Process, Ethics, and Justice: An Inauspicious Note Regarding the Politics of Rape Culture

Oh great, you're back to the turducken style of argument... Colour me shocked.

No it wasn't. I had meant "linked", not quoted and amended that post accordingly.

And of course you need to tell me what the subject is.

As I noted, I realised my error and had typed "quoted" instead of "linked".

Her grading of sexual harassment resulted in sexual harassment in some instances being labeled as just "lesser annoyances". I hope that clears up any confusion that you might have.

I actually address this point here:

You know, the part you chose to ignore.

Because even minor offenses can have a detrimental affect.

I believe we can tell the difference. I think the issue arises when partisan politics comes into play. I do believe that the belief that one can grope a woman stems from misogyny and it is a serious character flaw.

 

Most of us believe deep down that women can't be trusted

There are some understandable reasons why law enforcement officials, for instance, tend not to believe victims who come forward about rape.

We are only just beginning to understand the scienceof how the brain processes trauma. Memories are stored in a fragmented way, and emotional reactions can seem "off." Both of these things can raise suspicions among police officers who are accustomed to using rigorous interrogations to ferret out inconsistencies in a story, and rigorous interrogation only makes things worse.

But there's clearly something deeper going on when a police department calls its sex crimes investigative division the "lying bitch unit."

And law enforcement officials aren't the only ones who don't believe rape victims. Too often, entire communities turn againstsurvivors of sexual assault who come forward.

The idea that women are inherently deceitful, especially when it comes to sexuality, is deeply rooted in our culture. Soraya Chemaly has written extensively about the ways we teach our children that women are liars.

Our pop culture and religious teachings alike are fraughtwith descriptions of women as untrustworthy — from Eve and the apple to Gossip Girl. Teenagers and police officers alike radically overestimate the number of women who lie about rape. This has real consequences in nearly every walk of life, Chemaly writes:

Women's credibility is questioned in the workplace, in courts, in legislatures, by law enforcement, in doctors' offices and in our political system. People don't trust women … not to be bosses, pilots, employees. Last year, a survey of managers in the United States revealed that they overwhelmingly don't believe women who request flextime. Until relatively recently, in order to hedge against the idea that women lie, many U.S. police departments had "corroboration requirements" for rape reports, unlike any other crime. Pakistan's controversial Hudood Ordinance still requires a female rape victim to procure four male witnesses to her rape or risk prosecution for adultery.​

Damon Young of Very Smart Brothas wrote about how the Cosby situation made him realize that he didn't truly trust his wife, and that most men don't trust women. He said he trusts her not to cheat and to be a good partner, and he trusts her opinions on important things:

But you know what I don’t really trust? What I’ve never actually trusted with any women I’ve been with? Her feelings.

If she approaches me pissed about something, my first reaction is "What’s wrong?"

My typical second reaction? Before she even gets the opportunity to tell me what’s wrong? "She’s probably overreacting."​

Female hysteria is another deeply rooted gender stereotype, and it tells us that women can't even be trusted to know their own feelings. These stereotypes cause doctors to ignore women's symptoms of pain, and they inspire lawmakers to pass abortion waiting periods because they don't think women consider their decision carefully enough. Meanwhile, men are perceived as smarter and more authoritative than women.

Our society, which is less separable than we'd like from the cruder societies that came before it, has created a perfect storm of reasons to dismiss rape victims.

A woman can't be trusted to know her own feelings, which means she either secretly wanted sex while saying she didn't, or wanted it at the time but changed her mind afterward.

A woman isn't her own person, not really — so it matters less that believing him means disbelieving her.

A woman can't be trusted not to lie, so it's safer to disbelieve her than to risk ruining some innocent fellow's life.

And men are the ones with money, social status, and something to lose, so they are the real stakeholders in any rape case.

Rape is horrifying and messy, and sometimes it's easier to disbelieve that it happens at all. But that option isn't open to victims of rape and sexual assault.

