This seems like a completely reasonable course of action:
Oh, by the way, I know a guy who’s a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and he can fly and turn invisible.
Not at the same time, though. When he forgets and turns invisible while flying, he plummets to earth.
Which would roughly match the numbers of most other studies about false accusations…
No one is denying that false accusations don’t ever happen or that they aren’t terrible. But when MRAs try to make it seem like nearly HALF of accusations are false (using one depely flawed study), it works to promote the ugly idea that women’s accustions shoulld be disregarded entirely. Even though most studies show that 90-something % of women who claim to have been raped are telling the truth.
Also, I’ve read enough MRA drivel to know that MRAs don’t even give a shit about women who have actually been raped. Talking about false accusations and furthering distrust of rape victims is just another way for them to, as Rebecca Watson put it, “shit on women”.
@Holly Pervocracy – gosh, if I was looking for help for men who suffer from rape in prison I certainly wouldn’t turn to this crowd. Look at the responses in this thread! I can’t imagine anyone of you giving a shit about any man*. So yeah, that’d be why you only hear about it in the form of a point in an argument.
(*More or less a universal for Anglosphere men. As we grow up men are taught that no-one will care about our suffering, e.g. “man up” and that showing weakness will simply lead to more suffering. So better shut the fuck up about it.)
@Rutee – way to miss the point. “Creepy” (in this context) is about judging someone by their looks, therefore = prejudice. Good looking people have been shown to acquire many advantages in life, “creepy” looking people get the opposite – e.g. a crowd of folks like you assuming they must have done something criminal.
As it stands it’s not sex neutral, as it’s almost always used by women on men. That’s changing too. Rest assured that a mini side project of men’s rights is raising awareness that women can behave in a “creepy” manner too, and should be called out on it. E.g. when women laugh about men’s genital mutilation that = “creepy” see the foulness that is Sharon Osborn.
Fighting for equality.
Oops, href fail there. Excessive linking!
Uhm, no. That’s fucked up and evil. Creepy is the girl that grabs your ass as a greeting.
Joe:
That’s hardly surprising, since the mob in question seems to have been wholly imaginary.
The story seems to have grown out of an actual incident in which someone (presumably an individual someone) daubed graffiti over paediatrician Yvette Cloete’s front door either out of illiteracy or as a malicious joke, and a coincidentally concurrent cartoon in Private Eye showing someone fleeing a torch-bearing mob while screaming “I’m a paediatrician!”
More info here.
Cloudiah: Although your reference doesn’t say what you want it to, I giggled a bit when unlike his very well cited statistics (Which he admits are meaningless), his hysterical claims about “The damage to reputation always being horrid” are, of course, absent citation XD
And yet, I’ve done more about rape in prison than pretty much any MRA ever, because I’ve been part of large – and real – campaigns on the matter. That’s the difference between thinking something is an actual problem in our society, and thinking of something as a way to score points on ideological enemies
No, it’s because you don’t do anything about it.
No, creepy is far more about actions, demeanor, and words than looks, no matter how much you try to make it so. Robert Pattinson is pretty good looking, but it doesn’t change that Edward in Twilight – even the movies, where you can look at a pretty boy – is fucking creepy.
You’re mistaking ‘creepy’ for ‘ugly’.
So, A: Joe, you’d be wrong in your imaginings, but also, B, are you really arguing that the reason why MRAs on their own MRA blogs only talk about prison rape is when they’re discussing hypothetical male prisoners convicted of a false rape accusation is because we here on Manboobz exist and we, um, wouldn’t care (or something)?
That’s weird.
@MollyRen – here’s how false accusation works to do harm, and why men are so leery about it:
False accusation of e.g. totally fictional sex assualt made to cops – it can be some time after the fact so there’s no forensic, but police must still pursue allegation (I know actual conviction is less likely), description of fictional attacker circulated. Headlines in paper. Men who happen to match fictional attacker cuffed & hauled in for questioning, may be beaten (or shot) by cops. Time in jail on remand awaiting trial. Court / lawyer costs. Names smeared, jobs lost, families broken etc. etc. White knights, especially relatives go out hunting for fictional attacker, may find men who roughly meet description beat / stab / shoot / kill that men.
