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Here's why women across globe are sharing their underwear pictures with #ThisIsNotConsent

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avina vidyadharan
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Here's why women across globe are sharing their underwear pictures with #ThisIsNotConsent

'When underwear decides consent', protests staging #ThisIsNotConsent is inevitable (Twitter photo)

People across the globe have taken it to social media to share pictures of their underwear with the hashtag #ThisIsNotConsent, to show outrage over a 27-year-old man acquitted of rape charges in Ireland based on the teen survivor’s thongs.

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The Irish Examiner reports that on November 6, the criminal court in the city of Cork declared the defendant "not guilty" of raping a 17-year-old. During the rape trial, a defence lawyer held up the teenager's underwear in court and told the jury: "Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front."

Based on the evidence shown, the jury of eight men and four women let the accused man walk free.

However, the people in Ireland were bewildered and shocked, which fired a spark of public outrage among the people. Many women objected to the idea of using underwear to imply consent.

"We had hoped that as a society we had moved on from these archaic, victim-blaming rape myths," said Susan Dillon to CNN. Ms Dillon founded up the "I Believe Her - Ireland" Twitter page that came up with the 'This is not consent' hashtag.

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Since the outrage, several men and women across the world have been posting pictures of underwear to protest the trial outcome.

Irish politician Ruth Coppinger too took her stand in protest against the jury decision and shared the lacy underwear picture on her Twitter handle with a caption that read, “I hear cameras cut away from me when I displayed this underwear in #Dail. In courts victims can have their underwear passed around as evidence and it's within the rules, hence need to display in Dail."

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Protests now being held across the country - in Galway, Limerick, Dublin, Belfast, and Cork - to support the social media campaign.

The melancholy of the misogynist society is that it is trying to turn every possible stone to blame the survivor rather than punishing the rapist. 

Ireland ThisIsNotConsent women protests