Those Who Are Falsely Accused of Rape and Victims Who Aren't Believed Are Both Victims of the Same Culture of Sexual Violence

Lori Adelman says (emphasis mine)

Insofar as it’s true that the tale of the falsely accused rapist is a man’s worst nightmare, it’s also a feminist’s worst nightmare. False rape accusations- and false accusations of any kind, really, aren’t good for anyone. They shouldn’t be framed as an anti-feminist issue any more than sexual assault should be framed as solely a feminist issue. It’s when the quest for justice becomes an anti-woman bashing session that feminists have to step in.

Source: Feministing

This is not only entirely obvious but entirely true.

Quick question: who's more likely to file a false rape report?  A radical feminist, a mainstream feminist, a "I'm not a feminist but..." feminist, or a woman with no notion of feminism except maybe a second-hand anti-feminist-inspired belief that whatever feminism is it's bad and wrong?

I mean, what exactly are the common accusations of false rape supposed to be based on here?  According to even the bitterest proponents of false-accusation theory say the primary motivations for those who admit* they filed false accusations are

  • Needed an alibi to explain shame or embarrassment over pregnancy, STI, other evidence of sexual activity, truancy, etc. (50%)
  • "Rage, revenge, or retribution" against a real or perceived wrong, rejection, or betrayal by the accused (27-44%)
  • The remainder is a mix of attention-garnering disorders like Munchausen and borderline personality, criminal extortion, and "unspecified."

None of those reasons rank really high on the old feminist agenda.  Not even the Rush-Limbaugh-fueled "feminazi" one!  In fact, I'm... pretty sure you'll never find exactly zero feminists who advocate filing false rape reports.**

Adelman continues

[I]t’s frustrating to me that there’s such a strong relationship between false rape activists and anti-feminists, because in reality feminists and those trying to reduce instances of false rape accusations have a lot of overlap and a lot in common. We both want a fair and effective justice system. We both want to reduce stigma and discrimination around cases of sexual assault. We both want to find ways to facilitate more honest and truthful dialogue around rape, sexual assault, and violence in our communities and justice systems.

Same here.  It's 100% bullshit for anyone to "cry rape."  It's also 100% bullshit for an actual rape victim's account be, well, discounted. Because...

Ok, another quick question: what percent of rapes that aren't reported are actual rapes?  Ooh, that's kind of an oxymoron isn't it?  And if you figure that even opponents acknowledge that most "real" rapes go unreported we're still looking at a fuck of a lot of unpunished actual rapes and sexual assaults that false-rape activists and feminists alike have a definite and mutual interest in bringing to justice.

Now Adelman brings an accusation that while perfectly accurate is only 50% complete

[M]any men’s rights groups take up the cause of false rape accusations with great gusto, but that their enthusiasm for seeking justice through the law rarely extends to victims of sexual assault.

Again, this is as perfectly true as MRA accusations that feminists don't bring as much enthusiasm for extending sympathy for those who really are falsely accused of rape as they do for seeking justice against those who are legitimately accused.

And I'll just go out on a limb here and say that a) anyone who doesn't take the falsely accused seriously (too many feminists) or b) anyone who doesn't take the falsely disbelieved seriously (an astonishing percentage of anti-feminists and MRAs) needs to step up and see this as two sides of one single problem.

Look, I can see both sides of this issue really, really clearly.  A European immigrant friend was falsely accused of sexually abusing his pre-school-aged daughter based on bathtub photos that a clerk in a Mississippi River town Walmart thought looked suspicious.  (The photos in question wouldn't have warranted a second glance on either coast.)  The process of defending himself basically bankrupted him, nearly ruined his reputation, and tied his extended family in knots.  He wasn't allowed to see his daughter without "supervision" until middle school!  So yeah, false accusations disfigure and burn like acid in the face.

But then again I've sat and talked through the night with women friends who sure as shit were raped and weren't believed, or were so afraid they wouldn't be believed, or knew the family of the rapist*** had enough money, influence, and reputation to first publicly drag her scruffy, lower-class, not-a-virgin self through the mud and then get their son acquitted anyway.  And yeah, true accusations that nobody will take seriously are also symptoms of a deeply, disgracefully diseased society.