Eventually police work out accusation was a lie, no assault took place e.g. vid cam evidence of place and time accuser said it occurred, shows everything = ok (more likely in UK as we have CCTV cams up the wazoo). Police circulate withdrawl of manhunt – gets three lines bottom left of p.7 in newspaper. In UK false accuser might get a fine or short to medium jail sentence more likely a fine or community service for wasting police time.
i.e. convictions are not required to utterly trash some dudes life.
@Whoeveritwas – FRS / CotFA is basically a news aggregate. Every story links through to an original report in newspapers etc. the aggreator does not WRITE the report. You don’t have to read anything on the site other than the links to the reports, treat it as a transparent portal. That’s what I do. I read the original sources.
They’re actually currently working on moving to a “no commentary at all” policy, just pure news aggregation, hence the migration to CotFA, in response to the negativity of SPLC listing.
@Joe: creepy is not so much about the look as much as it is about the behavior. But we agree, women can be creepy too.
@rutee – which anti-prison rape campaign??
Judging by the second sentence, you’re not doing a bang up job of it.
No, that’s not creepy, that’s horrible. What was creepy was the stalker lady in Ctrl-Alt-Del (I used to have shitty taste in webcomics). Learn to understand words.
@Rutee — I just found it interesting that the author of that Forensic Examiner article, who obviously thinks “false rape” is a significant problem, admits that the 8% unfounded number is essentially meaningless.
Weird. Block quote fail.
Try again:
Don’t you think it’s kind of fucked up that you accuse us of not caring about prison rape when you’ve clearly never heard of -let alone supported- Just Detention? (justdetention.org)
There was one I helped organize on my campus during my time when I was majoring in legal studies, for one. Yeah, I know, activists in college are annoying and all, but I tried to impress upon people – as part of a larger message that criminals are people – that rape of prisoners is neither funny nor just.
The fact that you can only talk about prison rape tells me you’re not really educated on the underlying problem, though (Which is part of how I know you, personally, have done jack and shit, since AFAIK there is literally nothing that focuses on just rape in prison, because *EVERYTHING* about USian prisons is wrong). The fact of the matter is that this is part of the larger narrative about criminals, how criminals are subhuman and don’t deserve consideration. If you want to fight this, it’s improbable you’ll do so well by just focusing on rape, because there is an (abstract) understanding in society that rape is wrong. The problem is that people think that it’s okay to do wrong things to prisoners.
Can you show me enough cases of this happening to prove that it’s a real phenomenon? We’ve all heard this scare tactic from MRAs time and time again but we don’t believe any of it.
Ahahaha, I get to eat crow. My mistake!
@Nobinayamu: See above. I could totally believe it, if you know, he cared about more of what prisoners face. But, you know, he don’t. He doesn’t care at all. It’s just a device to score points on ideological opponents. Which is getting to be a thorn in my side.
Rutee, I agree with you completely. Just Detention is an international organization doing unbelievably important work and could really use the support of people who claim to care about prison rape. Now, go check out the “Boob Roll”. Take a quick glance and see how many of those blogs list or link to the organization’s site.
I’ll wait…
Just Detention is an amazing group, but of course there are other ways of supporting a non-abusive environment in prisons. I’ve been an advocate for rape victims for several years, and we’ve finally got the go-ahead to enter our county’s prison and jail to serve rape and sexual assault victims there.
Not like Joe has to support this cause with money and time, but boy would it be awesome if some MRA accusing us of hating men actually did more work supporting his pet issues than we do.
Sheeit, if that’s all it takes to be fighting for equality, I’ve been fighting since I was a preteen. Where’s MY parade?!!!!
