Feminism on Trial

Within hours of the verdict, Ginny was addressing members of the media in a press conference at the law offices of Reed and Glass. Freed from the constraints of not being able to comment on an ongoing legal matter, she was now at liberty to speak her piece, and she did.

The prosecutors, she implied, were guilty of sexism in taking the word of an alcoholic schizophrenic who assaulted women. She told reporters that her case was a symbolic one, and proclaimed the verdict as "a victory for all women whose plight in life is to have to stay in a position because of social mores. When they choose to move on they run the risk of being prosecuted." She went on to reassert her feminist leanings and her determination to move on with her life and career within the movement. The proceeds from her book, as well as from a movie being made on her life, she said, were going toward a defense fund for battered women.

But the verdict, though a clear personal victory for Ginny, was by no means a conclusive vote on her innocence. Many of Ginny's comments at the press conference made the evening news and, on hearing them, some of the jurors in her case began to express their own opinions now that they were no longer sequestered and under a gag order. Some were astonished by her statement that the verdict was a victory for the feminist cause. That cause, they maintained, was not what was on trial. This was not a "political trial," as Ginny called it soon after it was over.

The jurors who spoke for the record were quick to remind their interviewers that their vote was based largely on "reasonable doubt"; on their utter disdain for Jack Sidote and his disreputable character. The jury foreman commented that, "After we saw Sidote, Ginny Foat could have taken the Fifth on everything and it wouldn't have mattered." The foreman also told a reporter, "She was acting like she'd become a martyr for the cause, and for that reason, I don't trust her. Seeing her on television, I wanted to tell people, 'Hey, we found Ginny Foat not guilty, we didn't find her innocent."