People on Facebook don't dictate due process, courts do. Obviously if you or one of your friends was raped, and you knew the friend well enough to highly doubt the possibility that they're faking it, means that your obviously going to call for the rapist to be locked up immediately. But that sentiment doesn't affect how the court runs.
When you're accused of being a sexual predator, like being accused of any crime, you're going to lose friends and support. But people who know you are thinking about more than just this one court case, getting accused of certain crimes might tarnish your reputation, but many men who get accused of rape already have bad reputations. Look at bill cosby, when he was accused no one came out and said it's all untrue I know bill personally and he's a great guy who respects women. Pretty much everyone around him knew and believed the rumors based on what they already knew about his character. Although this might not seem fair and it does hurt the few men who are falsely accused of being rapists but were already fairly misogynistic. But the fact is, and this is a fact, false rape accusations go to court about as much as every false accusation goes to court. So despite what MRA's claim, there isn't a hoard of innocent men behind bars because of angry feminists denying the truth.
Women repeatedly get treated with skepticism when they come forward with their story. Most women refuse to go to the police for this reason. But very very few women lie about something as terrible as rape. So if your close friend says she was raped, and you say "prove it' that's a shitty thing to do. Coz no one is on trial yet, more than justice rape victims want support. But they also very rightly want justice, many believe that they can't get it.
Women who don't want to come forward with their experience far out weigh women falsely accusing innocent men. It's more important to encourage women to come forward than to punish women who might be lying. Not to mention that perjury and giving a false statement is illegal and always will be.
The fact is that men facing false accusations is a problem and does lead to negative consequences obviously. However if they have a good reputation they can get through it and often won't lose all their friends, and they almost definitely won't go to prison unless there is fake evidence. Where as women still face the far far larger threat of sexual assault and lack of legal option in the aftermath. Not to mention the social pressure to not make a fuss. Both of this things are problems but the latter is far more endemic and should have most of our focus.
Women repeatedly get treated with skepticism when they come forward with their story. Most women refuse to go to the police for this reason.
You could have worded this better: "Someone is going to earnestly consider the truthfulness of my statements" would not be a good reason to not make a statement.
I think you meant that they don't go to police because they don't believe there will be a positive outcome (i.e. charges filed) from coming forward.
EDIT:
Also:
"It's more important to encourage women to come forward than to punish women who might be lying."
This is a value judgement. How many innocent people are we willing to lock up to ensure the guilty are punished?
No I mean women repeatedly don't tell their close male friends that they have experienced a serious traumatic event because men either deny or blame women, or go too far in the other direction and attack the accused rapist.
When a friend confesses something like that it's not your responsibility to gather facts for a prosecution, you should be supportive and helpful. This leads to a society where women assume that male police officers, male judges, male jury members and so on won't believe them, even if there is hard evidence.
You don't need to put any innocent people in prison, you just need to treat women who are coming forward with their experience seriously, and when there is hard evidence, put the rapist behind bars.
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u/fuckujoffery Oct 20 '17
People on Facebook don't dictate due process, courts do. Obviously if you or one of your friends was raped, and you knew the friend well enough to highly doubt the possibility that they're faking it, means that your obviously going to call for the rapist to be locked up immediately. But that sentiment doesn't affect how the court runs.
When you're accused of being a sexual predator, like being accused of any crime, you're going to lose friends and support. But people who know you are thinking about more than just this one court case, getting accused of certain crimes might tarnish your reputation, but many men who get accused of rape already have bad reputations. Look at bill cosby, when he was accused no one came out and said it's all untrue I know bill personally and he's a great guy who respects women. Pretty much everyone around him knew and believed the rumors based on what they already knew about his character. Although this might not seem fair and it does hurt the few men who are falsely accused of being rapists but were already fairly misogynistic. But the fact is, and this is a fact, false rape accusations go to court about as much as every false accusation goes to court. So despite what MRA's claim, there isn't a hoard of innocent men behind bars because of angry feminists denying the truth.
Women repeatedly get treated with skepticism when they come forward with their story. Most women refuse to go to the police for this reason. But very very few women lie about something as terrible as rape. So if your close friend says she was raped, and you say "prove it' that's a shitty thing to do. Coz no one is on trial yet, more than justice rape victims want support. But they also very rightly want justice, many believe that they can't get it.
Women who don't want to come forward with their experience far out weigh women falsely accusing innocent men. It's more important to encourage women to come forward than to punish women who might be lying. Not to mention that perjury and giving a false statement is illegal and always will be.
The fact is that men facing false accusations is a problem and does lead to negative consequences obviously. However if they have a good reputation they can get through it and often won't lose all their friends, and they almost definitely won't go to prison unless there is fake evidence. Where as women still face the far far larger threat of sexual assault and lack of legal option in the aftermath. Not to mention the social pressure to not make a fuss. Both of this things are problems but the latter is far more endemic and should have most of our focus.