«SI am here first of all as a woman and then as a lawyer.” Thus began Tina Lagostena Bassi’s speech in the famous rape trial, filmed for the first time by cameras, in 1979. As a woman, Tina Lagostena Bassi had strong values and awareness of what rape was. But what was clear to her is not clear, even today, to many people: men and women.
«We all grew up in the same society and absorbed the same prejudices. This applies to ordinary citizens as well as to lawyers and judges”, he admits Elena Biaggionicriminal lawyer, vice president of To say. Women online against violence. It is therefore a prejudice to think that a lawyer or judge has a non-patriarchal vision of what rape is only because she is a woman.
From the lawyer of the Grillo case to the judge of the “palpatina”. When women don’t defend women
«However, let’s ask ourselves who benefits from the permanence of certain stereotypes in trials», continues Biaggioni. If you question the victim about how she was dressed and why she didn’t scream loud enough suitable for the defense of the rapist, your lawyer will continue to ask the same questions in the interest of his client. «When they become counterproductive, only then will he stop using them. When a judge, upon hearing them, asks “Lawyer, where do you want to go with these questions”, we will stop hearing them.” This still rarely happens: rape myths therefore survive in the courts because they give the desired results, and the game succeeds. «The focus shifts from the perpetrator of the violence to the victim» which is starting to be grilled and described as provocative, not determined enough not to get raped. So, all in all, I agree.
Rape myths and judicial stereotypes: as long as they work, breaking them is impossible
«They are defined judicial stereotypes those clichés that are ridden because they are functional to trials, useful for the defense of those who commit crimes. In cases of violence against women there are many”, explains Biaggioni. For example, the idea that if a woman reports a rape months later it’s because he wants to watch something from us. Or that, if she didn’t scream, if she didn’t defend herself tooth and nail, it’s because he wanted that relationship.
The underlying question, explains Biaggioni, is precisely that of rape myths. We grew up thinking that perpetrators of violence are mostly strangers, perhaps foreigners. And that a victim must scream, react with all her strength. «Rationally we would all do this. But the reality is different. If we look at the data, the perpetrators of violence are partners or ex-partners. And the victims, very often, remain petrified, their body freezes, they suffer. And no, not all of them scream and defend themselves.”
(Photo by Simona Granati – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
«We all remember how Tina Lagostena Bassi in the rape trial ridiculed the issue of missing a “clamp” during oral sexbrought as evidence of the victim’s consent by one of the rapists’ lawyers. If she didn’t react, it was their argument, she was in fact a prostitute». From then to now, not much seems to have changed.
Small sampling of rape myths
So here’s a sad sampling of rape myths that have emerged in recent trials involving female judges or lawyers. A series of judicial stereotypes which – evidently – still need to be broken down.
Ciro Grillo trial: “Why didn’t you use your teeth during oral intercourse?”
The closed-door hearings of Silvia, the Italian-Norwegian student who in 2019 reported Ciro Grilloson of the founder of the 5 Star Movement, Beppe Grilloand his friends his three Genoese friends, Edoardo Capitta, Francesco Corsiglia and Vittorio Lauria for sexual violence.
In four hearings, from December to today, the girl had to respond to 1400 questions. Including those of the lawyer Antonella Cuccureddu, who defends Francesco Corsiglia, a friend of Ciro Grillo: “But if her legs were bent, how did he manage to take off her trousers?”. Or: “Can you explain to us how your panties were removed?”. And again: “Why didn’t she react with her teeth during oral intercourse?”. The lawyer Cuccureddu claimed them from the reporters. «In trials the facts are reconstructed. The fact we are discussing is a fact of sexual violence and There is nothing intimate about sexual assault. Either it’s intimate or it’s sexual violence. And the trial is carried out to understand whether it was an intimate thing or sexual violence.”
