of a country built on the ideal of freedom, it says more about what actual democracy is, not what its suppose to be.

 

The white man's discovery of a faraway land, to the creation of an idyllic world has never been about equality. The road from 1619 to 2023 is a long and winding one, and honestly no one could cover it all in a mere thirty days. We invite you to peek behind the wall of containment and perhaps break a few bricks with us. Join us as we shine a light in a few dark corners hidden in the halls of congress, illuminating the elusiveness of actual justice.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/over-120-bills-restricting-lgbtq-rights-introduced-nationwide-2023-so-far
[2] https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1038/comstock-act-of-1873#:~:text=The%20Comstock%20Act%20of%201873,picture%2C%20drawing%2C%20or%20advertisement.

 
[3] https://www.sethkaller.com/item/1965-21123.99-President-Theodore-Roosevelt-Condemns-Abortion,-Birth-Control,-and-Family-Planning&from=12#:~:text=In%20an%20article%20published%20five,1911%2C%20763%2D69).