Naomi - //It was a different world then and I think it's very wrong to judge the past by today's standards. Blimey, if we did that with everything, Alf Garnet would be in the dock! //
You and I have differed on our response to this subject previously, and here we do so again.
Long experience of your posts shows you as a strong woman, and your position indicates that you think that women who are assaulted by men like Travis should respond with a quick kick in the Queensberrys , and a brisk walk in the country, don't forget your headscarf.
The truth remains that a lot of women are not able to dismiss such actions as easily as you clearly feel they should, hence the need for a law to protect them, and punish men who behave in this way.
Of course ''times were different", but that does not that as it is unacceptable now, it was actually acceptable then.
It wasn't, but society's attitudes were that women were simply lesser citizens, and their rights not to be assaulted in the work placed by any man who felt like it, simply did not exist.
It's not a matter of attributing today's attitudes to yesterday's behaviours - assault was a crime when Mr Travis committed it, which is why he was tried and convicted for it.
As for your analogy of Alf Garnet - that is particularly inappropriate since Mr Garnet's entire creation was a satyric pointer at the absurdity of dinosaur bigoted attitudes.
Better perhaps would be the example that it was acceptable at one time for children to be worked to exhaustion so they they fell into mill machinery.
It was acceptable, but that does not mean it was right.
Your apparent attempts to justify Mr Travis by minimising the effect of his behaviour, and apparently attempting to dismiss it as simply being what went on at the time, flies in the face of your normal approach of reason and fairness, and does your gender no favours.
Unlike my factual posts regarding Mr Travis, this is my opinion, and I fully expect us to continue to agree to differ on it.