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.
Adding: And even if you’re in a bar and people are hooking up left and right – I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I’m willing to grant that if you take a man and a woman of equal attractiveness according to average taste, yeah, I think getting sex would be easier for the woman. There are more men than women willing to have causal sex (because of slut-shaming and various reasons). But there’s a bigger difference between people whom are attractive by some average standards and people who are not, people who are charming and people who are socially incompetent, than between men and women. It’s not like Hunky McHunk is gonna have a harder time than Uglia McAwkwardness in the bar (I’m just rolling with the “everyone’s straight” assumption). It’s just that most guys who go on about how easy it is for women to get laid don’t even factor in Uglia McAwkwardness.
I once saw a woman walking down the street, while fully dressed from the waist up and wearing only panties from the waist down, and you’d better believe nobody was going anywhere near her. It was scary.
“Re: NWO’s comment that pecunium quoted.
It’s pretty telling that he said the man’s feelings (flattered) but not the woman’s (he just said screeching sexual harassment, which would imply the guy was acting creepy and inappropriate somehow).
dang i posted before I was ready. I meant to add “but he doens’t really take her feelings into account like he did them man’s” ”
Teh wimminz don’t have real feels, remember? They go on and on and on and on…(three hours later)…and on and on and on about how dogs have more feels than women all the time.
I don’t understand why they think collecting a rape kit would be a pressing concern, given that all a rape kit can do is prove that sexual contact occurred and their position is “Bitch was askin’ for it” in the majority of rape cases. (Yes, I have encounter MRA “skeptics” who believe the only time one can even insinuate one has been raped is if one has a video or clear audio recording of the event and there is no way to construe the vict–pardon “accuser”‘s actions as giving consent. And failure to scream and run away is giving consent, regardless of the age of the victim. The specific person I’m thinking of was speaking to the survivor of sexual abuse at age 4.)
Wow. They really really are the rapist and abuser lobby, aren’t they?
I mean, right at the top of the form, the very first paragraph, states that info collected by the form will not lead to a grievance or police involvement. The only thing that’ll happen is a stern talking-to. Anybody clicking on the form is going to see that. So, all these guys falling over themselves to make a false rape allegation (that, supposedly, is a very bad thing, but not when made by men against women they are pissed off at), they had to have seen it, right? At least some of them must have read it. It’s hard to attribute this to anything other than pure maliciousness.
And that AVFM article. He might as well just come out and state that he thinks most (if not all) rape allegations are false, because that’s pretty much the underlying assumption. He outright ignores that filling out the anonymous online form does lead to any formal charges or disciplinary action. And filling out the form doesn’t prevent the victim from pressing charges, having a rape kit done, seeking support groups, etc., etc. Or that they may already have done that. Or that some of those victims are men, who supposedly, are the people they are so concerned about.
This makes my brain and my heart sad.
I’m sorry, is alternatesteve90 comparing this to activists who don’t spare white people’s feelings when calling out their racist bullshit or am I reading this wrong?
As for the “would you have sex with me” dilemma, I’d probably be like, “Uhhh excuse me?” and walk away. The only way I’d start screaming about sexual harassment would be if the dude wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept pressuring me, which has happened on more than one occasion. No lawsuits filed, just, “fuck off” and “can you kick this guy out of the bar?”
On the flip side, I have more than enough experience having my advances turned down and being treated poorly by some of those men. Men have standards, I know, weird concept.
B-but, dudes are so desperate for teh secks they’ll fuck anyone. ANYONE, I tell ya! Ok, well, no, not Uglia MckAwkwardness, I mean, come ON. But anyone impossibly beautiful else! They’re not picky!
1) The form can be used by witnesses as well, who might be (understandably) afraid to come forward for fear of backlash.
2) It’s cute that they don’t realize that having a rape kit done doesn’t necessarily mean justice will be served. Thousands of them are backlogged and never processed.
3) They’re concerned about victims other needs? Since when? Oh, they’re calling them “victims”. I see.
Another story on this MRM “activism.”
I see there are a few MRAs spouting bullshit and being shot down on that RS thread.
Given Owly’s unhealthy attitude to children (capri pants are totally slutty) I don’t like to imagine what his ideas of asking someone for sex involve.
So Elam’s key issue is with the following:
Apparently, the supposedly anonymous form is not so anonymous because two students were contacted having filled it in anonymously.
And Elam is delighted because he thinks that it is bogus for these students to have expected anonymity in the first place. From a form which is supposedly anonymous. Because apparently genuine rape victims would never want to remain anonymous.
Yep, Elam, demonstrating once again his complete lack of empathy for anyone not him.
Now now, be fair Pauly has lots of empathy for other people … if they’re male rapists.
I live two blocks away from Occidental College, and know several students who attend there. I take this kind of personally.
What a bunch of jerks.
Occidental College has responded to Gawker’s inquiry to confirm that they’ve received 400 fake rape reports from these trolls.
http://gawker.com/college-mens-rights-trolls-spammed-us-with-400-fake-1486018818
More.
I am glad it’s been reported!! It is so ridiculous what they are doing
That Business Insider link I posted has comments from Dean Esman and a super-long one from GWW.
Really positive response from Occidental College in The Gawker. MRAs must be nashing their teeth.
http://gawker.com/college-mens-rights-trolls-spammed-us-with-400-fake-1486018818?rev=1387406494
Damn, ninja’d
karen straughan is already there in business insider commenting… why do I read comments?
Another story. Can you tell I am enjoying this?
I liked that Lisa Wade quote in the Gawker update:
Is there any other kind of comment from GWW?
And oh, what a wonderful response from Occidental. Looks like the MRAsshat attack backfired.
There’s also a great top comment on the earlier Gawker story:
I was really hoping this would turn around and bite them in the ass.
So much awesome coming from so much evil. Thanks MRAs, you’ve managed to accidentally restore my faith in humanity…by bringing out the best in people by being the worst of people.