So I'm going to put this really simply: if you're an MRA who doesn't put as much heart and soul into insuring all real victims of rape are heard, believed, taken seriously, and see justice done then you're actually not serious about resolving the problem of false accusations of rape.

Meanwhile if you're an activist who doesn't put as much heart and soul into insuring that false accusations of rape is universally understood to be as intrinsically and inextricably deep a manifestation of rape culture as rape itself then you're not serious about resolving the problem of rape not being taken seriously either.

Rape is sexual violence and it happens often enough that everybody should take it seriously.  False accusations of rape and sexual assault are also sexual violence and while not at all as common as rape (since, remember MRAs, most real cases go unreported) and should also be taken seriously.

The problems are nearly inextricably linked, and they'll remain linked till they're addressed head on by advocates for victims of both.

* Probably a really bad idea to pick those who've just been pressured to plead guilty to lesser charges though.  Turns out that can really backfire.

** In fact you might find the opposite! A California anti-rape activist from the 1970s quoted in one of the old Whole Earth Catalogs recommended that rape victims tell police that their assailants only indecently exposed themselves.  Her reasoning went like this: rape victims are almost never believed unless they've got stab wounds, when charges are filed rape defendants are acquitted, when rape defendants are convicted they're often treated with respect by fellow prisoners, and when they get out of jail they're out of jail and that's usually that.  Meanwhile, though, accusations of indecent exposure are taken very seriously, accusers are almost always believed, defendants are rarely acquitted, if convicted of indecent exposure they receive virtually zero respect from fellow prisoners, and at least in California at the time anyone convicted of indecent exposure (but weirdly not, at the time, those convicted of rape) must register as a sex offender every time he moved for the rest of his life.

*** The same very-wealthy surgeon's son who years earlier had assaulted and nearly raped me and did rape the other boy he cornered me with.  And no, neither of us reported it either.


Tags:

Feminism is mainly reliant on

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sat, 2011-06-11 17:00.

Feminism is mainly reliant on a collection of false allegations about men, rape, domestic violence and the nature of reality.

Here is a paper about how feminists distorted the truth about domestic violence.

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V74-gender-symmetry-with-gramham-Kevan-Met...

and another

http://www.familieslink.co.uk/download/july07/Politics%20of%20research.pdf

And feminism is guilty of doing the same thing with rape. Women rape men as often as vise versa..

http://feck-blog.blogspot.com/search/label/Raped%20males

Valenti has called the presumption of innocence to be removed for men accused of rape, so she is playing into the hands of the false accusers.

 "This who are falsly accused and victims that arent believed are part of the same culture of sexual violence.."

These people are delusional idiots, if half all rape accusations werent false, and feminism hadn't created an environment where accusations of rape are thrown around like confetti, rape victims wouldnt be treated with such suspicion.

Feminism - the movement that cried wolf and Valenti and co. are up to their necks in feminist false allegation culture.

So I take it you're 100%

Submitted by figleaf on Sat, 2011-06-11 20:26.

So I take it you're 100% rejecting my request that a) feminists take false accusations more seriously and b) that anti-feminists take rape more seriously? Because having seen both sides I think anyone who takes only one side or the other is responsible for the perpetuation of both. --fl

Here's why I only associate

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-14 22:55.

Here's why I only associate myself with the Men's Rights side of things, right now. Call me out of I'm wrong, but don't just dismiss my position as one that perpetuates a problem.

My beef with modern feminism is that, as you said, there's very little acceptance of false accusations as a problem. This has results. Denialism and maginalization of falsely accused leads to the mentality that less evidence should be required to convict someone of rape. You see this all the time, from presumption of guilt in rape cases to declaring all unsolved rape cases to be ones where a rapist got away, to making ridiculous claims about how insignificant false claims are. It all leads to one notion, the notion that when a man is accused of being a rapist, that man is a rapist. They're unwilling, however, to come out and state that their goal is to increase conviction rates in cases where someone is accused of sexual assault, a hesitation that becomes apparent when you ever confront someone about it. If you don't believe me, find someone who thinks rape is under-reported or under-convicted and ask them what they'd do about it, then ask them to justify the false imprisonments their solutions will result in. Doing this is what made me look in to men's rights issues.

