Is feminism the solution to what MRAs often complain about?

[Cory]

Marokai is really nailing it in this thread.

[Boston Bread]

Cases of rape which aren't taken seriously enough happens far more often than false rape accusations which are taken seriously. Both scenarios are inevitably going to happen in some number, but on balance society is tilted towards being too harsh towards rape victims.

[Sol]

Cases of rape which aren't taken seriously enough happens far more often than false rape accusations which are taken seriously. Both scenarios are inevitably going to happen in some number, but on balance society is tilted towards being too harsh towards rape victims.

Not to mention that Rape is much worse than being falsely accused of rape

[Marokai Backbeat]

I don't even know if I agree with the blanket statement of "society is tilted toward being harsh to rape victims." What does that mean? I definitely agree that law enforcement doesn't take investigating sexual assault cases nearly as seriously or undergo them as promptly as they should, and that should absolutely change (emphasis on law enforcement investigations, and not extra-legal sexual assault squads formed by colleges and universities that are ran by young showboaters; the types who will simply dole out punishments before serious investigations have even taken place and maintain them even if the subjects have been cleared) but I don't think the average person seriously treats alleged rape victims with some sort of disdain. Not being as respectful as they should be, maybe, but society treats nothing perfectly.

I think some activists take the low conviction rates on sexual assault as some sort of conspiracy against them but the unfortunate reality of the situation is that these allegations are just really hard to prove. The pushback typically comes from the proposed solutions to getting around the fact that the burden of proof is really high, which are things like aforementioned extra-judical measures that often end up being unfair, social media mobbing, eerily right-wing sounding rules and laws about what the "right" sort of sexual practices and etiquette are, outright lowering the legal burden of proof, or the belief that video games and movies are instilling attitudes that lead to "rape culture." The frustration with how difficult it is to prove the allegations is very understandable, but the acting out from this frustration is often shortsighted and problematic.

When I was in Canada a couple weeks ago I was watching CBC Montreal just for funsies and there was a segment about a local woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted, she went straight to the police, they conducted a rape kit, asked questions, did all the proper procedure. But then weeks went by, then months. It turned out the police took (from memory) like three months to get the rape kit analyzed and sent back. That's f**king outrageous, and thankfully, is one of the aspects of this problem we can directly address, and should be directly addressing. We definitely need more people specifically to deal with sexual assault cases.

Yet in the end the issue always comes back to the courtroom and the legal burden of proof. Most of these instances don't exactly happen around a lot of witnesses and the physical evidence is murky even when it is immediately gathered (which is itself, rare). So what can you actually do? Imagine you're a judge for a moment and you're presented with a case that involves a man and a woman both in their early twenties, clean cut, otherwise totally unremarkable individuals. The man is accused of rape. The incident allegedly happened when they were alone, there are no direct witnesses, each individual has their friends there as character witnesses backing up what swell people they are. There's no physical evidence either way. Statute says the accused could face up to a decade in prison. What do you do? There's no legal rationale for deciding in favor of the plaintiff in a case like that; it just can't be rationally justified. And this is how a ton of these cases like this play out in court. This is why the only reasonable way of dealing with the problem that respects the presumption of innocence is in prevention and increasing ways to find evidence, but this too needs to be done in a way that isn't "hold these innocent men up to society as an example that can strike fear in other mens' hearts!" or "stop depicting sexual assault in media."

[Boston Bread]

Yes, a huge number of rape cases aren't even taken to court, because law enforcement doesn't take investigating sexual assault cases nearly as seriously or undergo them as promptly as they should as Marokai said.

Anyhow, feminists aren't focusing their campaign to change the legal system, but instead focus on raising awareness on topics like consent in an effort to create a culture where rape is less acceptable, so to prevent rape. It would be much more effective than law enforcement reforms which are not preventative measures to begin with. I think this discussion began with concerns that male rape and sexual assault victims aren't taken seriously by feminists (?). Feminists do focus on the challenges women face in this regard. Not because they don't care about male victims, but it's because feminist organizations are founded in response to women's problems and are composed of mostly women. Their solutions, however, would be equally beneficial to both genders.

