The Story of Jane Doe: A Book About Rape - Hardcover

Doe, Jane

 
9780679311539: The Story of Jane Doe: A Book About Rape
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 067931153X ISBN 13: 9780679311539
Verlag: Random House of Canada Ltd, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

Startling, incisive and surprisingly funny, this is the true story of a woman who challenged stereotypes, the justice system, the police -- and won.

On an August night in 1986, Jane Doe became the fifth reported woman raped by a sexual serial predator dubbed the Balcony Rapist. Even though the police had full knowledge of the rapist’s modus operandi, they made a conscious decision not to issue a warning to women in her neighbourhood. Jane Doe quickly realized that women were being used by the police as bait. The rapist was captured as a result of a tip received after she and a group of women distributed 2,000 posters alerting the community. During the criminal proceedings, Jane Doe became the first raped woman in Ontario to secure her own legal representation -- allowing her to sit in on the hearings instead of out in the hall where victim-witnesses are usually cloistered. As a result, Jane heard details of the police investigation normally withheld from women in her position, which revealed a shocking degree of police negligence and gender discrimination. When the rapist was convicted, the comfort was cold. In 1987, Jane Doe sued the Metropolitan Police Force for negligence and charter violation. It took eleven long years before her civil case finally came to trial -- the rest is history.

This extraordinary book asks the diffcult question: Who benefits from rape? Popular ideas about rape still inform the way police and society behave around raped women. Despite decades of trying to rewrite the myths, the myths still exist, and they tell us that women lie about rape, that women enjoy it, that women file false rape reports to seek revenge and money. They tell us rape can be non-violent. They tell us that women can make good or bad rape victims or that women cannot be raped at all. They tell us nonsense -- and Jane Doe gives us a unique view on why.
This is a book about rape that is not about being a “victim.” It’s about a woman who wanted to ensure that she, the person most involved, directed her case and the course of her life. It’s about external elements colliding to provide a small window of redress for women who experience crimes of violence. Jane Doe was a test case -- the right woman in the wrong place at the right time -- and she made legal history.

In The Story of Jane Doe, she asks us to challenge our own assumptions about rape and, in the process, surprises us with a story that is by turns sweet, tragic and fantastical. But most of all, this book celebrates what is most common in human nature -- our ability to overcome.

“Rape stories are not new stories. They are as old as war, as old as man. Many bookstores have sections devoted to them, and I read them. I read them “before,” too. I have found most rape stories to be either chronicles of fear and horror, victim tales that make me want to run screaming from the page (although I do not). Or they are dry, academic or legal treatises on why rape is bad, written in language I must work to understand. Both are valid. But both somehow limit me from reaching a broader understanding . . . No book has ever reflected my lived experience of the crime.” -- Jane Doe

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

The woman known as Jane Doe is a teacher and an arts and culture worker who lectures extensively about her case. Her civil trial in 1998 was the focal point of headline coverage in national newspapers. Currently, CBC is making a TV movie about her experience called <i>The Many Trials of One Jane Doe</i>. Jane Doe’s case is now cited in tort law textbooks and studied in law schools internationally.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Background

On an August night in 1986, Jane Doe became the fifth reported woman raped by a sexual serial predator dubbed the Balcony Rapist. The rapist stalked single women who lived alone in second- and third-floor apartments in a downtown Toronto neighbourhood. He scaled the outside walls of high-rises located within a six-block radius and entered the apartments through locked balcony doors.

Despite the fact that the police had full knowledge of his modus operandi, they made a conscious decision not to issue a warning about the rapist to women in the neighbourhood. Their rationale was that women, hearing the news, would become hysterical, and the rapist would flee the area. Informed of their decision a few days after her rape, the woman who became known as Jane Doe quickly realized that she, in particular, and women, generally, were being used by the police as bait to catch the rapist.

The woman who became Jane Doe was actively involved in the then thriving women’s movement. She worked for a high-profile film festival and was experienced in public relations and marketing. She took it upon herself to organize a series of press conferences, postered her neighbourhood with warnings and delivered a deputation to the Police Services Board, demanding that the police be accountable. The rapist was captured as a result of a tip received after Jane and other women distributed two thousand posters – including one to the home of the man who raped her – alerting the community to the danger women faced.

During the criminal prosecution that followed, Jane Doe became the first raped woman in Ontario to secure her own legal representation. This strategy allowed her to sit inside the courtroom while the hearings involving her rapist proceeded, instead of out in the hall where victim-witnesses were usually cloistered from the ongoing testimony. As a result she heard details of the police investigation that were normally withheld from women in her position. When the rapist was convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison, the comfort Jane experienced was cold. A shocking degree of police negligence and manipulation had been revealed during the hearings, and Jane realized that the same type of crime that had been committed against her could easily take place again.

