Tracing the backlash to women’s independence through sexual assault cases in Yakima County
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Campus where you would like to present
Ellensburg
Event Website
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source
Start Date
15-5-2019
End Date
15-5-2019
Abstract
In the courtroom victims of sexual assault are less likely to be believed than the perpetrator, a theory is that this is done to bolster masculinity while also undermining femininity. Yakima County’s oldest preserved police investigations of sexual assault cases took place in 1905; and although only one of the four cases ended with a conviction, the victims were given opportunities to speak in court. This changed in the 1940s when sexual assault cases seldom made it to trial, and victims rarely got to record their account of the attack. Maureen Honey claims that the hindering of a victim’s voice in the 1940s had to do with the rise in female independence as part of the war effort. Honey also claims that men in small communities would often try to dissuade women from their work by any means necessary including sexual assault. Because sexual crimes are notoriously difficult to define, they are categorically difficult to prosecute. With this in mind, men could exploit the fluid definition and get away with attacks that left little evidence on a body, while still causing great psychological trauma to the victims. In this paper I draw on Yakima court records to explore prosecutors’ changing approaches to sexual crimes from 1905 to the 1940s.
Recommended Citation
Baumert, Sara, "Tracing the backlash to women’s independence through sexual assault cases in Yakima County" (2019). Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 41.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2019/Oralpres/41
Department/Program
History
Tracing the backlash to women’s independence through sexual assault cases in Yakima County
Ellensburg
In the courtroom victims of sexual assault are less likely to be believed than the perpetrator, a theory is that this is done to bolster masculinity while also undermining femininity. Yakima County’s oldest preserved police investigations of sexual assault cases took place in 1905; and although only one of the four cases ended with a conviction, the victims were given opportunities to speak in court. This changed in the 1940s when sexual assault cases seldom made it to trial, and victims rarely got to record their account of the attack. Maureen Honey claims that the hindering of a victim’s voice in the 1940s had to do with the rise in female independence as part of the war effort. Honey also claims that men in small communities would often try to dissuade women from their work by any means necessary including sexual assault. Because sexual crimes are notoriously difficult to define, they are categorically difficult to prosecute. With this in mind, men could exploit the fluid definition and get away with attacks that left little evidence on a body, while still causing great psychological trauma to the victims. In this paper I draw on Yakima court records to explore prosecutors’ changing approaches to sexual crimes from 1905 to the 1940s.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2019/Oralpres/41
Faculty Mentor(s)
Roxanne Easley