Anyways, the question, then, is what about anti-feminists not taking rape seriously? My question to you is where did that come from? The simple truth is that you don't send someone to jail unless you have very good evidence that they committed a crime. It's also a simple truth that in most rape cases, it's her word against his, and it's figuring out whether or not sex was consentual. Without more evidence, it is impossible to be beyond a reasonable doubt. Apart from stepping up searches for evidence and training cops to find real, usable facts about these casts (all of which any decent MRA would agree with), what do you expect anti-feminists to do to acknowledge rape as a serious issue? What I've been seeing on the blogosphere, so far, suggests that the solution should amount to sacrificing innocent men to prison so that more actual rapists can get punished.

If you find me a solution that jails more rapists and makes more women come forward without increasing the amount of men falsely imprisoned or accused, then I'll be behind it, because I take rape seriously. If you can't find such a solution, then you have no right to say that I don't care about rape if I adamantly oppose solutions that don't meet those standards. You can't argue give and take when the subject is "beyond a reasonable doubt", because criminal law can't be broken down to a comrpomise, like that.

No, I'm not rejecting the

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 02:56.

No, I'm not rejecting the feministing article.

Feminists can't take false accusations seriously, because the volume of false accusations that is showing up in the reserch is unacceptable to them and they fight to keep infirmation like that suppressed. If the volume of false accusations were common knowledge, the feminist rape industry would be damaged, as would the movements rhetoric and main soapbox and genuine rape victims credability would suffer. Making false allegations about rape and other abuse is central to feminism. Removing false allegations about rape, would mean banning a lot of feminist speech.

THE TRUTH BEHIND LEGAL DOMINANCE 

FEMINISM’S “TWO PERCENT FALSE 

RAPE CLAIM” FIGURE 

Edward Greer*

I. INTRODUCTION

For at least the last decade, Legal Dominance Feminism (LDF) 1 has been the predominant voice on sexual abuse within legal academia.2

However, many of its empirical claims regarding the sexual abuse of women are erroneous.

http://ncfm.org/libraryfiles/Children/rape/greer.pdf

As for anti-feminists not talking rape seriously enough. I'm pretty sure that most anti-feminists believe in getting the truth about rape out and breaking then feminst myths surrounding it. The feminist rape culture, in which rape of females is exaggerated and used as a political tool, marginialises all other rape victims and protects all rapists that arent heterosexual males, viewing rape as a social problem that knows no politics or gender is taking rape seriously, talking about the history of child sex abuse by females in the lives of violent male sex offendeds is talkign rape seriously, bit feminists want that speech suppressed.  What feminism does - uses rape as and rape victims as political capital and a cash cown is not taking rape seriously, its exploitation. Also, the culture already takes rape of women very seriously. The view that it doesn't is another politically useful feminist myth about rape.

Hmm... Most feminists I know

Submitted by figleaf on Sun, 2011-06-12 06:20.

Hmm... Most feminists I know acknowledge that violent sexual assault and rape have been declining since anti-rape activism kicked in around 1972-1974.  Even including the expanded definitions

Not sure where your correspondent gets his 2% figure -- the lowest credible feminist source I can think of sets the rate of false reports among women who report being assaulted to the police at 5.9%.  (So anyone who tries to tell you only 2% of reports is full of shit.)  On the other hand, the highest credible criminologist source i can think of sets the rate of false reports among women who report being assaulted to the police is right around 50% with half of those never specifying or identifying an assailant.  (So anyone who tries to tell you that 90% of reports are false is also full of shit.)  

Anyway, the credible rate of false *reports* of rape to police is therefore somewhere between 5.9% and 50% with false *accusations* of rape falling somewhere between roughly 3% and 25%.

