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Although this incident happened in San Francisco, we thought the circumstances were easily "repeat-able" in Cleveland or anywhere....

RAPE

sent. We are mature and intelligent women. We knew when we came that the testimony. would include "delicate matters," and we would not have tittered or blushed unduly or thrown up or fainted at such delicate testimony. We think it is a mistake as well as an insult to us to assume that women are too weak and delicate to be able with this reality in our daily lives. to deal with reality. We, in fact, have to deal

Nor could it be argued that our presence was embarrassing to the testifying witness, M.B., as it was she who requested our presence and indicated that the presence of supportive women friends would have been reassuring and helpful to her in the male-dominated courtroom situation that she found intimidating. And we do not think she is unusual in feeling this way.

The following letter was sent to the presiding judge, John A. O'Kane, by twelve women after we were excluded from the preliminary hearing of a sexual assault case that we had come to observe. As the letter indicates, we were there at the request of the testifying witness. Our presence in the courtroom throughout the morning's prior proceedings (which included a gruesome baby beating homicide which was all right for us to sit through) seemed to be viewed with nervous suspicion and ill-disguised bafflement by members of the male legal establishment in attendance. At the start of the hearing of this sexual assault case the judge's evident discomfiture at the presence of twelve female spectators We were there also in our own interest. We sitting in a group grew in intensity and he rehave an interest in learning what happens to quested that we voluntarily leave the courtroom, women who testify in sexual assault cases. In stating that he could not order us to leave. When fact, fear of the ordeal such women must face all but one male spectator remained seated, the miffed judge remarked: "I see the men are leaving but the women are staying." At this point, Judge O'Kane induced the public defender to make a motion to exclude from the courtroom all those not involved in the case. When the public defender hesitated, Judge O'Kane said with apparent anger: "Make the motion!" and the public defender complied.

Though we identified ourselves as friends and, in one case, the sister of the testifying witness, we were compelled to leave the courtroom and our friend, the witness, was left to give her "sensitive" and "delicate" testimony before one female court reporter, the male defendant, and the following eight male legal officials: Judge O'Kane, the prosecuting attorney, the police inspector, the defense attorney, a young interning attorney, the court clerk and two bailiffs.

Your Honor,

We are several women who were present in your courtroom this morning at the request of M.B., a witness in a sexual assault case you were hearing. We were excluded from the courtroom during the hearing of this very case that we had come to observe, however, "in the interest of decency," as you put it. And though this afterthe-fact letter may well be fruitless and ineffectual, we wish to give vent to our frustration at being denied the right to witness this hearing and we wish to explain and defend our desire to be present..

We had taken off from the general daily business of our lives in order to attend this hearing. We had come as friends and relatives of this witness in order to lend our support. And we had come there also as interested observers of the proceedings. We were not there as a lynch mob, and we had not come to intimidate anyone or to disrupt the proceedings.

You termed it a "delicate sexual case", you explained that the hearing would include testimony concerning "delicate matters" and that the decent thing for us to do would be leave the courtroom. But we fail to understand why it would have been indecent for us to remain pre-

in courtrooms has kept some of us from repor. ting similar incidents in the past. And we find it intolerable that we should be denied the right to observe legal procedures in sexual assault cases or any other sort of courtroom case. We believe we should have the right to observe what goes on in the courtroom-the right to know what we might expect if we should become involved in a sexual assault case or, more generally, how we as women can expect to be treated in courts of jaw.

In your courtroom we found that women were treated as less than respected, reasonable and intelligent adult human beings. Though you, for example, may have perceived nothing condescending, degrading or insulting about your

Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945)

dismissing us from the courtroom with your "Sorry girls!" remark, we on the other hand, all being grown women between the ages of nineteen and thirty-one, most certainly did. (Try saying "Sorry boys!" to a group of men whose ages average somewhere in the mid-twenties and see how they respond. See how you feel saying it.)

Furthermore, your honor, to say to the witness afterwards: "I hope you won't be hitchhiking anymore," seems to us to indicate your belief in the culpability of the woman who hitchhikes and gets attacked. On the one haird, your remark can be viewed and appreciated as a practical piece of advice, but on the other hand, it is this very pervasive attitude that "nice" women do not hitchhike or walk unescorted on a public street at night that deprives women of a mobility and freedom equal to that enjoyed by men. As long as people continue believing that a woman who hitchhikes is asking and deserves to be attacked, men will continue to attack them and feel justified in doing so. But, your honor everyone cannot and probably should not have her or his own private automobile, and public transportation is often grossly unreliable and inadequate to our needs. We need to be able to share rides and to walk on the streets at night without being made to feel that, in so doing, we are renouncing our right to be treated with decency and respect...

Sincerely,

Dianne Heitman, Janja Lalich, Gay Brumis, Jane Bloodgood, Peggy Van Buskirk, Barbara Claven, Betty Rieck, Susan Weiss, Mary Marchetti, Lynda Cornejo, Sharn Matusek, Flora Biancalana

IKJAERET

page 7/What She Wants/July 1974