A feminism shitstorm erupts in /r/news after a 17 year old girl made a false-rape accusation against a man she slept with for not lending her 20 dollars afterwards. Yep. (np.reddit.com)
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621 comments submitted at 13:44:08 on Oct 7, 2014 by Somenakedguy
False rape accusations like this are awful, but redditors in that thread are making such ridiculous extrapolations. Feminism is not at all relevant to this. There is zero evidence to suggest false rape accusations occur any more than any other type of false accusation of criminal wrong doing. I think what happened here is horrible, but I hate how reddit acts like this some kind of epidemic--its not. That is just a statistical reality. In fact, women who get raped but are ashamed to go to the police is much much more common. Reddit will seldom upvote articles pertaining to this, however.
False rape accusations are a problem. Under reporting of rape and sexual assault is also a problem. Feminists and Men's Rights advocates would actually be able to recognize this if they would stop trying to constantly derail each other by turning the conversation into some kind of dick measuring contest. It doesn't matter - they are both horrible.
The vast majority of feminists and MRA's alike will admit that both rape and false accusations are "horrible". That in and of itself doesn't mean anything. The fact is rape and false accusations are in no way equal and opposite issues deserving of equal consideration. Rape is simply far more prevalent, persistent, and damaging than false accusations. Treating them as if they were equal is counterproductive to dealing with either of them. Comparing them is like comparing littering to industrial pollution; they are both "bad" of course, but nowhere near equally.
I tend to agree that rape is a bit more damaging than false accusations.
On the other hand, the societal problems with false rape allegations are extremely damaging and the social stigma a man can face when bearing the brunt of false rape accusations is intense. In addition to this, with false rape accusations, just like in rape cases, the chances of gaining justice aren't very high.
In rape cases, gaining justice is difficult because many women and men feel afraid of approaching the police and discussing it. By the time they finally come forward, it is too late to do a rape kit and connect the perpetrator of the crime to the woman or man doing the accusing. This can be met with a lot of he said, she said kind of investigation which can lead to heartache for the victim, knowing she has been raped.
In false accusation cases, you have all of the above, but from the man's perspective (I haven't seen any women falsely accused and cannot speak to that). A guy one day is approached by police and put in handcuffs and taken to the station. If this happens in a school setting (I had a high school teacher friend falsely accused by students) then he is seen by all around him and people start discussing, what is going on with him? So he goes to the station and everyone treats him as a horrible piece of crap. He gets the "just come clean" and "Stop trying to play the victim." All while this is happening his name is plastered over the paper...Local area man accused of rape. The word accused the same as guilty to lots and lots of people. So while this is going on his wife/gf starts to distrust him because he is accused of rape. Maybe she's a great person and sticks right by his side. Other people start talking about him, though. He loses friends, he loses his job (we can't have a rapist working here). If he works in the school system, he loses any credibility with parents and can't work in that county anymore. Emotionally, he's been painted as the vilest person on the planet, a rapist. Socially, he's an outcast because who wants to be seen with a rapist. In the justice system, his name is all over the paper as the alleged rapist - no one notices the "alleged" part. After the trial - which could take years - he is proven innocent. Yay, that's the end of it right?
Well, no, because now he has to piece his life together. To the school system he works for he's still the "alleged rapist." To parents and students, "there might have been something to those rape claims." Just being found innocent of a crime does not remove the doubt that was placed there in the minds of society. His life, as it currently stands, is ruined.
Can rape victims and men accused falsely both "bounce back?" Yeah, I think so.
Rape victims can build a strong network. They can speak out, they can demand change to the system. They are strong and I respect every damn one of them for their strength. They talk about their rape, recognize they weren't the ones at fault and work towards making the world a better place.
Men who have been falsely accused move. And start life over. There isn't really another option.
It's not a question of numbers. Rape is by and large a women's issue, but our cultural stigmas are shifting, and we're starting to see that more and more men might actually be getting raped (by women). False rape accusations remain exclusively a male issue; I have never heard a story on the news of a man falsely accusing a woman of rape - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. The dick measuring contest does no favors to no one. Men, especially college-aged men, are terrified at the prospect of being accused of rape when they never had any intention of violating anyone's sexual autonomy. There are campus kangaroo courts sprouting up all over the country that are kicking boys and men out of college and denying them due process.
