Salon.com > Cecelie S. Berry

Is the British government going easy on rapists?

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:23:00 +0000

Britain's Daily Mail reports that a growing number of accused rapists in England and Wales are being released with a warning, rather than facing prosecution. Indeed, Home Office documents reveal that the number of people cautioned for rape more than doubled from 19 people in 1994 to 40 in 2004. While a caution does create a criminal record of a case, the perpetrator does not have to appear in court, making the response the equivalent of the proverbial "slap on the wrist." And when rape -- an indictable offense -- is the charge, a caution is supposed to be reserved for "rare circumstances."

According to the Daily Mail, the increased use of cautions is part of a wider program to reduce the number of criminal court cases clogging the justice system and to ease overcrowding in British prisons. Under the new guidelines, a caution may now be used at the discretion of the arresting officer if the offender has no prior record. According to the Daily Mail, those circumsatnces might include situations in which the accused is elderly, and the victim required acknowledgment that a crime had been committed; or when the offender is very young and has been referred to treatment or rehabilitation outside the criminal justice system.

Sexual assault victim sues defense attorney

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:19:00 +0000

A pending civil action in California may establish a new legal precedent, holding defense attorneys and their investigators civilly liable for the emotional damage they inflict on sexual assault victims while preparing their client's defense.

Jane Doe was 16 years old when she was sexually assaulted by Greg Haidl, Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, all 17, as she lay unconscious on a pool table. Haidl videotaped the incident, during which Jane Doe was violated with a variety of objects, including a pool cue, a lighted cigarette and a Snapple bottle. During the criminal action, Joseph Cavallo and other lawyers for the defense cast the victim as an aspiring porn star who had submitted to the boys' actions voluntarily. Doe was also vigorously cross-examined regarding her sexual past. The defense's efforts to smear her reputation and credibility failed. The three young men were convicted of sexual assault, and are currently serving time.

Meet the Cindy Sheehan of El Salvador

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:45:00 +0000

Natividad Mendez Ramos was the first Salvadoran soldier to die in the southern city of Najaf, Iraq, on April 4, 2004. He had joined the army at 15.

According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times, since her son's death, his mother, Herminia Ramos, 47, has become an outspoken opponent of her country's involvement in the Iraq war. After her son's death, the Salvadoran army refused to pay her son's pension, $200 a month. Ramos, a single mother of five, concluded that no other parent should have to bear the loss of a child to an unjust war and the indignity of being denied her fallen son's pension. Ramos signed her name to a letter demanding that El Salvador, the only Latin American country with troops still in Iraq, withdraw. She delivered the letter to the national legislature and President Tony Saca, a conservative and an ally of the Bush administration.

State-sponsored fertility treatments for British singles

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 21:48:00 +0000

Broadsheet recently referred readers to a story about 11 American mothers who bonded over their shared sperm donor. If the mothers had been English, they might have had further cause for celebration, being eligible for government-funded sperm donation. A new story from the Independent reports that women "single and desperate for a baby," in their 30s and 40s, are now allowed free fertility treatment by the National Health Service, including sperm donation and in vitro fertilization. Since the announcement, public interest has been immense. Oxford Fertility Unit, which began offering private treatment to single women four years ago, has seen inquiries concerning fertility treatments from financially secure single women quadruple.

Cheers for tears

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 11:30:00 +0000

When I feel the urge to cry, I go with it. I don't care who's around. And I do it even though it makes me look terrible. My nose swells and lights up, my eyes shrink to mean little slits, my mascara runs. So be it. When I'm crying, as much as when I'm laughing, I feel completely alive. It works for me. As a writer, the test of my best work is whether it does more than simply stimulate thought -- it must also provoke emotion. As a mother, I've noticed that my tears can quell the intense rivalry between my two sons; they quickly join forces to comfort me.

Plus, I love the drama.

Two recent articles exploring women's supposed emotionality in the workplace made me think about my own tendency to tear up. In the New York Times, Martha Stewart and other female honchos say that women who want to succeed in business must not weep, period. It's a remnant of advice from the era when women felt they had to imitate the dress and behavior of men in order to succeed. And a number of women executives in the article attest to the fact that, regardless of a female's biological predisposition to cry, stoicism is essential to her credibility as a leader.

Are babies not equally innocent?

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:14:00 +0000

A baby is a baby is a baby -- or so it seems. The wonder of babies is that they are equally innocent, equally endowed. Not so black babies, if we are to believe family values advocate and former Education Secretary Bill Bennett. He made this pronouncement on his weekly radio show: "I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime ... you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down." He then quickly backpedaled, stating that as "morally reprehensible" as this would be, it would, nevertheless, be effective.