And either way that figure is appallingly too high for exactly the reasons Adleman articulates, above.  False reports really are a feminist nightmare.

But you're saying no, all victims would be believed if only it weren't for all those feminists filing false accusations.

Which makes you every bit as guilty for the status quo as feminists who claim there's no such thing as a false rape report at all.

Well, feminism promots the

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 12:59.

Well, feminism promots the lies that rape victims arent taken seriously and that the conviction rate for rape is low compared to other crimes, for political gain which will discourage genuine victims from coming forward. Another thing that feminism does is pomotes the throwing of rape accusations around like confetti, Ive been posting with feminists for years now and Ive been accused of being a rapist, child abuses, psychpath, woman hater, rape apologist etc ... more times than I can remember. So I do believe that feminism creates a culture in which false accusations are encouraged.

Im not suggesting that all rape victims would be believed were it not for feminism. I am saying that at this stage, from over exploitation of rape, its a bit like the girl who cried wolf, to me anyway.

The issue with a lot of

Submitted by AB (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 04:10.

The issue with a lot of anti-feminism is that it credits feminism with policies and memes that were in place long before the movement itself. In this case, I'm not as interested in surveys alleging that false rape accusations are both rampant and done mainly by feminists, I'm more curious if anyone has any proof that before feminism took over the world in 1969 (or whenever the official date is supposed to be), rape victims were taken seriously and not treated like sluts/gays/liars/damaged goods. Does anyone have any useful examples?

Rape laws in the UK date back

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 12:43.

Rape laws in the UK date back to the 1800s. And there is a story about a false rape allegataion the bible I think, the false rape allegation as a means to harm a target is very old, there have always been men that take it upon themselves to punish other men for rape.

I had a quote from a famous legal person from the 1800s on the difficulties with rape cases, and it was pretty much the same sort of thing that we say today but with more recognition given to the likelyhood of a false allegation, if I can lay my hand on it again Ill publish it here.

So what you're saying is that

Submitted by AB (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 13:17.

So what you're saying is that before feminism (or at least before it gained any political influence) rape victims weren't treated any better, and were in fact met with more suspicion than today? And this is before we take into account that one of the rarest forms of rape (forceful stranger rape) was practically the only one acknowledged, while marital rape was legal. And yet you claim that if feminism will just stop advocating to get rape taken more seriously, people will stop treating victims with suspicion?

No if you read my posts

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 14:29.

No if you read my posts again, you will see that I didnt say any of those things. I simply responded to your request for information on rape laws predating the 1960s or what ever date you gave.

The level of suspicion that rape victims recieve is relative to the credibility of their story and the high rate of false reporting. The police know that half of all the claims are b/s, but they have to investigate them none the less.

Feminism has without a doubt improved things for female rape victims but lying to people about a low conviction rate, the police being in on a "rape culture" discourages genuine victims (see my links on that to FL at the bottom of the page) and generally using rape as a political soap box, cash cow and falsely accusing political opponents of being rapists or rape apologists the whole time can cause people to become jaded, me for example.

That said there are great numbers of the population that are convinced that rape is the crime that trumpes all crimes, which of course the overwhelming majority of the time, rape isnt particularly heinous.

My own experiences of being raped and sexually assaulted were much the same as the majority of the 1 in 4, you just brush it off and move on, even continue seeing the person.

And marital rape is still perfectly legal for women as far as I know, so if thats OK, there was nothing wrong with there being an absense of rape laws for men in the past. And of course, the idea that before there were marital rape laws, that a large % of married women were being routinly raped, is a feminist myth.

"marital rape is still

Submitted by figleaf on Sun, 2011-06-12 15:26.

"marital rape is still perfectly legal for women as far as I know"  Funny, as far as I know it's not.  Also, as I mentioned to Clarence, the false-reporting rate is as high as it is not because rape is so rare but because most women and virtually all men know that people like you will call them liars if they come forward.  The result being that the only ones who do come forward are either a) liars or b) people stupid enough to believe they'll get justice with people like you saying only liars report rape or else c) people with knife wounds.

