As everyone now knows, the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn - now released from house arrest on charges of sexually attacking a 32-year-old Guinean hotel maid - is on the brink of collapse. This is because some damming information has come to light about the alleged victim's character, namely:
- she'd previously had sex with a hotel guest for money, allegedly.
- she had some sort of relationship with an accused drug dealer (who's also African)
- she gave false information on her asylum application (she volunteered this information of her own free will)
That Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the woman had sex is not question; forensic tests have established this. So the case now rests solely on which of the two the courts believe when DSK says it was consensual and she says it wasn't.
We don't know any more than anyone else what happened in that room that day, but we do know that a woman can be involved in all manner of questionable activities and still be raped. And as writer and researcher Rachel Hills points out in Musings of an Inappropriate Woman, '…women don’t go around making rape accusations for the fun of it.'
The alleged victim's lawyer has said that his client will appear before the cameras in coming days to recount what she claims occurred, but so far she has not changed her story that the sexual encounter was not consensual. The accused is wealthy, powerful, well-connected and white, and his alleged victim is almost the exact opposite: black, from Africa, powerless, worked as a hotel housekeeper. If she doesn't doesn't change her story but the prosecution decides to drop the charges anyway, how much of a role do you think this power dynamic would have played?
New Yorkers voice their divided opinions HERE, but what do you think about the case so far? People, wetting dey happen?
