Barbara Hewson is Wrong

Senior Barrister Barbara Hewson has stated that the age of consent should be lowered to 13 - in order to stop the 'persecution of old men'.

I'm not going to call Barbara Hewson misogynistic expletives, or suggest she should be raped or killed - and those who have are utterly abhorrent to me. That said, I utterly and completely disagree with her, I think she is wrong, I think she is excusing the sexual abuse of children, and I think her 'views' are incredibly harmful.

I first read about this in a BBC article, and the original article is here: http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13604/
Her defences so far have been to complain of harassment, post support others have sent her, liken herself to Galileo (bizarrely) and accuse people of not reading the article properly. I read it thoroughly. More than once, because I was hoping I had just missed the joke.

Context

I will post some screen grabbed excerpts here to show I am not taking her article out of context:

I'm going to start with the last one. Hall has admitted to assaulting a nine year old child. That isn't a 'misdemeanor' - it's a crime, and one that most human beings would be rightly furious about. 

False Equivalencies

Next; the implication that some types of sexual assault count, and others do not. Apart from the fact that she creates one of many false equivalencies by equating bottom pinching and groping as 'innocent' - what on earth did she think these 'old men' did with the girls they invited to their dressing rooms?

It is also telling that she mentions 16 and 17 year olds (over the age of consent) in the same sentence as 13 year olds (who are children), as well as putting kissing and groping in the same bracket. She also fails to notice the key notion - consent. It doesn't matter whether you are male or female, a child or an adult, non consensual kissing, touching, groping, raping - it's all assault.  

She also says that the solution to child abuse is to teach children how to avoid 'compromising situations'

I've heard a few statements like this lately - Vanessa Feltz suggested that 14 year olds were 'knowing' - a social worker described a 13 year old child of having 'chosen a lifestyle of prostitution."

I am sure some crazy person will accuse me of 'denying those girls their agency' but fuck that. A child is not 'knowing'; a child cannot 'choose' to be a sex worker; and the Saville enquiry is not 'the persecution of old men'.

I thought I knew it all when I was 13. I was wrong.

I also had breasts when I was a child of 10. That didn't mean I was sexually or emotionally mature, but it didn't stop classmates groping me, teachers laughing it off, or old men shouting things at me from cars.

Her chambers have released this statement:

I would hope she would lose her job, although given this statement it seems unlikely.