Former Judge Ramsay Proof of Feminist Theory
by Annabel Webb

One couldn’t find better proof of feminist theory than the case of Judge Ramsay.  Look no further than the recent decision to deny him parole.  The 4-page document lays out the trajectory of Ramsay’s escalating violence, beginning with the dehumanizing gaze of pornography, escalating to sexual exploitation of teens, and culminating in his sadistic rapes and assaults of the most vulnerable young women in the community; Indigenous teenage girls whose lives had already been shattered by the brutality of colonization and its resultant violence and poverty.  Ramsay took sadistic pleasure in his power to buy, rape, and brutalize these girls but also in his authority as a judge to jail them and take away their children.

It’s no coincidence that Ramsay’s violence became more sadistic with his appointment to the Bench.  Contrary to the popular notion that a position of authority would lessen the likelihood of such abusive behaviour, feminists understand power to be the source of male sexual and physical violence.  Power, in this case, was also a colonizing power.

The history of assaults and rapes of Indigenous women and girls by white men in positions of trust or authority—priests, police, teachers, lawyers, social workers, prison guards—is long and despicable.  It is also clear evidence that sexual violence is a strategy of colonization; the ultimate use of humiliation and hatred in an attempt to shatter the spirit of Indigenous women and girls.  The violence against Indigenous women and girls in BC is without a doubt genocidal.  Ramsay knew that.

Now Ramsay must face the indignity, dehumanization and violence of the prison system, a fate we as feminists would not wish upon anyone.

Annabel Webb, Co-Founder
Justice for Girls