Denying rape means believing that victims are lying. It means denying their humanity and worth. And it's a denial that has been made far too easy by thousands of years of habit.
[Source]​

We could of course look at what can happen to rape victims because of people refuse to believe them, particularly when the person being accused is someone who is rich and powerful. Or the fact that false rape accusations are prodigiously rare, but that would just rain on your parade. Or the horror of campus rape, where victims are blamed, accused and treated like criminals because hey, women lie, right? It's easier to push the due process line.. Too bad the victims don't get the same consideration.

 

You are a part of the problem.

There is a lot of literature that details why victims do not report to the police. The most glaring is because of how the police treat the victims and some deliberately protect the accused, some tank investigations on purpose, some rape victims are treated like they are the criminals. For example:

According to a 2000 study by the Department of Justice, fewer than 5% of college women who suffered completed or attempted rapes reported it to law enforcement. Almost a quarter of rape victims who did not report said they were afraid of being treated with hostility. Twenty-seven percent said they thought the police wouldn't think it was serious enough.​

These worries are, unfortunately, well-founded. Research by Wayne State University's Debra Patterson backs up prior studies indicating up to half of all rape victims are treated by the police in ways that cause secondary victimization. Even more extreme incidents still occur, like an inspector general's report that concluded five New Orleans detectives on the special victims unit improperly failed to pursue all but 14% of 1,290 sex crimesassigned to them.​

It's often referred to as 'second rape'.

 

False accusations of rape are exceptionally rare.

By relying on that repeatedly and trying to make it a bigger problem than it actually is, it further perpetuates the myth that these victims are lying, or sets a belief that victims cannot be trusted. And it is often used to try to silence victims.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/r...s/news-story/36e11c8db4052604a7bc02c96842b356

https://web.stanford.edu/group/maan/cgi-bin/?page_id=297

Please stop repeating this frankly dangerous myth.

 

You have absolutely no disagreement from me there.

I am only sorry that I could only 'like' your post once.

There is a lot of literature that addresses why some men react this way. The constant referral to false accusations, despite that being so rare, is an attempt to silence discussions. It is a myth, and basically reads like a conspiracy, that these women are somehow or other out to get these men based on lies and slander, and it is repeated in just about every rape case and sexual abuse case and sexual harassment case. This is particularly the case when individuals like politicians are accused. It becomes solely partisan. When it pertains to politics, we immediately see discussions about due process, which led me to ask 'due process for whom' at one point these last few weeks, because victims are rarely afforded due process. Most importantly, by switching the narrative to false rape accusations, it deliberately changes the narrative to 'women lie', ergo, the women making these accusations are lying.

I don't think it is an issue of poor reading comprehension or that they are stupid. I do think it is deliberate. Tragically, what they have been saying here, is what rape victims experience when they report it.

It is to protect the status quo. And the intent is to silence victims.

Perpetuating the myth that women lie and by repeatedly referring to those rare cases of false accusations, it sets the tone, that these women cannot and should not be believed.

It is one of the reasons why rape is so under-reported, and why prosecutors fail to prosecute these cases. In some instances, the police will deliberately tank the investigation or close it citing lack of evidence, despite there being so much evidence. In my case, they refused to prosecute because I had worked as a prosecutor, citing vested interest and being a bad look publicly if they did pursue it. When the police first arrived at my house, I was asked if I was sure I had been raped, I was asked about what I had done to perhaps set this off (I was asleep on my couch while suffering from the flu when my brother in law broke into my house and raped me in my own family room)..

What you experienced is abhorrent. No one should have to go through that. I think it was pjdude who also experienced something similar. It isn't acceptable and it is a failure of society that this keeps happening to victims of sexual violence.

Sadly, this is common, particularly in small communities, where the woman is touted as being the liar, as being dishonest and they will often track back to your previous behaviour to try to show just how dishonest you may have been. And people like EF make comments about how if women want to be taken seriously, they should report it straight away. It is such a dangerous narrative, because it completely ignores what women experience when they do report it and it ignores the reason why women do not come forward and sometimes wait years to decades before they feel strong enough to speak out.

