COMMENT: When THIS message permeates the judicial system

A lawyer acting for Robin Camp, a Canadian judge who recently resigned after a review board concluded he was guilty of victim-blaming in a rape trial, insisted that the judge's misconduct was the product of 'ignorance, not animus'.

As if that's supposed to render his suggestion that an alleged rape victim could have kept 'her knees together' during an assault any less damaging or, indeed, dangerous.

If you're one of the many who question the culture of victim-blaming, desperately attempt to quell the paradigm, and wonder where we've gone wrong as a society when the victim of a rape faces judgement and condemnation, you need look no further than the Robin Camp example.

When an individual in a profession who – as the review board put it – is 'expected to demonstrate knowledge of social issues, and awareness of changes in social values, humility, tolerance and respect for others' deems it appropriate to ask a young woman why she didn't better fend off penetration, is it any wonder rape culture is so prevalent?

"Why didn’t you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn’t penetrate you?” he asked the young woman who was just 19 at the time of the assault in 2014.

"And when your ankles were held together by your jeans, your skinny jeans, why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” he wondered.

Nowhere does the blame appear to be placed more firmly at the door of the victim than during rape cases. 

The idea that the target of a mugging might be asked why they bought an expensive phone seems ludicrous.

The notion that the complainant in a burglary case might be forced to defend their home security system seems farcical.

And yet, in numerous rape cases, the victim is asked why she was drunk, what she was wearing, and how she had allowed it to happen.

Indeed, British High Court judge, Andrew Gilbart, recently offered his own assessment of a sexual assault case, asserting: "I’m sure it was a frightening incident. She got very, very drunk. It doesn’t excuse what happened, but people have to make sure they protect themselves and guard against this, she made herself very vulnerable,”

“The law seeks to protect victims such as this from their own foolishness. The complainant had got herself drunk, was in a public place, unable to protect herself and the law must be seen to protect vulnerable people from being picked on by those who spot their vulnerability and choose to attack them." he added.

The complainant did this, the complainant did that, the complainant, essentially, asked for it.

And we wonder why the culture of victim blaming thrives online among internet trolls and why some men deem it fitting to carry 'You Deserve Rape' placards at women's marches when individuals representing the judicial system appear to suggest something similar.

Instances like the aforementioned indicate that the abhorrent attitude towards women in rape cases is by no means resigned to the murkier areas of the world wide web, nor can it be dismissed as 'locker room banter', but is in fact evident among professionals employed to demonstrate an awareness of changes in social values, humility, tolerance and respect for others.

In the same way ignorance of the law is no excuse, neither is ignorance of the trauma experienced by victims of rape and sexual assault… no matter what Robin Camp's attorney might argue.