By 1986 a number of external elements colluded to provide a small window of redress for women who experienced crimes of violence. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a new constitutional document with a section designed to prevent gender discrimination. The women’s movement had established awareness of sexual assault as a prevalent social crime, as opposed to an ugly fact of life. Since criminal law did not serve raped women, the women’s movement looked to civil prosecutions as an alternative. Jane Doe became a test case, the right woman in the wrong place at the right time. Political, educated, presentable and a risk-taker, she was in her early thirties and there was no doubt as to her “good girl” status. In 1987 Jane Doe sued the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force for negligence and Charter violation in the investigation of her rape. The rest became legal history.

Of course history is a long time in the making. Over the next eleven years, Jane engaged a legal system and its players as no other woman in her position had previously done. Unwilling to play the traditional victim role, she battled with a series of her own lawyers to ensure that she, the person most involved, directed her case. In 1991 the Ontario Supreme Court ruled that Jane Doe had a cause of action and that she could proceed to trial. Until that ruling, it had not been possible to hold police officers responsible in a court of law for their actions in the investigation of a crime.

Jane plowed on. She developed strategies, secured witnesses and challenged her lawyers to push the boundaries of the law. They often were not amused. When the civil case finally came to trial in 1997, Jane was dismayed to learn that, as she had predicted, her past sexual, medical, employment and family history was used against her to support the police defence that any damages she had suffered had existed before her rape and that her lawsuit reflected the delusional posturing of a bitter, man-hating feminist.

The ensuing nine-week trial was a media bonanza as retired police chiefs, celebrated psychiatrists, police officers of every stripe and station, forensic profilers and an FBI agent from Quantico, Virginia, testified to the “non-violent” nature of Jane’s rape and her police-bashing agenda. After the trial was over, the judge deliberated on the evidence for six months. She ruled in Jane’s favour, and a common-law legal precedent was set. A citizen could sue the police. She could even win.

But it didn’t end there. It hasn’t ended yet.


A Preliminary Note from Jane

Rape stories are not new stories. They are as old as war, as old as man. Many bookstores have sections devoted to them, and I read them. I read them “before,” too.

I have found most rape stories to be either chronicles of fear and horror, victim tales that make me want to run screaming from the page (although I do not), or they are dry academic, feminist or legal treatises on why rape is bad, written in language I must work to understand. All are valid. But all somehow limit me from reaching a broader understanding of the crime: why men do it; the myriad ways women experience it; and how rape is used to maintain the status quo socially, politically, legally. No book has ever reflected my lived experience of the crime.

I learned early in my political life to pose the question “Who benefits?” when attempting to understand social inequities and injustice. It is clear that rape is bad; that it has dire effects on the entire social fabric. We read the alarming statistics – sexual assault is the only violent crime currently on the rise – and try to teach our daughters well. Everyone, even some rapists, would like rape to stop. In the seventies and eighties some viable solutions were crafted to address the crimes of rape and violence against women. But in the last decade, services have been cut and law and order agendas are now trumpeted as the single remedy for the crime.

In this book I explore who benefits from, and who controls, this state of affairs. I hope to help any reader who comes along for the ride to ask questions, develop answers, and experience what I experienced: the horror of it all, the honour and the humour, the theatre of the absurd known as the contemporary courtroom, and a cast of real-life characters that could have come from Dickens or Rohinton Mistry.

I want to challenge and respond to "popular" ideas about rape that still inform the way police and society behave around raped women. Popular, social, psychiatric and legal mythologies about rape tell us that women lie about our rapes, file false reports to seek attention, revenge or money, or, ludicrously, that we enjoy rape. The myths hold that rape can be non-violent. That a woman can be predisposed to being raped. That women will become hysterical if told a rapist is preying on their neighbourhood. They tell us that a woman can be a good or bad rape victim. Some myths insist that women cannot be raped at all, and that men cannot physically control the biological urge to rape.

I wanted to write a book about rape that is not about being a “victim” of rape. I want to startle you with art and humour. I’m not referring here to comedy but to the comic theatre of life, which is sometimes too outrageous, too wild to be believable. I often regret that I was a central player during the civil trial, as it prevented me from fully appreciating what was...

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Verlag
Random House of Canada Ltd
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
067931153X
ISBN 13 
9780679311539
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Zeichner
Boyle Shary
Anzahl der Seiten
363
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Yeepin GmbH
492000000000
sunshine12232@outlook.com

Alleestr.11
Kaiserslautern
Rheinland-Pfalz
67655
Deutschland

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