Summary
This book uses a case-study approach; the author explores nine sexual assault trials from across the country throughout the twentieth century. It moves from small towns to large cities, from the Maritimes to the Northwest Territories, from the suffrage era to the period of the women's liberation movement. Each of these richly-textured vignettes offers insight into the failure of the criminal justice system to protect women from sexual assault, and each is highly readable and provocative. This book is a vivid exploration of the past which also gives us the tools to assess the efficacy (or in this case lack of efficacy) of the legal system.
Contents
1. Introduction. -- 2. "Don't you bully me... justice I want if there is justice to be had": the rape of Mary Ann Burton, London, Ontario, 1907. -- 3. "On pensait que la fille était bonne à rien": Fiola, 1917. -- 4. The prosecution of Henry Kissel in the roaring twenties in Halifax. -- 5. Sexual battery: gynecological treatment in the Mercer reformatory, 1939-40. -- 6. Sexual assault and disability: Saskatchewan, 1942. -- 7. Child witnesses: "by psychological definition... a disservice to the true end of justice": Soulière, 1951-1952. -- 8. Canada's first capital "L" lesbian sexual assault: Yellowknife, 1955. -- 9. "Sordid" but "understandable under the circumstances": Kohnke, Croft, and Wilson, 1967. -- 10. "Imprisonment would be of no assistance to the accused": Angione, 1974. -- 11. Conclusion.