Some interesting links, the first two from Man Boobz regulars:
Holly Pervocracy on Ten Shades of False Rape Accusations
[S]ometimes it’s easier for a survivor to live with the knowledge that their rapist is free than it is for them to go through years of being under constant suspicion of being an evil false accuser. It ends with misogyny justifying and reinforcing itself, as the concept “women lie about rape” becomes both proof of and proven by “women are untrustworthy, manipulative, and malicious.” It ends with rapists who tell their victims “no one will ever believe you” being right, with society standing behind them.
Every time we reinforce the common wisdom that “women lie about rape all the time,” rape gets a little easier to commit.
Ozymandias on No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz: Take My Social Movement– Please!
All too often, the mainstream men’s rights movement is not gender egalitarian at all. All too often, those of us who support equal rights for everyone– no matter what our differences in opinion– have found our voices drowned out by misogynistic, rape-apologist and frankly stupid asshats. That has to change.
Gawker’s Adrian Chen on How a 14-Year-Old Girl Became an Unwilling Internet Pin-Up
Reddit is home to a whole network of proud pervs, and through Jailbait I came across another board dedicated to creeping on someone named Angie Verona. … Three years ago, when she was 14, Angie took some photos for her boyfriend and stored them in a private Photobucket account. The account was hacked and the photos leaked. Pictures of 14-year-old Angie posing provocatively in a bikini and lingerie were thrown all over the internet, showing up on message boards like Reddit and 4chan, and posted on porn sites. …
[E]very teen with a Facebook account has pictures like Angie’s. What’s fucked up is this trafficking of pictures of random underage girls that falls just this side of child porn, with no regard for the real life that might be ruined in the process.
@ cynickal
“which statically aren’t any more frequent than false murder reports or false theft reports.”
Without wanting to sound like an idiot and, admittedly, this might end up being the case as I’m speaking from a position of ignorance here, this doesn’t seem to sound right to me. To falsely report a murder one would need a dead body or missing person. To falsely report a rape you only need an accusation. I find it very hard to believe that there are as many false murder reports as there are false rape reports, this sounds ludicrous to me.
‘To falsely report a murder one would need a dead body or missing person. ‘
And accuse the wrong person of committing the crime. That’s all it takes.
@ Yaz
Who would accuse me of murder, the person that I’d murdered? Surely not. Besides the point I was making was that if no dead body or missing person exists then there can be no accusation. This is not a condition of a false rape accusation, there only needs to be a person to make an accusation. If cynical meant that as many innocent people are convicted of murder as are rape, then that sounds a lot more likely, but I assumed he was talking about false accusations.
‘Who would accuse me of murder, the person that I’d murdered? ‘ qwert666
Off the top of my head, someone who’s seeking revenge on you. Or the person who actually did the murdering. Or a mistaken identity. Or someone who figured the only member of undesirable [race/class x/sexuality/religion] in the area must have been the killer. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination, and it’s the stuff of plenty of TV dramas and novels.
Which is to say, you don’t believe that there is any significant chance you will ever be a rape victim; therefore it’s not something to which you’ve given much thought, or expect to give much thought.
Understanding that such a thing is possible is not really answering the question as to how you would react, to learn that a close friend thinks you’re a malicious liar trying to ruin the life of an innocent person, or that a member of your family thinks you’re delusional for saying that someone raped you.
What Holly’s post was really talking about, as even a cursory reading shows, is not that rape accusations should automagically be taken as true by the courts. She’s talking about believing people on a personal level, rather than finding excuses to blame them or assume that they’re liars because it’s just too uncomfortable and unpleasant to think that Bob, here, might not be a super-swell kind of guy.
@ Yaz
Apologies, I was being a bit frivolous with that last comment, it is, of course, possible that I could be falsely accused of murder. I don’t think, however, that you understand my point.
If I’ve had sex with 100 different women, then there are, at least, 100 different women who could falsely claim that I had raped them. For me to have the same chance of being falsely accused of murder, there would have to be 100 different dead bodies or missing persons that I could be linked to by DNA or other evidence.
The idea that as many people are falsely accused of murder as are rape seems utterly ludicrous to me based on this logic.
Based on what I’ve read, I suspect that the rate of false rape accusations is higher than that of false accusations of other crimes — the overall rate of false accusations is maybe 2%, and some good studies put the rate of false rape accusations at several times that.
But MRAs tend to base their claims on one questionable study that suggests something like 40% false rape accusations. And whenever there’s a story in the news about rape, they generally assume the accusers are lying, regardless of the details. Obviously the MRA reaction is based on something other than a rational reaction to a real issue.
Murder is not really the best example. I’ll give you that. But the point is that the numbers of false accusations for rape are in line with other crimes. Take theft, then, if you prefer. Or assault. Every person you meet on the street (far more than 100) has the possibility of accusing you of stealing their wallet. Everyone who has a bruise or abrasion could feasibly accuse you of attacking them. Is this something you really worry about? Likely not. And that’s kind of the point. Why is rape such a special situation, then?
Every study I’ve ever followed links to had the numbers being close. And of course I can’t find any of those links now. So I’ve lost a whole slew of credibility and will bow out to search out some links before I dig this holw any deeper. >.<
@ mythago
“Which is to say, you don’t believe that there is any significant chance you will ever be a rape victim; therefore it’s not something to which you’ve given much thought, or expect to give much thought.”
