Elisabeth, I have not responded to your story lately, because I felt that it portrayed Lois in a too disagreeable light. I felt it reinforced all the negative stereotypes about Lois: she is a bitch, she needs to be taught a lesson, she needs to be put in her place by a man.
However, in this part, we learn that Lois has been raped in the past. Not only that, but when she reported the rape she was humiliated by the police, and she was similarly mocked and treated condescendingly by the doctor she saw for her injuries:
“I’m fine,” Lois retorted, pulling her hand out of his grasp. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Come on. Let’s call the police, and then I’m taking you to the doctor.”
“No police. No doctors. I’m fine,” Lois decided.
“But Lois, if we don’t call the police these guys will just do it again.”
“Even if we do call the police these guys will do it again. I’m not going through the humiliation.”
“At least let me take you to the doctor.”
“I told you, Kent. No doctors. Going to the doctor is like being raped all over again. Forget it.”
This is a part of an article that you can read today, on February 1 2007, in the British newspaper The Guardian:
'I coped with being raped," says Jane Lewis, who was attacked by a man two years ago at the party where they met, "but I went mad when he was acquitted. That is when I started fantasising about killing him." She later discovered that he had been accused of rape four times previously: twice not charged, and twice acquitted by a jury.
Today, rape might as well be legal. With women frequently accused of making false allegations, and victims who had consumed alcohol blamed for "getting themselves raped", it is a wonder that the conviction rate for reported rapes is as high as the current figure of 5%.
A woman accuses a man of rape. Not only is he acquitted, but his victim finds out that the same man has been accused of committing rape four times before, but he was not found guilty on a single occasion. Please note the conviction rate for reported rapes in Great Britain today is 5%; so if a rape is reported to the police, the man has a 95% chance of
not being found guilty.
Being raped is equivalent to being violated twice. First by the rapist, then by society which protects the rapist and mocks and humiliates the victim.
So if Lois is a rape victim, I can suddenly understand and sympathize with every bit of her bitchiness. No wonder she is on the defensive. No wonder she doesn't trust men. No wonder she believes that men are all in cahoots with one another, so that the best thing a woman can do is stay away from them and learn tae kwondo. Or, in this case, pumsae. (What the heck is that, by the way?)
Anyway. I much approve of this development, particularly that you gave Lois a good reason for her distrust of men. In that article I quoted from the Guardian, the rape victim said that she fantasised about killing the man who violated her. I most certainly don't want Lois to be a killer, but I hope that when Clark finally wins her over, as he inevitably must, not only Lois but also Clark will have been taught a lesson about how society turns a blind eye to the victims - and sometimes not even the good guys understand what is going on.
Ann