I'm devastated to hear that you were sexually assaulted or raped.  I'm more sorry than I can say that you went to the police, an emergency room, or a crisis center to report it.  I'm also somewhat surprised no one at all believed you since the first person to disabuse me of the idea that a man can't be raped by a woman was... a radical feminist director of a women's shelter and rape-relief program.  But I expect you've got this notion from somewhere that feminists say it can't happen.  And so you never bothered to find out.

Instead, after your own experience, you decided that... what... nobody believed you so everybody else must be a liar.

And then you show up on a post about how it's as important for feminists to acknowledge and help deal with false rape reports as it is for victims like yourself to be believed.  And go throwing gasoline on the fire.

Look.  I'm raising my daughter, and my son, so they'll understand why they'll never need to falsely report a rape.  Meanwhile you're doing everything in your power to make sure they'll never report a real one.  I'm trying to create a society where nobody gets raped in the first place.  Whether you mean to or not you're trying to create a society where nobody (including yourself!) ever reports one!  As one victim of sexual assault to another, don't *do* that.

figleaf

FL - " because most women and

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 16:31.

FL - " because most women and virtually all men know that people like you will call them liars if they come forward. "

No, this is a feminist lie, the police investigate all rape claims.

 

FL- "b) people stupid enough to believe they'll get justice "

Rape has a conviction rate comparable to other crimes, the more you repeat that feminist lie, the more genuine rape victims will decide not to come forward (see the stern report) which increases the number of false allegstions.

 

FL - "with people like you saying only liars report rape"

I've clearly said that the research I've seen indicates that half are liars, so Im saying that half are telling the truth. Stop strawmanning me!

 

I have been raped many times, but you misunderstand me, like the majority of rapes that show up in 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 studies, they were the sort if incidents people just brush off. ie. getting drunk and having sex with a pushy person that you wouldnt orginarly have had sex with, gave in to a partner when I wasnt in the mood etc. Most rapes that are recorded in these 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 type studies arent heinous crimes at all but experiences that many of us have had, regardless of our gender.

 

 

Don't bother.  Written laws

Submitted by figleaf on Sun, 2011-06-12 14:58.

Don't bother.  Written laws about rape, false rape accusations, and laws surrounding it, go back at least 6,000 years -- way further back than the Bible.  And laws in England about it go back 600-800 years.  And every one of those laws assumes that women *always* want to be raped.  Because until about 250-300 years ago everyone assumed, essentially, that it was impossible to rape a woman because their amoral, overwhelming animal urges for pregnancy made it not only impossible for them to say no but almost certain to initiate it themselves.  And thus all those laws, again going back at least 6,000 years, assume that unless basically she shows evidence of having been violently murdered first she wasn't implicitly "asking for it" she was literally *asking* for it.  And, finally, as a result all those laws considered (and parts of the U.S. that remain based on English Common Law still consider) rape to be a crime against a woman's father or husband.  A *property* crime!

Only one little flaw with any of that: you jumped in with a rather viscous claim that false-rape claims were all feminism's fault.  And further that if it wasn't for feminists there's be no problem with false accusations.  So saying laws date back 200 years (they go back 30 times longer) or saying you know about a man who said this or that, kind of undermine your argument that it's all feminist's fault.

Meanwhile, though, this whole post is about what?  Feminist *condemnation* of false-rape reports.

So... what's your point?

figleaf

Is that revisionist history

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 16:17.

Is that revisionist history from a feminist source? And I don't see why pro feminist people need to go back 100s or 1000s of years to argue points today.

Look, as Ive said a couple of times, Im not saying that false accusations are all feminisms fault.

Im saying that some of the lies that feminism tells about rape discurage genuine rape victims (see the stern report) and that feminist exploitation of rape can foster an environment for false allegations through normalising false allegations to the point that they are thrown around like confetti (Ive been called a rapist and a rape apologist by feminists more time than I can remember), while (usually) denying that false allegations are a problem.