You know, I’ve had sex that I regretted but it has never, not once, crossed my mind to cry rape afterwards. All the women I know have never cried rape as a way to punish, or because they regretted having sex with a particular dude, or for any other reason. Not only that, all the men I know have never been accused of raping a woman who regretted having sex with them.
Surely if woman running around crying rape when they weren’t raped is so common, surely I would have noticed it by now, right? I mean, it’s just statistics.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. But it’s not as common as these guys want us to believe.
Also, pointing out a man and saying “he raped me” isn’t enough to throw some hapless guy into the clink for years.
And do I need to mention the backlog of rape kits that are collecting dust? Yeah, the women those were taken from really succeeded in ruining some guy’s life.
All this false rape bullshit is really insulting to one’s intelligence.
Let’s not forget, the ONLY possible reason that black men used to get lynched was that women kept falsely accusing them of rape! And it was always women (never white men!) And it was all totally color blind on the part of the mobs! Racism played no part, hence it MUST have been sexism against men that did it! Etc.
Totally legit!
Ack Schroedingers Rapist..
Okay, so this guy doesn’t feel safe around women, fine hire a staffer to go everywhere you do unless your family is present. The very wealthy often hire personal bodyguards and staff so I’m sure it won’t be noticed. I’m sure there are ways to structure the normal everyday business meetings and such that a persons fears can be allieviated.
Schroedingers rapist is an idea that long predates feminism. It isn’t particularly well thought out, because its a series of happenstances and peoples thoughts about what went wrong, over a long period of time. That list is getting mighty lengthy these days and includes all the new technology women use that might put them in contact with strange men. Including phones, emails, chatrooms, online shopping, text messaging and blogs. It also includes all the old stuff about being out in public spaces, meeting new people (esp men) time of day, what may be consumed, appropriate places a woman may go, how to manage her dating life, how to live in her own home , how to dress, and I’m sure I haven’t got it all.
What women are not taught is how to assess various scenarios so they can feel more comfortable living their lives. The Rapist theory focusses on strangers, which detracts attention from the fact that women more often than not have already vetted a man, came to trust him and then were assaulted. Its the people wew know and love we have most to fear from.
Its ironic that stranger danger is so heavily taught to women, when from what I’ve read (and I’m no expert but the DOJ has stats I’ve looked over) men are most likely to be targeted by violent strangers or people they might only know by sight or name.
The answer to this is to make sure both genders get accurate info about crime and how to assess individual situations. Also to assess individual people for risk factors for violence or abusive behaviours. Stats will not peg out any given individual but you may find yourself able to interact with those waving red flags in a way that helps to protect you rather than them.
Ideally we could rid ourselves of all types of predators, but its a lot of work and the victim blaming that the stranger danger theory is also used for is really slowing things down.
I don’t know how it is in the U.K., but I know here in the U.S., cops don’t go on hunts for suspected rapists. I would know; though I’m not a cop, I am a sexual assault advocate. If a victim wants to make a report, but it’s been more than 72 hours after the attack, then there can be no physical evidence to collect (fluids and hair and such). Yes, they can make a report, but you have to realize that the media does not write a story on every single report of every crime. Unless either the victim or the accused is high-profile, or the crime was especially heinous (victim was a child, it was a gang-rape, etc.) then it never actually makes it to the newspaper. And when I go to work, I hear “All my friends and family won’t talk to me since I accused [name] of raping me. They’re all on [name]’s side. I feel so alone.” I have to yet to hear a story where a woman accused someone of rape and not only was she completely supported by her community, but the accused rapist was ostracized. That doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen with sexual assault, and it doesn’t happen with domestic violence, either. You’re so full of shit, Joe.
Wait. I already know this, and Joe here probably isn’t going to care. Why, oh why do I interrupt important studying time to feed trolls? They’re not even as cute as ducks.
Ducks are way better than trolls in every way. Throw bread at trolls and ducks, see who is more grateful. I REST MY CASE.