A Reasonable Woman Standard as the Criterion for Judging Sexual Offense Trials in a Case of Stalking after the Termination of a Relationship

Abstract

This article discusses findings regarding the ‘reasonable woman standard’ arising from research entitled “Legal Opinions of Lampang Rajabhat University Law Students on Stalking after the Termination of a Relationship”. One of the objectives of this research was to investigate legal opinions and perceptions of Lampang Rajabhat University law students on stalking after the termination of a relationship. The population for this study was 157 fulltime undergraduate law students at Lampang Rajabhat University. The data were obtained from questionnaires and focus group discussions. The results revealed that after considering the vignette provided, there were differences in legal opinions between male and female students; at a statistically significant level, female students were more likely to consider stalking to be unlawful and to initiate legal proceedings. Focus group discussions showed that female and male students who had experienced being stalked considered stalking to be unlawful. Among stalked students, women stated that they were afraid of being harmed by the stalker, lost their freedom, and that their mental health was affected, whereas men reported that being stalked was threatening, and that it disrupted their lives. On the other hand, most male students who had stalked others believed that stalking was not unlawful because there is no law against it. They disagreed with outlawing stalking because they saw it as a matter of love. The findings therefore harmonize with the debate on the criterion for judging sexual offense trials regarding standards for ‘a reasonable person’ vs. standards for ‘a reasonable woman’. Typically, in a sexual offense case, a reasonable person standard is applied as in a normal case but feminist jurists have suggested that a reasonable person standard should not be the criterion in a sexual offense trial since sexual crimes are normally committed by men against women and thus in a sexual harassment case, the criterion of ‘a reasonable person’ would be unjust for female victims.