I'd like to add that part of the reason why men who are raped/sexually assaulted aren't given proper respect are because gender roles/stereotypes which feminists want to remove. If more people think the way mainstream (not radical) feminists do, male victims would have better treatment and so would female victims. MRA's are intent on playing up gender stereotypes and by doing so they often contribute to the problems male victims face despite claiming to stand up for them.

[traininthedistance]

Feminists pick up studies that say it's anywhere from 1-5% (this number is so low that it strains logic something fierce to believe) and MRAs throw around numbers like ~40% which of course they would because that just benefits the "bitches be crazy" narratives of creepy MRAs.

Really?  I honestly have a hard time believing that it could be as high as 5 percent.  It seems that the reputable studies floating out there seem to float somewhere in the range of 8 percent, but as I pointed out to Nix even they are riddled with false negatives such that the true incidence of false allegations is most certainly lower than that, and more or less perfectly in line with feminist claims.  If outright fabrications (as opposed to legit cases being dropped for personal reasons, or "ambiguous" situations) were even one percent I'd be surprised.

I don't even know if I agree with the blanket statement of "society is tilted toward being harsh to rape victims." What does that mean?

Well, man, if you don't agree with that statement than we are sufficiently far apart on points of basic reality that I'm not sure that engaging will do much good.  But I'll try anyway.

extra-legal sexual assault squads formed by colleges and universities that are ran by young showboaters; the types who will simply dole out punishments before serious investigations have even taken place and maintain them even if the subjects have been cleared

Uh?  Really?  Pretty sure that handling these sorts of cases in-house generally leads to perpetrators getting away with it, on the grounds that the college wants to sweep bad publicity under the rug, rather than it being some sort of hangin' judge kangaroo court scenario?  Kinda was under the impression they had the exact opposite problem?

but I don't think the average person seriously treats alleged rape victims with some sort of disdain.

Dude, do you have any recollection of Steubenville?  Basically the whole town was up in arms that "how could you besmirch the honor of our sainted football players!"  And that's not an isolated incident, that's basically de rigeur in our culture even when they're not on the team.  If you make a rape accusation, be prepared to have people think you're a monster for accusing their friends, who "could never have done it!".  Be prepared for opposing counsel to try and dig through your sex life to prove that you were a dirty slut "asking for it".  Be prepared to have to re-live your trauma, under the klieg lights of the press and disapproving social circles and the witness stand.  Be prepared, even if you do everything right by the book to end up in situations like these:

When I was in Canada a couple weeks ago I was watching CBC Montreal just for funsies and there was a segment about a local woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted, she went straight to the police, they conducted a rape kit, asked questions, did all the proper procedure. But then weeks went by, then months. It turned out the police took (from memory) like three months to get the rape kit analyzed and sent back. That's f**king outrageous, and thankfully, is one of the aspects of this problem we can directly address, and should be directly addressing. We definitely need more people specifically to deal with sexual assault cases.

...and then, if you don't go by the book because you're stunned by the trauma or you were assaulted while unconscious or whatever, be prepared for people to second-guess and victim-blame til the cows come home and have it even worse.  That's what "tilted towards being harsh towards rape victims" means.

Imagine you're a judge for a moment and you're presented with a case that involves a man and a woman both in their early twenties, clean cut, otherwise totally unremarkable individuals. The man is accused of rape. The incident allegedly happened when they were alone, there are no direct witnesses, each individual has their friends there as character witnesses backing up what swell people they are. There's no physical evidence either way. Statute says the accused could face up to a decade in prison. What do you do?

Of course, it makes so much difference that the man is "clean cut", and has character witnesses (as if well-liked people can't do horrible things)!  And it's not like the only options are "decade in jail" and "get off scot free"– the law distinguishes between various degrees of offenses.

