Hypocrisy on Trial

Women in Yorkshire may go out at night in safety for, the press and police agree, the Yorkshire Ripper has been caught, But what has been ignored by the press, police and by those who are now crying out for capital punishment for a man who has not yet been tried, is the background of vi olence against women in society generally. The more common forms of violence, from wife battering to pornography have been ignored and indeed sections of the press have gone as far as to "blame! the wife and mother of the arrested man for "what went wrong", men. In this society, it is ‘alright! for a husband to rape his wife, and even children (like Noreen Winchester) have been severely punished for killing a father who brutalised and raped them, On the other hand, the publishers of pornography, feeding as they do on the sadistic aspects of conditioning of men, are wined and dined as respectable business— The real context in which rape takes place is ignore’, Where women are powerless, second class citizens with no reality apart from their relationship to a man, then sexual violence against them is bound to occur, The real solution to rape is intrinsically bound up with the ending of women's opression, The answer,is not, as police would have us believe, to stay in at night or only venture out "accompanied", The real answer must be the full integration of women into society and the workforce as equal citizens. In the meantime, desnonstrations of women to reclaim the night are a useful means of demonstrati.ig that sexual violence and the fear of ‘rape will not turn the clock back, Women will continue to advance their struggle for freedom and independence, without curfews, ROSE O!IMAHONY

wren fallow, -'ALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 7 land used for wheat or cotton has