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Here, 'slander of a woman' is crime

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Go ahead, call state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles a scurvy wench, a wanton strumpet, a shameless hussy.

She probably won't like it, but she doesn't want you prosecuted for it.

The Seattle Democrat is sponsoring a bill to repeal a 1909 Washington state law that makes "slander of a woman" a crime.

It is not that Kohl-Welles, a women's studies lecturer at the University of Washington, wants to hear women slandered. But she believes the law is a relic of a time when men put women on a pedestal and denied them basic rights.

"This is one of those old laws that is really irrelevant now," Kohl-Welles said, adding that it almost surely violates state and U.S. constitutions.

The statute prohibits "false or defamatory words or language which shall injure or impair" the virtuous and chaste reputation of any female over 12. The law does say it is okay to slander a "common prostitute."

The law has not been used for decades. The state Supreme Court upheld it in 1914, affirming the conviction of Mattie T. Paysse, who had been fined $50 for slandering another woman. Paysse's offending words did not make it into the historical record.

Kohl-Welles first introduced the bill two years ago, but it never got a vote in the Republican-controlled state Senate. With Democrats controlling both chambers this year, she thinks the bill has a strong chance of passing.

[Last modified January 25, 2005, 01:21:08]