Comments on: This Time Syndrome

By: Madelyn

Madelyn — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:57:39 +0000

Very interesting post… I was reminded of an article on (I think) feministing that talked about anti-choice women having abortions. Something like “Every other abortion is wrong, but mine is right because of X mitigating reason.” It’s, admittedly, not quite the same as what was talked about in the above post, but it did remind me of it.

By: Buzzcook

Buzzcook — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 05:00:21 +0000

Usually calling the congressional democrats a bunch of spineless pussies is an insulting use of a feminine pejorative to women. But with the case of telecom immunity this time it’s an insult to pussies.

By: SKM

SKM — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:09:04 +0000

dandddanica,
In addition to Ashley’s questions, I wonder how you come to these conclusions:

the word of a woman is worth more than that of a man when it comes to sexual assault
…
Why is the word of a victim so sancrosanct?

If the word of a victim were indeed sacrosanct and the word of a woman worth more than that of a man in sexual assault cases, it seems to me that both the reporting rate for rapes and the number of rapists that see jail time would be higher than what is reported by RAINN (39% of rapes are reported; 16.3% chance of jail time). How do you square these numbers with your own evidence?

By: Ashley

Ashley — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:51:02 +0000

dananddanica,

Do you have any backup for the claim that women in a specific socioeconomic group are more likely to make false allegations? Or that allegations in family court are more likely to be false?

It is true that women with less money are more likely to make accusations, but I think there are a few possible reasons for that: they don’t have the kinds of resources middle-class or upper income women have to get counseling or deal with the assault in some other way, there is more pressure on women with high status to keep the status (and hence not bring up allegations that are often considered “shameful”), and, most importantly, marginalized communities often have higher rates of sexual victimization.

By: dananddanica

dananddanica — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:09:08 +0000

anna,
Saying it leads to 100% conviction is indeed silly but it does lead to conviction far more often than it should, which would be 0%. Similar to statutory rape charges for men vs those for women, people react to that and wonder why? Why is the word of a victim so sancrosanct? There are surely many abuses still heaped upon sexual assault victims of both genders but the way it is now, a person can be ruined with accusations and that creates fear. We all know the highest profile cases but there are many more, in our own towns that dont get nat’l pub. Of course some people claim that fear is a good thing. Who knows.

By: dananddanica

dananddanica — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:06:25 +0000

Ashley,
Good point and I would agree in general the likelihood of a sexual assault allegation being 100% false is low, somewhere around the single digits if it can even be measured, that number does goes up a whole bunch depending on the context though. A sexual assault allegation connected to a family court dispute? Much higher chance of being totally false. As much as a rape culture does exist, the word of a woman is worth more than that of a man when it comes to sexual assault, especially among the less well off. Women and men are intelligent, a lot of the women in my socioeconomic group have found that sexual assault based allegations are an incredibly powerful tool and lacking a lot of other tools, due to being oppressed, they use it quite often.

Whenever someone has the power to allege a crime that carries significant penalties and at least initially can rely only on their word there is a high potential for abuse . Including the fabrications with the unresoleved/non convicted is indeed the wrong thing to do, as you pointed out but even for those of us who parse the numbers somewhat correctly, calling out the bullshit that sexual assault allegations are either always true or only false (made up) 2% of the time is just something that needs to be done.

By: Anna

Anna — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:10:04 +0000

Wow, Shah8, that’s an awful lot of men in those comments talking about the lying women. It was kinda disturbing.

I think my favourite comment was that rape accusations in court lead to a 100% conviction rate. That’s… wow.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 05:41:04 +0000

Here’s the thing: we know that the rate of false reports of sexual assault is very low. Different stats are out there, but the rate of false reports is generally recognized to be the same as any other crime (in the single digits, percentagewise). When people quote higher percentages, they are basing that on the number of reports that were not pursued by police or did not get a conviction. I think us feminists are on to the fact that there would be, um, problems with using that as a test.

Despite the fact that, statistically speaking, the likelihood that a given sexual assault allegation would be false is quite low, I have heard someone accuse rape survivors of lying every single time I have seen a survivor come forward. The only exceptions I’ve seen have involved extreme torture or near-fatal injury.

So every time is this time, when it comes to sexual assault.

By: shah8

shah8 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 03:19:29 +0000

I got the % at a different place, and that site did mention a book that cited that figure. I linked to the googled place because I wanted to know more about the data I got. Found that place, and liked how the different viewpoints of the levels of false reports are.

By: dananddanica

dananddanica — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:50:19 +0000

good stuff shah, I’ve linked to that website many, many times. It doesnt marry up to your 3% claim nor do the doj numbers. So why post the 3% number at all?