There are a great many aspects of the effects the law has in protecting and upholding the rights of women, a great many areas are covered, in fact all elements of the judicial system effect women just as much as men.

Some of the different areas of the law that affect women specifically include: Sex discrimination, equal pay, domestic violence, forcible rape, and equality, to name but a few. Within this essay I intend to examine certain aspects of two of the above; firstly sex discrimination and secondly rape, and to explore the effectiveness of the law in upholding womens rights concerning these two catagories.

The government introduced two laws in the 1970's, a relatively short time ago, and long overdue, the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975, and the Equal pay act of 1970, (which was not put into force until 1975). The Sex Discrimination Act was designed to eradicate discrimination against women and to lawfully secure women's right to equal treatment (although men can also complain of discrimation, but women are afforded special treatment in connection with pregnancy and childbirth). Women had suffered inequality and discrimination for too long without a law t

For women's rights it seems that the law is greatly unsatisfactory when it comes to the issue of rape, and because of the treatment women receive, there are a large number of cases that are unreported, and a large number of aquittals; Barrister Helena Kennedy, who has a great deal of first hand experience of both prosecution and defence states 'I have no doubt that sexuality and reprodution play a role in the judging of women which is not only irrelevant but unequalled by anything that happens to men'. (Helena Kennedy 1992). Ms. Kennedy points out many outrageous injustices concerning the treatment of rape trials, such as; the incredibly low compensation payouts to victims 'they have had difficulty in securing the level of damages that are awarded in road accident cases' (p.28) ; ludicrous situations, whereas a man breaking into the house of a woman to burgle, also rapes her, in these circumstances the judge has to warn the jury of the dangers of convicting the man on uncorroborated evidence in respect of the rape, but that it is not a danger 'so far as the burglary is concerned' (p.118). Ms. Kennedy states " The failure of understanding is nowhere more clearly visible than in the handling of rape cases (p.111) .... I want the inherent prejudices against women to be recognised in the courtroom (p.137).

The Sex Discrimination Act also has limitations concerning attitudes, 'One set of considerations concern the inherent limits of law in changing the nature of society' (April Carter 1988), deep rooted attitudes cannot be simply changed because of a new law being passed, also similarly, another drawback is the attitude and acceptance of the Act by male workers and employers; The London School of Economics (LSE), carried out research on both the Sex Discrimiation Act and the Equal Pay Act between 1974 and 1977 to test their effectiveness in maintaining womens rights, it was found that in a small number of cases the law was not being upheld, but more startling evidence was clearly emerging that employers were changing methods, (within the law) of reclassifying job descriptions, recruitment, and promotion etc. in order to ignore the Sex Discrimination Act and continue in segregating men and women within employment. It was discovered from research in 1979 by the Equal Opportunities Commission that the Sex Discrimination Act 'appeared to have a very limited impact' (April Carter 1988), of 768 establishments surveyed, only 18% had changed their practice in order to meet the required standards of the Act.

According to a recent media report from Duncan Campbell, irrelevant details of the womans past sexual history are increasingly brought up in rape trials, ignoring constraints imposed by the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976, along with humiliating questioning undermining the credibility of the victim, and suggestions, such as the victim wearing innapropriate clothing and underwear are being used. This information has come to light from Professor Sue Lees who has been researching rape trials for the past ten years. Professor Lees notes that 'convictions have fallen to around 10 per cent in 1993, from 24 per cent in 1985 and 37 per cent in 1980. Only 463 out of 4,600 rapes reported in 1993 resulted in convictions'; she asks "does this mean 4,000 men are innocent and all those women are making false accusations?". Professor Lees blames the 'ludicrous amount of acquitals' (everywoman 1996) on the complete bias of male judiciary.

o prevent it, the legislation of the Sex Discrimination Act at least could give women hope for justifyably equal rights, and the social opinion and acceptance that discrimination is wrong. 'Legislation is also

Some topics in this essay:
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