Senator seeks repeal of law against ‘slander of a woman’

[seriousstan]

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — 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 to be prosecuted for it.

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

Kohl-Welles, a women’s studies lecturer at the University of Washington, says the law is a relic of a time when men put women on a pedestal and denied them basic rights
http://www.dispatch.com/national-story.php?story=dispatch/2005/01/25/20050125-A7-02.html&chck=t