The Herald [Scotland] on the legalization of punching women in the face:

Police Scotland is at the centre of a human rights storm after a woman was assaulted during a women’s rights event in Aberdeen. Julie Marshall said she was punched in the arm and head at a rally organised by Women Won’t Wheesht in the city’s Duthie Park on Sunday. The man responsible received a recorded police warning, sparking anger from campaigners about the leniency of the punishment.

In a letter to Sir Iain Livingstone, Police Scotland’s Chief Constable, the policy analysis collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, expressed concerns over the caution.

The police brushed it off.

Police defended the decision, saying they were acting ”in line with the Lord Advocate’s guidelines.”

Those guidelines are not public.

“It is fine for us to do nothing about a man who punched a woman in the face, neck, and arm in public, because our secret guidelines that you can’t see say so.” That’s justice, that’s standing up for women.

Ms Marshall, who said she was in “excruciating pain” after the attack, told The Herald: “I’m really, really angry at Police Scotland. I feel that giving this man a caution after an unprovoked attack, they’re just saying you can punch these women that you don’t agree with and steal their property with impunity and all you are going to get is a slap on the wrist.”

Ms Marshall said the police had not contacted her since she gave them a statement in Duthie Park. “They didn’t call me to let me know that they’ve given the person a caution. They have had absolutely no contact with me at all.

“And I find that absolutely shameful. Women, or any person regardless of what sex they are, who have suffered an episode of violence should be treated with more bloody respect to be quite honest.”

But especially women because we are at a physical disadvantage compared to men, which (coming around full circle) is exactly why men don’t get to pretend to be women in the first place. It’s why we object to this ideology, it’s why the whole thing is such a ludicrous inversion of fairness and rights and respect.