I really fucking hope that I never become a rape victim, but no, it’s not something that I dwell on. I’d think it rather patronising and disrespectful to / unfeeling toward actual rape victims to pretend to, or imagine to know what it would be like to be raped or to not be believed by my friends and family.
And I understand full-well that Holly wasn’t talking about the courts and that she was talking about believing people on a personal level. But she was, to my understanding, saying that we should believe the accusers and not believe the accused, on a basis of probability as to who is lying. I’m sorry, but it is a fact that false accusations are made, as it is a fact that rape happens. When Holly talks about “a world where a hundred false accusers are told* “I believe you, I care about you, and I’ll stand up for you,” she is ignoring the fact that there are a hundred innocent people who are being accused of a most heinous crime without evidence, purely based on a statistical probability. I think that this is wrong.
Troy Davis.
Cameron Todd Willingham.
Others.
Sophism.
If I meet a million people in my life, that’s a million people who could falsely claim I’ve assaulted them.
Stop being an apologist.
@ cynickal
Ok, are you going to present some statistics or studies to back up your claim, or do you think that “Troy Davis. Cameron Todd Willingham. Others.” proves that false rape reports “statically aren’t any more frequent than false murder reports or false theft reports.” because I don’t!
“If I meet a million people in my life, that’s a million people who could falsely claim I’ve assaulted them.” Correct. And to have the same chance of being falsely accused of murder there would need to be a million dead bodies or missing persons to whom I could be linked.
And I’m not sure how I can be considered an apologist when the entire discussion has been expressly focused of FALSE rape accusations
Again, why is being accused of rape worse than being accused of murder?
@ Yaz
“Every study I’ve ever followed links to had the numbers being close. And of course I can’t find any of those links now. So I’ve lost a whole slew of credibility and will bow out to search out some links before I dig this holw any deeper. >.<"
I don't think I've got much credibility going here either. I'm going to have to bow out of this one myself as I think I've said all that I wanted to say anyway, 'til next time.
It’s not.
People die, dude. There’s not stacks of bodies lying around, but if you hate someone that much…
IT’s much easier to engineer a false accusation of battery or, god forbid, drug charges, than rape though. Pretending Rape is the thing you most need to worry about? It’s not very smart.
Because you’re reinforcing the narrative that we most need to fear false rape accusations over false accusations of other crimes? How stupid are you again?
@yaz, I know that, and you know that, but I’d like to hear it from our MRAs.
@ Rutee
I was merely pointing out how I think that ““False Rape Reports”, which statically aren’t any more frequent than false murder reports or false theft reports.” is an incorrect statement. I’m not worried about being accused of raping someone, I’m saying that it is more likely that I will be accused of raping someone than I’ll be accused of murdering someone. I don’t see how this is an absurd thing to think.
Again it is not apologising for rape to say that, sometimes, people make false rape accusations. Pray tell what exactly is stupid about that?
‘I’m saying that it is more likely that I will be accused of raping someone than I’ll be accused of murdering someone.’ qwerty666
Are you factoring in the fact that rape is an extremely underreported crime? It’s not 8% of women who falsely accuse. (If that’s the number we’re going with) It’s 8% of reports that turn out to be false. I get the impression that the MRAs seem to confuse this fact.
Well, let’s see. qwerty666 believes that trying to consider the point of view of a rape victim is “patronising and disrespectful” and that the testimony of a rape victim is not evidence. I’d put that in the zero credibility camp myself.
Quick question: If police gather evidence for a rape charge, but the DPP decides not to take the case to court(yet, because they don’t feel sure of a conviction), is that counted as a false rape report? Would normal statistics and MRA statistics classify it differently?
@ Yaz
I don’t have the figures at hand to be able to discuss this in such detail. In addition, I really need to get some sleep before work tomorrow. Thank you for the interesting discussion.
@ mythago
“Well, let’s see. qwerty666 believes that trying to consider the point of view of a rape victim is “patronising and disrespectful” and that the testimony of a rape victim is not evidence. I’d put that in the zero credibility camp myself.”
Please, what is this prattle supposed to be? Goodnight!
Because you’re not actually reading any of the information you’ve been given.
Because you make sweeping statements about:
Completely ignoring the fact that statistically you’d already be charged with assault if we accepted your sophistry.
Because you spend large amounts of time and energy defending accused rapists rather than acknowledging that 40 to 50% of rapes aren’t ever reported.
Because you continue to move the goalposts.
Because we recognise you’re not arguing in good faith.
But yo’ure even more likely to not only be accused of false Possession, Assault, or Robbery charges, but to have those charges send you to jail DESPITE BEING FALSE (Particularly for Possession, because engineering it to make you guilty is almost trivial, due to the exceptionally low standards for that)
What you just said has the net effect of making it easier for rapists to not be reported or convicted. That is apologia. It’s also stupid because it misses the point; even if there are 4 times as many false rape reports (After accounting for the underreporting of rape, that means rape comes out pretty close to other false reports for crimes; statistically significant difference, but not a really major one), there are so many more instances of other crimes being reported that it ultimately means you’re much less likely to be accused for a false rape. And the penalty for rape is a lot smaller than murder anyway, so if you want to worry about one of these long shots, you might as well worry about the big one. And I’m not fucking kidding about false drug charges. Not only are they easier to stick, even if it isn’t true the reputation damage will still be done, and there’s a good chance some of your shit will be taken and you will never get it back)