You can’t get raped if you wore jeans

There seems to be more and more ridiculous explanations blaming the victim for rape every day. Some of these include: “your outfit provoked him” and “boys will be boys”. And then there’s the denim defense.

In the late 1990s, Italian lawmakers made a ruling suggesting that “women cannot be raped if she is wearing jeans because they are impossible to remove unless she helps.” The case was on an 18 year old women who was raped by her driving instructor. One day during her lesson, the instructor drove to a deserted location and raped her. After the court ruled the case, many were outraged and protested. This was not the only time this happened.

Another case that took place was in Sydney, Australia. In 2008, Nicholas Gonzales was accused of raping a 24 year old woman but was acquitted by the jury. The reason behind this was because of the clothes she was wearing, more specifically her skinny jeans. They came to the conclusion that it was consensual simply because her jeans were too tight. For example, one of the juries commented “I doubt those kind of jeans can be removed without any sort of collaboration.” And again people did not like this denim defense. A movement known as the “denim day” began after the cases.

It seems that everyone else can clearly see that this is an outlandish accusation besides the court. The courts side more with the rapist than with the victim. They are worried about false accusations of rape, even though the percentage of false reporting is really low. Most of the time when someone reports rape it is because they were sexually violated. Why would someone lie about being raped when it’s already too difficult for some people to admit? Lucinda Joy Peach points out how the law is “written by men for men, the law is designed to protect men.” It fails to find men guilty of their crimes and blames the victims instead. Victims are blamed and questioned more than the rapist. Women are asked a long list of questions such as “what were you wearing”, “how much alcohol did you drink” in order to find what she did wrong and not the rapist. So if women are dressed “inappropriately” it’s their fault, but when they wear jeans, in other words “dressed appropriately”, rape still did not occur instead it is consensual and men are still being defended.