HAD IT COMING

An accessible investigation of sexual assault.

The #MeToo movement, writes Canadian journalist Doolittle, has raised “tough questions” about sexual assault: “When does an action cross the line? What should happen to those who have committed harm? What exactly should the courts be doing differently? How do you reconcile a victim’s right to call out the abuser with an accused person’s right to self-defence and a fair hearing?” Drawing on interviews with more than 100 experts (including legal scholars, trauma specialists, attorneys, nurses, and police officers) and deep investigations of 54 cases, Doolittle offers a cleareyed, thorough examination of the handling of sexual assault cases by police and the courts in Canada and the U.S. She discovered that a majority of sexual assault allegations were deemed “unfounded”—a police term that means the detective thinks the accusation is either false or baseless. Complainants were often given lectures about drinking too much, accused of being promiscuous, or dismissed as lying. “The threat of the lying woman looms large in our culture,” writes the author, and many detectives, lawyers, and judges are not familiar with the “neurobiology of trauma,” which may manifest itself as gaps and inconsistencies in a complainant’s narrative. Moreover, complainants are often intimidated by assumptions arising from what she calls “rape culture”: “judging women for wearing revealing clothing and measuring masculinity in terms of sexual conquest.” Even in cases that made it to court, “not-so-subtle sexism” was likely to lead to acquittals of the accused. Doolittle reveals myriad social, cultural, and psychological complexities surrounding sexual assault: for example, about the definition of consent and the line between an ethical violation and a legal one when it comes to consent. The author respectfully considers backlash against #MeToo, even from feminists, accusing the movement of casting women “as helpless victims with no agency, incapable of standing up for themselves.”

A balanced consideration of a timely issue.