When women tell men that this is not a real problem, or an insignificant problem, they should not be surprised when men get defensive.
The two problems can exist independently without men and women trying to convince each other that one problem is "worse" than the other. They can both ruin lives permanently.
That's such an absurd position to take: that someone's outrage and fear means that their concern should merit equal consideration. It was bullshit the first time I heard it, and it will never stop being bullshit.
This is how reactionary movements thrive: they think that their outrage to a change of the status quo is evidence that someone is out to get them. More people being prosecuted for rape is a good thing. But lots of people don't see it that way. They don't see bad people being removed from society before they can hurt dozens of people for years and years. They don't see themselves as potential victims.
They see themselves as potential aggressors. They identify with rapists, because they think that they're all male and all their victims are female. And that's what matters -- not the divide between people that hurt people and people that don't, but the divide between women and men. Even though the policies will do nothing but benefit every single person, female or male, who isn't a rapist.
We can't prosecute rapists without hurting all men, they say. Prosecuting rapists is letting women win and criminalizing male sexuality, they say.
That's bullshit. You buy into it because that's exactly what they want you to think. I can't believe it's still surprising in the year 2014 that criminals want you to sympathize with them and demonize their victims and the people who try to stop them.
The kind of men that get defensive when people prosecute rape are the kind of men that sympathize with rapists over rape victims. That needs to fucking stop.
I'm just not even sure how to respond to someone who has made such a ridiculous misrepresentation of everything I just said.
You want to know what's really reactionary? Making such an ignorant blanket claim as to say that prosecuting more people for rape is necessarily a good thing.
I think that prosecuting more people for rape is a good thing if we have the proper procedural and evidentiary safeguards in place to ensure that we are convicting more rapists and less innocent people. I personally do not believe that we have done due diligence to make sure that those safeguards are in place. Reasonable minds can disagree on these things, but you seem more interested in painting me as some kind of Men's Rights shill, which is really annoying.
Making laws that force state universities to set up pseudo-judicial administrative bodies who play judge, jury, and executioner with young adults' lives is dumb. They lack the resources that law enforcement officials have, and have everything to gain by kicking out as many alleged sex offenders as possible without resorting to a traditional criminal trial. It's a stupid, stupid solution to a very serious problem.
I sympathize with rape victims. I sympathize with men who have been erroneously convicted of rape. I don't fucking 'identify with rapists.'
I don't really feel compelled to address the rest of your points because they're pretty much all stuffed with straw. I'm just drawing from my personal experience as a former undergrad college student when I say that myself and my friends, who would never in their lives dream of violating the sexual autonomy of a woman, had our moments where we were afraid that one miscommunication in a sexual encounter could result in getting kicked out of school and losing scholarships.
The fact that it is impossible to bring up these issues without being crucified by people like you shows just how far we have to go in terms of gender relations.
and the kind of women who sends marriage proposals to convicted rapists needs to stop too.
people are dumb.
> Men, especially college-aged men, are terrified at the prospect of being accused of rape when they never had any intention of violating anyone's sexual autonomy.
And some people are scared of terrorism, but that doesn't mean there's a significant chance of it happening to them.
The last major terror attack on US soil was 13 years ago. Colleges all over the country are implementing procedures advocated by women's groups to kick more and more men out of universities without the procedural safeguard of due process that is guaranteed by our Constitution. These administrative bodies lack the resources that law enforcement officials have. They have a strong incentive to kick men out of school in order to repair their image since the popular gender topic du jour is the 'epidemic' of sexual assault.
Is that really the argument you want to make? If so, it's incredibly ignorant and intellectually lazy.
I'm all for kicking rapists out of our universities. I'm not a fan of the erosion of Due Process. This shouldn't be a politically unpopular viewpoint.
> and more men out of universities without the procedural safeguard of due process that is guaranteed by our Constitution.
There's a legal right to be at college? Shit, I did it all wrong by applying.
Aw shit, sick burn dude!
You have a Constitutional right to be tried in a court of law by a jury of your peers if you are accused by a crime, especially a felony like rape. Like I said, this should not be a politically unpopular viewpoint.
I really disagree with you when you try to assert one is worse than the other, as if it's that black and white.