The other questions answered by the victim of the alleged rape committed by Ciro Grillo and his companions were collected by reporters. Here are some. “When he grabbed her by the hair did he use one hand or both?” “Were the shorts elastic?”. “How did they manage to remove her panties and trousers at the same time?” «Did you take off her shoes?». “Why was she curled up?” «What stopped you from keeping your mouth shut? Why did you open it?”. «Why has she never locked herself in the bathroom?». «Did you wear overalls, socks and underwear? Did she have a bra? «What acts of resistance did he pose? Did she scream? He spoke? “.
The open door in a bar in Turin, “an invitation to dare”
In the reasons for a sentence on a rape case of the Court of Appeal of Turin in July 2022, president Piera Caprioglio, we read: «It cannot be ruled out at all that the young woman gave the boy some hope, by being accompanied to the bathroom, making handkerchiefs stick out, keeping the door ajar, openings certainly read by the accused as an invitation to dare. An invitation that the man did not ask to repeat, but which the girl then did not know how to handle, because she’s a little drunk and panic-stricken.” Moral: the conviction in the first instance led to the acquittal in the second.
The zip on her trousers was also torn. «But the man did not deny having opened the young woman’s trousers, which is why nothing can exclude that in the heat of the moment, the hinge, of modest quality, deteriorated under force».
The molester “excused” because he was a poor, playful man
The triptych of sentences that all bear the same signature is a case in itself: that of a panel made up of three women, presided over by Judge Maria Bonaventura, Court of Rome, Criminal Section V. The cases, therefore.
A manager harassing an employee: the victim is defined as complex and the employer as a joker.
A janitor putting his hands in a student’s panties: it is considered only a joke lasting a few seconds. Among other things by “a poor man without malice”, whose life would be destroyed “one step away from retirement” (as said by the janitor’s lawyer, Claudia Pirolli).
A husband who stabs his wife: the shallow stab wounds of a “jealous” and “drunk” man do not suggest an attempted murder.
Victim “too masculine” for a rape in Ancona
Three women (Alessandra Panichi, Marina Tommolini, Cecilia Bellucci) at the Court of Appeal of Ancona acquitted two men who had been convicted at first instance. The victim was a twenty-year-old “too masculine” and therefore “not attractive enough to be raped”.
Weinstein’s lawyer: “I’m doing better than a man”
Donna Rotunno, 44, an Italian American from Chicago, is the defense lawyer for Harvey Weinstein, 67, the former Hollywood producer accused of being a serial rapist. But also of several other men accused of particularly serious rapes. Weinstein also wanted her because she is a woman. “When cross-examining women in a courtroom, I get along much better than a male lawyer,” she has said in the past. If a man went against a woman with the same bitterness as me he would seem like a bully, if I do it, no one bats an eye.».
The “ambivalent attitude towards sex” of the Florence rape victim
A case in itself is that of the rape at the Fortezza da Basso: lThe European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for violating the rights of an “alleged rape victim”. We are referring to the 2015 ruling of the Florence Court of Appeal: judges Angela Annese (president), Maria Cannizzaro and Federico Boscherini acquitted the seven defendants accused of gang rape of a woman in 2008. A «fragile female subject, but at the same time creative, uninhibited, capable of managing her own (bi)sexuality». The boys, the judges wrote, may have “misinterpreted his availability”.
«Up until the exit, Giulia had not shown any particular annoyance at the advances she had received (rubbing and groping) and had let him support her until she reached the car. She remained as if “in a trance”, “helpless”, “like something at the mercy of the current” while the others carried out invasive maneuvers on her, and showed themselves “almost amazed” when she had said enough. «It can only be deduced that everyone had misinterpreted his previous availability, orienting it towards a group relationship which in the end, in its squalor, had satisfied no one, not even those who had ventured into the undertaking».
Still, «the girl’s story represents an ambivalent attitude towards sex». His participation after the fact in the Sex in Transition summer workshop near Belgrade or before the fact in a splatter film by the director accused in the trial is revived.
The first degree sentence which led to a sentence of 4 and a half years for the six defendants, on charges of aggravated sexual assault for abusing the victim’s physical and mental inferiority conditions caused by alcohol. The acquittal is on appeal. The episode is defined as an unfortunate affair “not commendable for anyone, but not even such as to be identified as a criminally relevant fact.”
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