In addition, the feminist drive to remove the legal safe guards that are / were in place to protect the accused from false allegations, is the willful creation of a false rape allegation culture much the same as has been done with domestic violence, the presumption of innocence is gone for men and not evidence is necessary. 

If your arguement is claiming that Im saying that there would be no false allegations were it not for feminism, when clearly Im not, you dont really have an arguement.

OMG Figleaf, I actually find

Submitted by Clarence (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 09:32.

OMG Figleaf, I actually find myself AGREEING with you as to the numbers of false accusations. I personally have always put it between 10 and 20 percent , and while I realize I might be wrong, I'd be shocked if it was under 8 percent or 25.

But between 8 and 25 percent makes it a huge problem, to the extent you can't ignore the possibility when setting up your rape prevention and punishment philosophies. Indeed, one of my primary gripes against feminism is that, for the most part, that is exactly what most anti-rape organizations have done.

I can also readily think that there are  more false "sexual assault" reports in general than false rape reports because filing a false claim of groping or whatever is seen as less serious than rape and so can be more easily rationalized when one wants to cover up one's bad behavior. After all a regular sexual assault accusation won't ruin someone's life, right? Hell, I tell little white lies from time to time. Thus finding tons of sexual assault on campus -when many campuses will not punish women for alcohol violations if they claim they were sexually assaulted or raped  - is a concern.

The research I've seen puts

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 12:49.

The research I've seen puts it at closer to half of all rape accusations being false, and SAVE just published the resuts of the first large survey on false allegations, including child and spousal abuse just over 1 in 10 people say that they have been falsely accused of some form of abuse in court.

 

"But between 8 and 25 percent

Submitted by figleaf on Sun, 2011-06-12 13:31.

"But between 8 and 25 percent makes it a huge problem, to the extent you can't ignore the possibility when setting up your rape prevention and punishment philosophies."

The whole point of this post is to agree that it's a huge problem!  It's part and parcel of both rape culture ("hmm... what's the worst thing I can accuse him of?") and of victim blaming ("that one bitch cried rape so you can't trust anyone.")  Both are catastrophic both to feminist objectives and to whatever percentage of the rest of the population that actually cares about rape.

As for prevention and punishment philosophies, I agree there's a pronounced chicken/egg thing going on where most victims (women or men) don't go to the police because they know that a) the likelihood that they'll be believed in the first place is low and b) the likelihood that that an arrest and trial will end in a conviction is even lower.  As a result the ratio of people filing false reports to filing genuine ones is desperately skewed... with the result that even fewer people who really could use a little justice come forward.

Remember, that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of people getting assaulted, just that most of them aren't reporting them to the police.

For that reason coming down hard on false reports is really important.  But, paradoxically, so is keeping that the fewer false rape reports that are filed them more *authentic* ones are likely to be file.  Which, in turn might lead to, you know, a further downturn in the number of assaults due to increased certainty of arrest.  Which would be an far better chicken/egg situation to be in.

figleaf

What I was saying was that

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 13:52.

What I was saying was that the conviction rate for rape is comparable with that of other crimes, feminism spreads the lie that its not. Feminism also tells women that they wont be believed at the police station, which is also a lie, the truth is that reports of rape are taken seriously, until certain accusers arent because their stories are falling apart.

By spreading these myths, feminism can promote itself and get outraged people to support the movement, but it discourages genuine victims from coming forward,

How feminism make it appear as if the conviction rate is lower than that of other crimes.

http://www.straightstatistics.org/article/how-panic-over-rape-was-orchestrated

The Stern Report that found that recommends not lying to the public about the conviction rate to encourage more victims to come forward.

http://www.equalities.gov.uk/pdf/Stern_Review_of_Rape_Reporting_1FINAL.pdf

What feminism calls rape culture, is really a collection of the movements own lies and myths about rape.

I believe that feminism is the actually most active abuse / rape culture in operation in society because it uses bogus stats to con the public into believe that there is a gendered element to abuse which in turn hides all the victims and abusers that arent politically useful.