It is that black and white. Rape is damaging not only individually, in terms of the psychological trauma it causes, but on a social level. It destroys families, it corrupts institutions, and the fear and distrust it breeds can ripple through generations. Being falsely accused of rape doesn't create any of these social problems. It is certainly bad for the victims of it, but ultimately it's no worse than being falsely accused of any other major crime.
Edit: Even aside from comparing the effects of the two, saying they are equally bad makes no sense by itself. The only reason false rape accusations are taken seriously to begin with is because rape, or at the very least certain ideas of it, is considered such a vile, despicable act that even an accusation could potentially ruin reputations.
I really think you're off base and underestimating the impact some false rape accusations can have. And honestly I don't even understand why you need to downplay them so much.
Honestly I don't understand why it's so hard for you to understand that different problems have different consequences of different levels of severity. Do you think all crimes should have the exact same punishment? Do you think someone who shoplifted a candy bar should be sentenced the same as if they had stolen a car?
That's not hard to understand at all, you're simply failing to grasp that I believe the level of severity, generalized, for rapes and false rape accusations is similar. You clearly disagree, and that's ok. But understand me, I view both rape and false accusations as very severe. 'Nuff said.
> I believe the level of severity, generalized, for rapes and false rape accusations is similar.
This is a patently absurd opinion to have. Being falsely accused of a crime is nothing like being raped.
What about going in prison?
oh, i didn't realize anyone would think that exists in a vacuum.
for those who don't think things through, allow me to explain:
some percentage of false accusations of rape result in the accused being socially isolated, dragged through court, financially burdened, beaten, raped themselves, murdered, and etc.
that is why i acknowledge the severity of false rape accusations.
> Being falsely accused of rape doesn't create any of these social problems.
Uh, do you even black history? As if millions of people didn't live in mortal dread of false rape accusations, which ended the lives of numerous people and kept many, many more from the full exercise of their civil rights.
False accusations of crimes, not just sensational ones like rape, are one of the cornerstones of racial oppression in America. That's not just "history", that's right now. Except lynch mobs are sort of anachronistic nowadays since the police just do it themselves.
Something tells me you don't actually give a shit about that and are instead trying to "trap" me into some ideological contradiction. "oh noes his anti-racism has bested my feminism! back to tumblr, to fight another day!". Nah.
Nothing of the kind, just pointing out that false accusations can and do create widespread social issues, in direct contradiction to your earlier statement.
Also, love how you assume I don't care about black issues (I'm black) and that I'm male (I'm a woman). As a black woman with a son, I have absolutely no patience for that kind of white feminist nonsense. That's where I'm coming from.
Edit: two words for clarification
I love you. I would like to invite /u/reptar_cereal to read up on the Scottsboro boys and all of the black men who were lynched during Jim Crow due to false rape accusations. Rape is a gender issue *and* a racial issue.
That's why I like to call it a human issue, because it's not just a problem for white women.
>Nothing of the kind, just pointing out that false accusations can and do create widespread social issues, in direct contradiction to your statement.
Where did you point that out? You'll definitely get no argument from me that racism creates a lot of social issues, including false accusations. But unless you are saying that false accusations are the cause of racism, you never pointed out how false accusations create widespread social problems.
>Also, love how you assume I don't care about black issues (I'm black) and that I'm male (I'm a woman). As a black woman with a son, I have absolutely no patience for this kind of white feminist nonsense. That's where I'm coming from.
Well, I'm not white, but I am a feminist, and I apologize for assuming you are a man. I just assume when people try to use racial oppression to justify gender oppression, it comes from a place of privilege, not just ignorance.
Where did they justify gender oppression?
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> Where did you point that out?
Where I pointed out that false accusations curtailed people's exercise of their rights. Just because false accusations didn't birth the entire edifice of racism doesn't mean they didn't create/reinforce a whole set of social issues.
Also, I wasn't saying you're white, but accusing people of "using racial oppression to justify gender oppression" because they think that false rape accusations can (and have, and do) ruin lives is a very stereotypically 'white feminist' thing to do. That along with the original problem I was addressing, which is the idea that false rape accusations almost never happen and even if they do, we should prefer more of those to the status quo because "it's not that bad" for the men who get caught up in such a case. Tell that to the Central Park Five. (I know that's more a case of overzealous policing, but still, tell those guys that being falsely accused of rape isn't that bad.)
Edit: a word
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