Introduction

• Author: Constance Backhouse
• Pages: 3-13

E ChapterF

INTRODUCTION

Sastonishingly widespread throughout Canadian

history. It emerges out of disparities in power between men and women,

adults and children, and those w ith and without the privileges of class, race,

ethnicityheterosexualityphysicalmental ability and other variables that

create hierarchies among individuals. To pursue the study of when and how

people with power perpetrate sexual assault upon the less powerful is to

begin to unmask ine qualities that manifest themselves through sexua l coer

cionandviolenceToreviewhowour legalsystemcharacterizesthew rong

of sexual assault puts the phenomena into sharper foc us. It brings us face to

face with the raw power of law, along with the enormous potential and ap

palling failures at the root of t he Canadian justice system.

This book takes nine cas es ofse xual assault and proles in detail the

people, the places, and the legal proceedings involved, using a method that

somehavedescribedasmicrohistoryItbeginswiththetrialofJosephGray

aLondon Ontario teamster charged with rapinga middleaged boarding

housekeeperMar y Ann Burton in It movesto Québec Cit y in 

wherefourteenyearoldYvonneCollintestiedshewasgangrapedbyeight

youngworkingclass menoutfor aspree in adashi ngmotorvehicle Itex

plor esa lle gat ion sof dat erap ei nt heRo ar in gTwent ies i nHa li fax in be 

tweenafashionableSimpsonssalesclerkandaDalhousiemedicalstudentIt

retells the story of Velma Demerson, who told no one that she was raped in

whenshewentoutforadrivewithanadmirerinanautomobileinSaint

JohnNew Brun swick Itexplai ns howt he same womanmore th an sixty

