Last night, a regular commenter in the Men’s Rights subreddit — inspired by a thread on 4chan — posted a link to an online form on r/mensrights under the headline “Feminists at Occidental College created an online form to anonymously report rape/sexual assault. You just fill out a form and the person is called into the office on a rape charge. The “victim” never has to prove anything or reveal their identity.”
This headline is not only inflammatory but untrue: Yes, Occidental College has an online form that allows victims of or witnesses to sexual assault to report the incidents to the school. But, as a statement at the top of the form makes clear, the point is to collect data on how much sexual violence there is at the school, who the victims are, and so on.
If the person reporting the crime names the alleged perpetrator,
a member of the Dean of Students Office will meet with that person to share that the person was named in an anonymous report, review the Sexual Misconduct Policy, and inform the person that if the allegations are true, the behavior needs to cease immediately. Information shared in this form alone will not result in anyone going through the grievance process.
I’ve put the last bit in bold to emphasize a point: No one will be charged with anything based only on information gathered using this form. As would be clear to anyone who thought about the matter for more than a few seconds, it’s rather difficult to investigate, much less prove, a rape if you don’t actually know who the victim is.
Somehow this rather elementary fact eluded the OP, and virtually all of those who left the hundreds of comments on the popular post.
Indeed, a host of Men’s Rights Redditors were so convinced of the innate evil of the online form they all had the same bright idea: let’s flood the school with false reports of rape and break the form. Here are some of their comments. (There are more in the thread.) Note the number of upvotes each of these suggestions got. (Click the images to see the comments in context on Reddit.)
While a few commenters stood up to point out that in fact the school will not charge anyone with anything as a result of anonymous information gathered by the form, they were outnumbered by Men’s Rightsers gleefully reporting that they in fact had reported false information. Among them:
![froggymorning 46 points 15 hours ago (59|13) I've already filled one out. permalink source parent save give gold hide child comments [–]Muffinizer1 6 points 7 hours ago (9|4) Was kind of fun. I swear to god though, if they track us down it would be terribly ironic, however it's mildly likely.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/froggy.png?resize=546%2C171&ssl=1)
It’s one thing to criticize an anonymous reporting system because of its potential for abuse; this is something else entirely.
The post has been up for 17 hours at this point, with more than 700 net upvotes, and some of the calls for “breaking” the form have been up for nearly as long. The moderators of Men’s Rights have done nothing to stop their subreddit being used to interfere with a school’s attempt to assist rape survivors — including men.
“Breaking” a school’s rape reporting mechanism is apparently a form of Men’s Rights activism.
I don’t even know what to say. Every time I think their behavior can’t get any more appalling, they surprise me.
I wonder if it would help to e-mail the school with a link to this thread, just so they’re aware of what’s happening?
Looks like I’m gonna have to add several “gates” to my “Descent of I-MAN-na” narrative. To become an MRAsshat, one must also leave behind basic reading comprehension, all ethics, and one’s senses. Among other things…
What’s the school’s reaction so far, anyone know? Pretty shitty, but that’s the MRA movement.
They whine about false reporting and then gleefully falsely report…….
Reading comprehension is MISANDRY.
The Men’s Rape Advocacy movement at work.
You know…a lot of what these guys are advocating is bordering on the criminal. From AVFM advocating marital rape to these guys on reddit conspiring to falsely accuse people for rape is sort of criminal.
Yeah, I guess “false rape accusations” are no longer the absolute worst transgression in the world.
This isn’t criticism for the potential for abuse, it’s abusing it out of spite.
And it’s not even the only or most legitimate criticism to be made. I tend to think it’s faulty also because:
a) People don’t always know what rape actually is, thanks to the rape culture eliding the meaning of consent so this will by no means paint a truely accurate picture of the sexual assault problem on campus
b) Potential submissions might be discouraged by the fact that the alleged perp will be made aware of the reporting. Which, if this college is anything like the one I went to, there’s the potential for everybody knowing everybody and the alleged perp being able to guess who reported it. Which, could spell some not so great backlash for the person who made the report to begin with
Sometimes I think that the reason why a lot of MRA/PUAs get their tighty whiteys into a was about false rape accusations is because a lot of them secretly wish they could rape and get away with it. Normally I wouldn’t mention ROK, but I think this gem of a post explains how a lot of misogynists view rape:
http://www.returnofkings.com/22080/the-reality-of-false-rape-accusations-will-require-you-to-make-a-change-you-may-not-like
Guys, if you don’t want to be falsely accused, then don’t rape! Treat women you’ve banged with a modicum of respect afterwards! Don’t take advantage of drunk or high women! At least pretend like the women you’re dating and be nice to them! The horror! The horror!