Yeah, see, this is why I

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 17:49.

Yeah, see, this is why I don't tell people IRL about being assaulted. Because they'll just assume I was drunk or flirting with the guy or lying. Anything is more credible than the idea that a woman might be telling the truth, right?

I think that you are missing

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Mon, 2011-06-13 05:19.

I think that you are missing the point that I'm making.

Firstly, if you go to the police the will take you seriously unless you story doesnt add up.

Secondly, rape is the most over blown, crime that there is and rape victims are privilaged by comparison to victims of most other crimes in terms of support services, funding and sympathy, but they are victimised by feminism constantly telling the lies that rape and sexual assault are the worst crimes there is, that the whole culture was in on it, that it's mainly men doing it to women, that rape has a lower conviction rate that other crimes, and women are underseige ect..... whoich is all for political gain.

What damamges the credibility of rape sexual assault victims are the high false reporting rates and the fact that feminism overuses rape and sexual assaulf for political gain.

 

And In think that when you say  "Yeah, see, this is why I don't tell people IRL about being assaulted. Because they'll just assume I was drunk or flirting with the guy or lying. Anything is more credible than the idea that a woman might be telling the truth, right?" 

I think that 1) you are exagerating for effect 2) you have definatly told a number of people and they believe you 3) no one wants to go around telling everyone that they have been sexually assaulted anyway, I feel no need too. 4) unless you are a person thats known to tell lies to gain attention, and your story makes sense, you do have credability in my eyes.

 

Just to add something here

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Mon, 2011-06-13 06:00.

Just to add something here Anon.

Did you see the way you said something about your sexual assault that was clearly untrue, that you NEVER tell ANYONE IRL about it?

This is what damages the credability of female rape and sexual assault victims, all the b/s thats surrounding it.

First, I'll point out that I

Submitted by Tamen (not verified) on Sun, 2011-06-12 16:37.

First, I'll point out that I agree with your point in this article. Everyone needs to be concerned with all aspects. Other dimensions which you didn't include in this post, but have in others are female perpetrators of sexual assault/rape and male victims. Those aspects also need to be taken into account and acknowledged by all.

You asked: who's more likely to file a false rape report?  A radical feminist, a mainstream feminist, a "I'm not a feminist but..." feminist, or a woman with no notion of feminism except maybe a second-hand anti-feminist-inspired belief that whatever feminism is it's bad and wrong?

I believe making a false rape accusation is coming from an ethical and moral failure, not an ideology or lack of such. I guess you're arguing that the feminist ideology informs feminists of the damaging "side-effects" of a false rape allegation and that this will make them reconsider, I think that this effect is minimal because people who are morally lacking enough to consider to or actually make a false rape accusation will only be swayed by pure self interest, like a high risk for getting caught and punished, and not by an ideology or some abstract secondary damage to others. So, although a need for an alibi, rage, revenge nor Munchausen syndrome and so on are specific items on the feminist agenda, I posit that they are no less common for feminists than for non-feminist people.

My impression is that most of the discourse on false rape allegation by feminists have taken the form of a rhetorical response triviliazing or minimizing the occurences of false rape allegations and majority of those few who don't do that expands on how false rape allegations hurt real rape victims without a word about the immediate and primary victim of a false accusation - the falsely accused. And if he is mentioned it is usually to point out that getting raped is worse than being falsely accused. Of course many MRAs are also too eager to claim that being falsely accused is worse than being raped. Some falsely accused manage to live on, others commit suicide. Some rape victims manage to live on, others commit suicide. There is no meaningful difference and no real insight can be found by trying to compare.