I mean, I get why convictions are hard.  That is not something we can wish away. And I don't think that the affirmative consent law will or even could change that– it's not actually removing "innocent until proven guilty" from the legal system.  What it is doing, however, is removing some of the most transparent and disingenuous defenses that assaulters use, e.g. "she was blackout drunk and couldn't say no, so I didn't do anything wrong!" I think that's obviously a good thing.

And, no, of course it isn't going to incentivize people to start making false accusations that they otherwise wouldn't; as mentioned above going through these trials is basically always a traumatic experience and, come on, virtually nobody's going to put themselves through that voluntarily.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Feminists pick up studies that say it's anywhere from 1-5% (this number is so low that it strains logic something fierce to believe) and MRAs throw around numbers like ~40% which of course they would because that just benefits the "bitches be crazy" narratives of creepy MRAs.

Really?  I honestly have a hard time believing that it could be as high as 5 percent.  It seems that the reputable studies floating out there seem to float somewhere in the range of 8 percent, but as I pointed out to Nix even they are riddled with false negatives such that the true incidence of false allegations is most certainly lower than that, and more or less perfectly in line with feminist claims.  If outright fabrications (as opposed to legit cases being dropped for personal reasons, or "ambiguous" situations) were even one percent I'd be surprised.

But as mentioned, there's no real way to know the "true" incidence of false accusations. You're a level headed person and I get the argument for why you "believe" one thing or another, but at the end of the day it's just you looking at various studies and applying your own biases to it. I don't believe the number is particularly high, but it's completely arbitrary to say it's vanishingly low. Each camp is merely looking at the studies that concoct their own standards for what "false" and "legit" mean and then picking the one that suits their interests the most. Which is why I moved on from that particular argument anyway, if there's no definitive way of knowing, and the best way to determine truth on an issue is fatally flawed in this case (the courtroom method), and it doesn't really impact the way a judge should look at it at the end of the day anyway, it's just an academic argument none of us, here, are cut out for.

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Uh?  Really?  Pretty sure that handling these sorts of cases in-house generally leads to perpetrators getting away with it, on the grounds that the college wants to sweep bad publicity under the rug, rather than it being some sort of hangin' judge kangaroo court scenario?  Kinda was under the impression they had the exact opposite problem?[/quote]

I don't believe either situation is ideal, never denied the existence of the situations you're referencing, and what I advocate for is more official law enforcement investigation and less extra-legal interference which we almost certainly both agree with in the end, anyway, so I don't know why you're picking this nit.

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Of course I remember it, I even randomly decided to look back on my posts to see how I reacted to it and it was this:

Maybe the town will reexamine itself after this.

Town? No, no, no. This isn't just a town. This is a cultural infection.

Yep.

But what you're describing isn't exclusive to rape cases. Defending the people you love and admire is a common phenomenon you would be able to observe with virtually any instance of those people being accused of wrongdoing and dogpiling the accuser. If one of your loved ones or best friends were accused of something so horrific would you not think "Man, I don't think ____ could've ever done something like this, I've known them for so many years now"? And being forced to deal with questions and re-living the events on the witness stand? Yes, that's called going to court.

When it comes to the cases where people were acting like "Yeah, maybe they did it, but who cares considering all their other accomplishments" or "She was asking for it, look at what she did with ___ and ___" yes, that's sexist and disgusting and dehumanizing. The harassment of accusers is also indefensible. But it's not fair to act like any questioning of the story, the routine process of answering questions about the event, are there to specifically pour salt on the wounds of rape victims. Are you arguing this shouldn't be happening? Someone should be barred from being cross-examined if they're making sexual assault accusations because that upsets them? That's how the University of Virginia story was so botched.

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I'm not disagreeing with the notion that there are particular streaks of hate that come to the fore in these cases, my issue was that I simply don't think it's fair to act like every obstacle in the way of a man or woman making a rape or sexual assault accusation is there specifically to spite them. It was just the use of "Society thinks ____" that set me off. That's just too broad. Part of society is misogynistic. Part of society is also very much not. If that weren't the case we wouldn't be discussing this. I concede the rest of this argument to you because I think the rest of it is more important.