This is…wow.
Is anyone else tempted to use the form to report reddit for spamming the form with BS? I’m assuming it has a general “other comments” box where a link to this shit could go, along with words of encouragement. Or is that sinking to their level?
What’s this? MRAs being complete douchebags about gender-nonspecific rape? WHAT A SHOCK. Truly, I believed my brothers would be above such behavior that might allow male rape survivors to report! SHOCKED. SHOCKED.
(This also reminds me of a story a friend told me about how, while she was at school, they opened up a campus abuse hotline. The first caller? A male cop being abused by his wife.)
…Secretly? If they’re trying to be secretive about how angry they are that rape is illegal they’re not doing a very good job of it.
They are getting angry over the fact that a university is taking steps, that it is legally encouraged to do, to tackle the very real epidemic of sexual violence. This isn’t like the “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign that did present men as the aggressors, this is a completely neutral and extremely toothless piece of policy that does literally nothing other than give the university a very sparse insight into the sexual violence occurring on campus. There is nothing to suggest this is a man vs woman thing unless you personally think that rape is a man vs woman issue.
This is so transparent, this is so blatantly pro-rape. Oh my god, how do none of them see this is an evil thing to do? It’s such a bizarre, illogical, mindlessly destructive thing to do.
I’d say it crosses the line, in many cases. And certainly takes advantage of every loophole that shouldn’t be there…
So telling that despite the fact the form is entirely gender-neutral, it did not occur to a single one of these commenters that the male survivors they purportedly care about so very much can also use this as a tool to report sexual assault. But no, all they can think about is the eeeeeeeeeeeevil feeeeeeeeeeeemales and the epidemic of false accusations that’s apparently sweeping the globe.
The “best” part of that RoK post? Dying in prison from a false rape claim. Because so many rapists get life sentences! Fuck, Manson, fucking Manson, gets parole hearings (isn’t going to happen, but in theory could) — nobody, fucking nobody, accused of a single rape with no evidence besides her accusation is going to get a life sentence. Not in the US, which is where he’s talking about, and it’s at least as unlikely in the EU, or any of the former/current UK terrorities (am I correct that some of those countries don’t have life sentences at all?)
This post is basically the problem with MRAs in a nutshell. Even if we assumed for the sake of argument that they have legitimate points, the way they attempt to deal with things they see as problematic is always offensive, likely to do more harm than good, and not likely to actually help the cause of men in any way whatsoever.
Certainly not by reading.
The delusional, ignorant self-righteousness of these Reactionary Keyboard Warriors is truly a sight to behold.
I used to think MRA stood for male rape advocate. I’ve long since learned I was right, of course.
Yeah, nothing secret about this: their blather about “false” accusations is thin cover for their rage that women can report rape at all, that it’s a crime, even if a very poorly defined and extremely under-reported and under-convicted one. I imagine a great many MRAs are rapists, and breaking the law in many other ways connected with this.
these asshats are just horrible. they rant on and on about how evil women love to falsely accuse men of rape, yet are glad to do the same thing to people they don’t even know just to be trolls
the university should try to close of the forum to all but enrolled students. that should stop these fools.
Ironic, isn’t it, how “rape myth” phrases stay in our minds, even here. People don’t “take advantage of” drunk or high women. They rape them.
Funny how the few voices of reason in that thread have been muted amid the countless screams of “BUT IT’S STILL A FALSE ACCUSATION” and “HAHAHA LET’S FALSELY ACCUSE PEOPLE BECAUSE IRONY.”
It’s so awful that one MRA actually decided to leave r/MensRights because of that thread.
Not meaningful ones here, anyway. “Life” usually means getting out in twenty or thirty years. It takes serial killing or mass killing for someone to be given consecutive sentences, or be marked as “never to be released” – Dupas is one of the latter. Even the Hoddle Street murderer, Julian Knight, keeps coming up for parole, though he’s never going to get out either, and I don’t recall if that filth Adrian Bayley – Jill Meagher’s rapist and murderer, who’d been convicted of multiple rapes and is known to have committed many more – has been given a real life sentence. He should never have been out, but he was because the parole board fucked up. Again.