[On Julian Assange] The super-hacker appears to be relaxed about links with authoritarian regimes, presenting a chat show for Russia Today, a state-f… - Joan Smith

Shocking though the Savile revelations are, they have to be seen in a wider context. His behaviour was enabled by a revolution in sexual behaviour that was supposed to liberate both sexes, but actually offered endless opportunities to unscrupulous men. Its effects were far-reaching, creating poisonous attitudes towards victims of sexual abuse that are still being recycled in rape trials today. But it has also prompted a feminist critique that is vital if we’re ever going to understand the context that men like Savile operate in, and stop them at an early stage in their criminal careers.

It's time his double standards were spelled out: Assange has used his hacking skills to turn himself into a worldwide phenomenon, and now he demands for himself exactly the same impunity he excoriates in politicians.

[During the 1981 trial of Peter Sutcliffe, commonly known as the Yorkshire Ripper.] I remember having terrible nightmares during the trial, feeling that the police were misunderstanding things badly because they insisted that Sutcliffe had a moral stand. To me it was clear his crimes expressed a simple, virulent loathing of the female which did not need fancy explanations like those arrived at by the police. The thing is that most people in the book are not what ordinary people would describe as outcasts; they are ordinary men. That was why it was important to end up with the Ripper. Because what is important about him is that he is not different; it's only a question of degree.
I don't go along with the idea that all men are rapists or that they are the product of Original Sin, rather that we have a culture which supports and encourages misogyny and what we have to face is that a sizeable number of men hold very strange and perverted views about women.