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Of course, it makes so much difference that the man is "clean cut", and has character witnesses (as if well-liked people can't do horrible things)!  And it's not like the only options are "decade in jail" and "get off scot free"– the law distinguishes between various degrees of offenses.[/quote]

At this point you're just hyper analyzing and getting offended by things you should know better than to think I meant. All I meant was that in this fictional scenario, these two people are both completely average individuals in every respect, from the way they look, their friends, their background, and more. It's a pure "He's guilty" vs "No I'm not." I know very, very well that "clean cut" and well-off people can do horrible things. You're talking to a sexual abuse victim right now.

In a situation like that there's no "offense" to be proved, which was my point. Even if the prosecution was saying "We only want to give the guy only 6 months in jail, it's whatever" you would still have to weigh the decision in your head based on the evidence and arguments provided. In a case like this, which is a very standard way for these cases to end up, you can't make a legal justification that isn't just a complete guess. You're tasked with branding someone a rapist for the rest of their lives on the basis of nothing. You just can't reasonably expect anything other than a not-guilty verdict in a fair system based on arguments and evidence.

[Boston Bread]

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Well that blanket statement is true if you look at it from any reasonable angle. Ignoring the systematic limitations of the justice system, most rape cases are never even brought into the justice system. Considering the mental health effects of rape and the judgements made against those who are raped, most of these victims suffer more than their rapist, even after the crime has been performed. The fact that some are falsely accused of rape is a problem of course, but a problem that is of orders of magnitude smaller.
Which is why I think it is disingenuous to interrupt discussions about the problems rape victims face with statements on false rape accusations, especially when said statements are exaggerated.

[Lurker]

Dude, do you have any recollection of Steubenville?  Basically the whole town was up in arms that "how could you besmirch the honor of our sainted football players!"  And that's not an isolated incident, that's basically de rigeur in our culture even when they're not on the team.  If you make a rape accusation, be prepared to have people think you're a monster for accusing their friends, who "could never have done it!".  Be prepared for opposing counsel to try and dig through your sex life to prove that you were a dirty slut "asking for it".  Be prepared to have to re-live your trauma, under the klieg lights of the press and disapproving social circles and the witness stand.  Be prepared, even if you do everything right by the book to end up in situations like these:

Can the bolded part really be avoided though? While disgusting, it is their job to use any argument that could prove beneficial for their client (whether that involves appealing to the prejudices of the jury, or anything else). That certainly isn't unique to rape cases.

[Boston Bread]

^ Yeah, the problem isn't when your gets brought up in court, but it is a huge problem when law enforcement or a community dismisses a rape case because the victim seemed like a "slut". And it can go as far as the Canadian teen who committed suicide due to bullying after being raped. This probably happened at Steubenville too, it's far too common.

[Beet]

Dude, do you have any recollection of Steubenville?  Basically the whole town was up in arms that "how could you besmirch the honor of our sainted football players!"  And that's not an isolated incident, that's basically de rigeur in our culture even when they're not on the team.  If you make a rape accusation, be prepared to have people think you're a monster for accusing their friends, who "could never have done it!".  Be prepared for opposing counsel to try and dig through your sex life to prove that you were a dirty slut "asking for it".  Be prepared to have to re-live your trauma, under the klieg lights of the press and disapproving social circles and the witness stand.  Be prepared, even if you do everything right by the book to end up in situations like these:

Can the bolded part really be avoided though? While disgusting, it is their job to use any argument that could prove beneficial for their client (whether that involves appealing to the prejudices of the jury, or anything else). That certainly isn't unique to rape cases.

How would we feel if prosecutors appealed to racist stereotypes in order to win higher conviction rates against black men? Even if true, that "anything goes" kitchen sink strategy is sound legal ethics from perspective of counsel, it doesn't we as a wider society should condone it.

[Cory]

Not to mention that Rape is much worse than being falsely accused of rape.

This is very, very debatable. An argument could be made that there are actually more long standing ramifications of being falsely accused.