You also said that you can't see where the 2% figure of false rape allegation comes from and you imply that it can't be from a credible feminist source. Reading the footnotes on the Edward Greer paper linked I found that one of the more recent sources for the 2% is a feminist and not any feminist either; Deborha L. Rhode is one of the leading scholars in the fields of legal ethics and gender, law, and public policy and the nation’s most frequently cited scholar in legal ethics. She in states in her book <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ilR5D4vnuv4C&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=deborah+l+rhode+false+rape&source=bl&ots=Cj1owt6rma&sig=a9yPVeXXvrgY64Qgpxj3tiOQEgI&hl=en&ei=vB_1TcC9NI60-QagwMzbBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">Speaking of Sex: The Denial of Gender Inequality</a> (published in 1997) that false reports accounts for only 2% of rape complaints, which is no higher than for other offences.

I don't know if you consider Suysan Brownmiller to be credible, her being an radical feminist whith a strong anti-porn stance, but her book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Against-Our-Will-Women-Rape/dp/0449908208#reader_0449908208">Against our will</a> from 1975 states on page 366 that "When New York City create a special Rape Analysis Squad commanded by policewomen, the female police officers found that only 2 percent of all rape complaints were false - about the same false-report rate that is usual for other kinds of felonies.", but this book was in 1995 selected as one of the 100 most important books of the Twentieth Century by The New York Public Library which goes to show that she certainly is considered credible by credible institutions.

The 2 percent also comes up in posts and comments on feminists blog, like this: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/04/13/about-that-duke-lacross... and http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/07/21/man-arraigned-in-rape-c...

Here Ampersand at Alas, a Blog says that the 2% statistic is popular among feminists: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2009/04/15/eugene-kanins-study-of-false-rap...

So your bafflement over the sources of the 2% which implies that you think only incredible feminists refers to this number baffles me.

I'm disappointed in the

Submitted by Quercki (not verified) on Mon, 2011-06-13 11:58.

I'm disappointed in the comments on this post. 

Sigil is so hostile toward women that I have a hard time imagining working with him for any purpose.  He started his first comment with an insult and continues from there.

 

Fortunately, I CAN imagine working toward ending both rape and false accusations of rape on behalf of the men and women with less-hostile attitudes. So I support things like actually having rape kits tested, which helps both sides.

 

Hi Quercki   Falsely

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Mon, 2011-06-13 14:48.

Hi Quercki

 

Falsely accusing someone of "insert crime" against women in lieu is not really an argeument. Making false allegations of crimes against women at the drop of a hat or when ever you want to try and scilence or discredit a political opponent also errodes the credability of both feminists and women that have genuinly been victimised.

edit   " lieu of an

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Mon, 2011-06-13 14:49.

edit

 

" lieu of an agrument is..."

Figleaf   One of the mens

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-14 03:33.

Figleaf

 

One of the mens rights bloggers has responded to the feministing article too.

 

http://mens-rights.blogspot.com/

I can dig it.  One reason

Submitted by Danny (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-14 20:15.

I can dig it.  One reason people rape is becuase rapists know there are parts of society that will side with them.  One reason people make false accusations is because there are parts of society that will side with them.  This fits in nicely with my thought that if MRAs and feminsts got on a united front the system would not stand a chance.

 

figleaf:<i>Not sure where your correspondent gets his 2% figure -- the lowest credible feminist source I can think of sets the rate of false reports among women who report being assaulted to the police at 5.9%. </i>

I can say for sure that I've seen that 2% used on feminist sites before (Shakesville to name a few) although like you say I've never seen it actually sourced just spouted off like its gospel.

 

 

<i>Ok, another quick question: what percent of rapes that aren't reported are actual rapes?</i>

I don't have a guess of my own but I've seen a lot of feminists use that 60% (as in 60% of rapes go unreported) from RAINN.  And it seems that people who use this just assume that all 60% are actual.

 

One bit of pickiness.  Why is it:

<i>So I'm going to put this really simply: if you're an <b>MRA</b>...

then

<i>Meanwhile if you're an <b>activist</b>.....

Why the switch?

Figleaf, just to follow up on

Submitted by Sigil (not verified) on Wed, 2011-06-15 16:36.

Figleaf, just to follow up on one of the many false allegations about rape on this thread.

Seems the conviction rate for rape is double that for murder.

http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/i0ooa/its_not_just_rape_all_crimes_have_low_conviction/

User login