There is a reason why they refer to it as 'second rape', because it is yet another violation for victims. And seeing people like EF argue that women would only be trusted if they report it immediately, well, it's yet another myth and harks back that these women cannot and should not be taken seriously, because we fail to act as some expect us to. It is deeply misogynistic and only works to protect rape culture and ultimately, the abusers.

 

Well, let's see, you took a response I made to someone out of context and then referred back to an utterly ridiculous example - that was ridiculous the first time you brought it up in the other thread, and is equally ridiculous now.. In other words, when you present something that is completely dishonest and frankly so silly that I can barely wrap my head around how anyone could come up with something like that, of course you are going to view any response to your dishonest and ridiculous argument as being "dishonest".

These questions were answered multiple times, and you just refuse to accept what my answer was, and you are still doing it.

I addressed one thing, you demand that I answer to something else, I advise that I had meant "linked" instead of quote. And now you are telling me that what I was actually talking about (and then advised my own error) is not what I was talking about and that the subject of your post (which was directly quoting what I had said mind you) was not answered and that I had changed the subject, despite my not having done that.

Put simply, what is it you want to talk about? Because at present, you are taking my words out of context, applying a different subject to them (to the point that my direct comments which were originally aimed at what Sommers had said is apparently not what I was talking about and that you seem to be discussing something else entirely).

You asked me what my objection was to what she said (in the article that EF linked). I answered it directly and explained why her comments were dangerous. Now you are saying that I was apparently answering to something else entirely.

Well you need to be clearer. Because I was responding to something EF had posted and said. You applied a different context and narrative to that and now you seem to be accusing me of dishonesty, after linking what I said to EF and it seems, in your mind, you seem to think I am aware of what you are thinking.

So I ask again, what are you on about?

But I do know what I am on about. Sadly, I don't have my x-ray goggles that can read your mind across the Pacific Ocean, so when you respond to something I said to EF about what he linked, and you apply it to something else entirely, and then expect me to answer for it, those lack of goggles makes it a tad difficult for me to know what you are actually demanding I answer to.

When you take it upon yourself, based on whatever it is you are on about, to try to lecture me about telling the difference, frankly, it's kind of laughable really.

Is this why I have seen you rail constantly about the accusations against Trump, for example, when people expressed belief that he is guilty of sexual harassment.....?

Nope, not a word from you there. It seems you were only interested when the subject was Franken. I noted that the issue has become quite partisan, where both sides are throwing down for their preferred candidates/people, for the sake of politics. That was my initial comment in the Roy Moore thread. You seemed to take offense to that, because apparently Franken belongs in a different category. Okay..?

So? And?

You think I am always wrong? Okay. You are free to your opinions.

So I don't really think that a man who gropes multiple women and his beliefs that he can do it stems from misogyny? Okay then. Thank you for clearing that up for me!

And my answer to that stands. You can "wtf" all you want.

Soooo glad we got to have this chat, yet again, because the dozens of times we have gone over this repeatedly was so much fun that I was feeling like something was missing from my life.

 

And women do not report, because they will inevitably be faced with individuals such as yourself, what with your ranting about trolley's and sacrificing the few for the many when it comes to rape culture and addressing it, when you immediately start talking about false accusations, when you start dropping in comments about how men need outlets and snide comments about the biological urge to procreate, and then the whining about how you are losing something something in regards to politics.

In other words, Kitta, you do not get to complain about what needs to be fixed, when you espouse ideology that points directly to an utterly broken system.

For example:

It's shit like this, that results in our not taking you seriously and questioning what your motives are here.

To wit, when you whine about the system, and then belittle those protesting against said system because we dared to take your repeated condoning of rape culture at face value, then it just makes you look somewhat frantic.

An example of this condoning of rape culture, despite the volume of literature out there and posted in these threads to try to educate you about how dangerous your stance here, is met with:

Now, consider that you said that second quoted section, to a rape survivor who has detailed, several times on this forum, just how she was treated and not believed because of the kinds of attitudes you have espoused in this thread..

So no, you don't get to complain about the "broken ass system", when you take your whole self and stomp on it each time people try to address it and doing so by making these frankly obscene comments, in particular to a victim who has detailed just how she survived it.