[free my dawg]

Not to mention that Rape is much worse than being falsely accused of rape.

This is very, very debatable. An argument could be made that there are actually more long standing ramifications of being falsely accused.

what the FYCK is this sh**t

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Not to mention that Rape is much worse than being falsely accused of rape.

This is very, very debatable. An argument could be made that there are actually more long standing ramifications of being falsely accused.

mods pls ban

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I've been trying to respond to this post with something approaching what I'm feeling. Let's just say that false rape allegations aren't at this supposed epidemic level and malicious fake rape allegations are practically a non-entity.

Much of the hallmarks of a patriarchal culture - such as men being the chasers, women the guards - manifest itself in rape and sexual assault.

Also Cory, stop being a tool.

[Cory]

what the FYCK is this sh**t

Some objectivity. I'm not saying rape isn't terrible. But people who are falsely accused can have ramifications just as long-standing and terrible. Especially considering everyone knows your name and face and there will always be a big swath of people who "just know" you did it.

Never mind if you actually get convicted and sent to prison for years before it's revealed that it was bogus.

[Gustaf]

Lots of good responses to the predictable misogynous BS. A couple of points.

1. Given how badly rape victims are treated even when they are undoubtedly in the right (Steubenville and many many other cases all over the world) it's pretty obvious that few women would ever make the calculus that it makes sense to fabricate a rape allegation.

2. When it comes to the balance we strike for ambiguous situations let us also remember that it is really easy to avoid accidentally raping someone - i.e. make sure you have some fcking consent. It is much harder to avoid being raped by someone. So a bit of chilling effect in this area is legit imo and is what I think Klein is talking about.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow. Just wow.

[Deus Naturae]

How about we just not rape people AND not falsely accuse people of rape? Jesus Christ.

You people do realize the implications of "actual crimes are worse than false accusations so it's fine if a few people are falsely accused and/or convicted." The things you people are saying are things that should be limited to forums for right-wing cops.

It's not just that you're mirroring the arguments of reactionaries, you have the exact same paranoid mindset. You assume that there are criminals everywhere; rapists lurking in every dark corner. A few innocent people get falsely treated like criminals? Tough sh**t, better them than let the real criminals (who, of course, are everywhere) escape! It's like what Marokai said about senior citizens who just watch a few TV channels and assume the world is going to hell, except instead of Fox News it's SJW blogs. This kind of mentality used to be limited to old people and it's spread to police officers in recent decades (with the results now clear for all to see), but now it's infecting the general population, except in the form of social justice crusading instead of law-and-order BS. In this very thread you have perfectly rational, intelligent people spouting this nonsense. It's insane, and it's all bound to end terribly.

[Deus Naturae]

Lots of good responses to the predictable misogynous BS. A couple of points.

1. Given how badly rape victims are treated even when they are undoubtedly in the right (Steubenville and many many other cases all over the world) it's pretty obvious that few women would ever make the calculus that it makes sense to fabricate a rape allegation.

I dunno, getting a Rolling Stone article about your made-up story doesn't sound too bad.

[Gustaf]

Firstly, seriously, stfu.

Secondly, don't worry Deus I'm sure you and your kind can continue to get away with sht for quite some time. No need to get all paranoid about it.

[Deus Naturae]

Firstly, no u.

Secondly, lol.

[Cory]

Firstly, seriously, stfu.

SJW arguments in a nutshell.

[Gustaf]

Firstly, seriously, stfu.

SJW arguments in a nutshell.

If you are just spouting nonsense based on being a jerk with no empathy I'm not going to respectfully disagree. Give some actual arguments and act like human beings instead of piles of garbage and you might get thoughtful responses.

The tired MRA-harping about how great it is to be raped or whatever is not worthy of more than being told to shut up. I'm sorry if that hurts the feelings of you manly men.

[free my dawg]

Firstly, seriously, stfu.

SJW arguments in a nutshell.

On the bright side, your posts actually give me a slight bit of faith in the eugenics movement.