Germaine Greer calls for punishment for rape to be reduced

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Germaine Greer has called for the lowering of punishment for rape and said society should not see it as a "spectacularly violent crime" but instead view it more as "lazy, careless and insensitive". She suggested that a fitting sentence for the offence might be 200 hours' community service and perhaps an "r" tattoo on the rapist's hand, arm or cheek. [...]

"Well I'll tell you what ... You might want to believe that the penis is a lethal weapon and that all women live in fear of that lethal weapon, well that's bullshit. It's not true. We don't live in terror of the penis ... A man can't kill you with his penis." She said that, in cases of obviously violent rape, the courts should concentrate on the violence which should attract bigger sentences, rather than having long trials in which women are humiliated for long periods. Greer is publishing her full argument on rape in a new book, coming out in Australia in September. [...]

She questioned a statistic which said that 70% of rape victims had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder compared with 20% of conflict veterans. "What the hell are you saying? Something that leaves no sign, no injury, no nothing is more damaging to a woman than seeing your best friend blown up by an IED is to a veteran?" Society wanted women to believe that rape destroyed them, she said. "We haven't been destroyed, we've been bloody annoyed is what we've been." [...]

source: Article 'Germaine Greer calls for punishment for rape to be reduced' by Mark Brown; www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/30/germaine-greer-calls-for-punishment-for-to-be-reduced; The Guardian; 30 May 2018