As the editor of an anthology on motherhood by black women writers, I am often asked if all mothers aren't essentially alike. Many people want to believe that some human experiences transcend the boundaries of race and should be treated accordingly: Motherhood is motherhood. Can't we all just get along? I'm not altogether unsympathetic to that view, since, as a society, we hope to move toward seeing each other as equal human beings; our hopes, dreams and struggles as uniting and not dividing us.

Was he black or white?

Mon, 09 May 2005 18:55:00 +0000

A few years ago, my sons and I were having dinner when Sam, who was then eight years old, told us about Dominick, a second-grade classmate known for his disruptive antics. When the Spanish teacher's back was turned, Dominick would rise and canter about the classroom, twirling an invisible lasso above his head. A God-fearing child, he punctuated the close of the circle with a rip-roaring "Hallelujah!" My six-year-old, Spenser, and I fell out laughing as Sam mimicked Dominick's escapades. When the laughter died down, a termite-sized query gnawed at me, so I asked, "Is Dominick black or white?"

Silence. Sam and Spenser looked at each other, a tacit conference. They were closing ranks and taking arms.

"What difference does it make?" Sam asked.

"It doesn't make any difference. I just want to know," I replied.

"But everybody's the same. So it doesn't matter." Spenser now.

"I'm just curious."

"Why're you curious?" Sam asked.

"Because I want to know." Great storm clouds thundered across their shared gaze: Mommy is a racist.

"I just want to be able to picture what was happening, that's all. Now, was he white or black?"

The wrong kind of black

Fri, 27 Apr 2001 19:25:00 +0000

Mr. Swenson was a favorite English teacher among the collegebound, Advanced Placement students at Shaker Heights High School. He was a tall, lean man, with sandy brown hair that tumbled into his eyes when he spoke excitedly about Melville or Hemingway. He had an air of gentleness that engendered trust. He seemed like one of us.

He taught Advanced Placement American literature in my junior year and when I entered his class in the fall of 1976, there was, typically, only one other black student there, another female. That, too, was typical. But that's how it was, even in integrated schools like Shaker High; blacks just didn't take advanced classes. It was normal.

Nor did anybody question the fact that in the entire year of studying American literature, the class was not assigned a single book by a black author.

About midyear we were given an assignment in which we could write on a topic of our choice and read one of two books -- one was by a white author, the other was "Native Son" by Richard Wright. I had enjoyed Wright's novel "Black Boy," which I'd read independently, so I chose "Native Son." I was the only student in the class to do so.

United nations of nannies

Fri, 11 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

I didn't intend to hire nannies from so many different
countries. I started out believing in the perfect nanny just as I
had believed in the inevitability of true love. And I pursued my
nanny just as vigorously, bringing to my search optimism,
determination, perseverance and, perhaps most important, an open
mind. Unlike some mothers, I didn't have a preference for, say,
West Indian or European nannies. There was no continent or region
that I wouldn't consider. My only criterion was that the nanny I
hired come highly recommended.

So come they did. There was Loretta from Panama, Sophie from
France, Georgette from Ghana, Samantha from England, Yasmine from
Sweden and on and on. Looking back on it, I must have felt like
Lady Liberty and perhaps went on a suitably sized ego trip.

Yes, ego too was involved. I didn't just feel I needed a nanny,
I felt I deserved one. Even now, having been around the block a
few times, I feel envy toward the professional mothers who have
their nannies call me to arrange play dates. My thinking was: If
I've got the most important job in the world, where's my
secretary, my girl Friday? It seemed to me that a nanny was an
indispensable accouterment of accomplished motherhood.

Home is where the revolution is

Wed, 29 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

We sit in a circle of secondhand chairs. My book group consists of
two lawyers, two psychologists and a social worker. Once determined
careerists, we are now at-home mothers, each of us with at least two
children. We feel
splintered and disenfranchised from the culture of paid, working parents who, whatever they say, think we have it easy.

Today we are discussing a novel titled "Persian Nights" by Diane Johnson. It is the story of Chloe, a surgeon's wife and at-home mother in Southern California. Chloe is an arranger of activities for her husband and children. Like many such mothers, she has begun to feel like a bit player in others' lives. Her husband plans a trip to Iran in the weeks preceeding the Shah's downfall, and, ever the accessory, Chloe finagles an art-history fellowship from a local museum so that she can accompany him.

In Iran, Chloe experiences an awakening of her political self. At personal risk, she helps the "Westernized" wife of an Iranian doctor to flee the country with her children. But Chloe is unable to sustain her newfound activism. As the assassinations and arrests increase, she takes a lover and establishes a domestic routine similar to the one she left in California. Ultimately, she returns home facing divorce, the possible loss of her children and no way to support herself. Not exactly like the women in my book group, perhaps, but Chloe is still too close for comfort.