Victory for female victims

Haim Ramon's conviction at court is an important milestone in acquitting the victims of sexual assault offences. Ramon's conduct is a flawed norm common among those in positions of power and authority.

Recently we saw the disgraceful display of two public figures who chose to blame the victim for the offences they committed. Special thanks should be conveyed to the court, which created a normative precedent that will make it harder for future offenders to make use of this lowly tactic.

We live in a patriarchal society where power is in the hands of men and society is always hierarchical. Men control decision-making centers, society's key junctions, and all the faucets and pipelines where capital flows through.

Power's two main currencies are money and sex. And sex, as we saw recently, is not only about male identity, but also the use of sexual control in order to perpetuate the advantage in status.

In light of this, the prime minister's warm embrace of Ramon, which sends a message of deep contempt to half of his constituency, just like the deep regret expressed by Shas' chairman and other reactions that criticized the court's judgment – all of those constitute typical male enlistment to defend "the borders."

We recall similar phenomena in the case of Yitzhak Mordechai – ranging from lunches with male friends at his home to the effort to prevent his demotion and attempts to bring him back into the mainstream by offering him the position of a military commentator and civics teacher in Sderot.

Women joined smear campaign

The woman – the innocent, weak, girl, who is not backed by capital and government officials – is an easy target and no more than a means for maintaining the status of a public figure. She has no identity, only a use. For his needs. Yes, the victim is shamelessly exploited in order to safeguard the status of a public figure and create a safety net that allows him to be an offender while not paying the price for it.

Female public figures such as Ronit Tirosh, Shulamit Aloni and others, betray both their public mission and other women by joining the public relations and smear campaign against the victims. I wrote about it in earlier stages of the affair, after a diverse group of seemingly-feminist female public figures joined the effort to promote Ramon's defense strategy – which included blaming the victim and de-legitimizing the law against sexual harassment.

The court has spoken this week both regarding Ramon's acts and, clearly, about its disgust with the broad PR campaign conducted by the defendant in order to blame the victim for the offence.

There's an important symbolic aspect to both, which I hope will be taken by Knesset members as a hint for the urgent need to introduce legislation against similar phenomena, as well as severe punishments for those who attempt to smear their victims.

The writer is a feminist and social activist