In the current debate over anonymity for presumptively innocent men accused of rape, who can we trust to provide an unbiased take on the issue?
We can't trust the persons leading the opposition. They are largely the same persons who have engaged in dishonest tactics to make it appear that rape is rampant and tolerated in the UK. They are advocates with an agenda to jack up rape convictions, not objective policymakers. It is well to note that their dishonesty may actually have hurt rape victims. How have they been dishonest? The Home Office, and politicians seeking to jack up rape convictions, have long cited the attrition rate for rape, which is the number of convictions as a percentage of number of reported crimes. That rate is 6%. But, the Home Office, and everyone, uses the conviction rate (the number of convictions secured against the number of persons brought to trial for that given offence) for all other crimes. The result has been to make it appear that law enforcement is terribly, and uniquely, ineffective when it comes to rape. Please re-read that and make sure you understand it. The UK has insisted that only 6% of "rapists" are convicted, as opposed to the correct figure: 58%. Stern Review, see page 45. "Rape is the only crime judged by the attrition rate. All others – murder, assault, robbery, and so on – are assessed by their conviction rates." See here. This is dishonesty of Biblical proportions. The Stern Review noted that use of the attrition rate instead of the conviction rate "may well have discouraged some victims from reporting." Stern Review, see page 45.
Beyond that, we have debunked every point posited in opposition to anonymity. Not a single point stands up to the light of day.
So who can we trust to give us an unbiased view? How about someone who has experienced up close both a rape and a false rape claim?
At a Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton four years ago, anonymity for men accused of rape was debated, and activist Jacqui Gasson, 68, a rape victim whose attacker has never been found, spoke up.
Mrs. Gasson favors anonymity for the presumptively innocent.
The Cardiff activist recounted how she was raped 40 years ago on the steps of her London home. "Despite yelling for help and there being plenty of people on the street above, nobody helped."
The ordeal forced Mrs. Gasson to leave London and caused her to suffer a nervous breakdown.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Gasson spoke out in favor of anonymity for those accused or rape.
Why is Mrs. Gasson sympathetic to a plight that she, as a woman, would almost certainly never suffer herself? Because her husband was wrongly accused of an unrelated assault.
Mrs. Gasson has been victimized by rape, and she isn't satisfied enough is being about it. She called for more sexual assault referral centres for rape victims. "You feel dirty, you feel unclean and you need a haven not a police station."
But Mrs. Gasson also has been touched by a false claim in a very personal way.
Mrs. Gasson's position on this issue needs to be listened to. She demonstrates that rape victims and the victims of false rape claims are not at odds. Read that last sentence again. Helping the latter does not hurt the former. Extending a hand to the victims of false rape claims does not suggest that rape victims should be ignored. We are not playing a zero sum game. As members of the civilized family of man, we are supposed to try to help all victims, even the ones born with penises.
These are simple lessons that we've preached here for years, but our message doesn't resonate in the politically charged world of rape advocacy, where it is difficult to tell if the real goal is to help rape victims or to punish an entire gender, including innocent victims of false rape claims, for the sins committed by a tiny percentage of men.
In a nation where the rape debate is marked by gross dishonesty, policymakers would do well to heed the honest voice of Jacqui Gasson, someone who knows what she's talking about, and whose "rape" credentials can scarcely be assailed.
See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1529213/Anonymity-for-rape-suspects-backed.html
and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5358268.stm
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20 comments:
wow, what a great story...surprised to see a rape victim actually supporting this
of course every feminist will say that Jacqui feels she is responsible for her own rape and is in denial
"wow, what a great story...surprised to see a rape victim actually supporting this"
I'm not, I've only encountered two rape victims, both of them supported it too, and both of them thought the likes of Harriet Harman were part of the problem, not the solution, from their perspective as victims of a sexual crime.
YMMV
ZetaMale, I agree. I suspect the "powers that be" would minimize Ms. Gasson's story because her husband was one of the "rare" men falsely accused. You see, they always have an excuse to reject helping even innocent men.
I want to add this.
I've just written a piece that will run late Tuesday night for the anniversary of the Bobbitt mutilation. It is probably the most shocking (and lengthiest) thing I've ever written for this site -- it's fairly heavily researched and crammed with some really eye-opening stuff, so it won't bore anyone. It is shocking not because of the gruesome mutilation (and, yeah, I know -- can there be anything more gruesome that that?), but because of the celebratory reaction of feminists and, I am loathe to say it, sizable segments of the female population over the act. It's a watershed event in exposing how widespread misandry really is -- it goes way beyond feminism, and it occurred just before the Internet explosion. Men were almost totally unaware of the contempt for their gender and didn't even know how to react to the glee and ecstasy over the fact that an average, lower middle class man -- by most measures a "loser" -- had his penis cut off.
I'm going to encourage our readers to read the whole damn thing because I am truly disturbed by it, and it's left me shaken. If there was even a remote possibility that we could entertain the notion that feminism is in any way "good" for men, too, this forever forecloses that possibility.
the only possible thing that feminism has done that is good for men is bringing forth the POTENTIAL to break gender norms restricting men-they sparked an idea amongst all the hatred
most people including myself would say its not worth all the trouble that we got with it, but ill still take it
Right, ZetaMale. Society -- both men and women -- clearly don't want men to undergo radical gender transformation, but feminists insists that maleness is inherently flawed and needs to refurbished -- in accordance with feminists' design, of course.
"but xxxxxxxxx insist that xxxxxxxx is inherently flawed and needs to refurbished -- in accordance with feminists' design, of course."
Sound's remarkably like one A Hitler.
Having been one of the few people to have read Mein Kampf from cover to cover, (and the Bible, come to that) I am of the firm opinion that feminism is at best no better than nazism, at best...
The number of worldwide abortions dwarfs the numbers killed in concentration camps, and using "waste" from the mutilation of baby males genitals is at least, at the very least, on a par with making lampshades out of human skin.
AfOR, you know how much I respect your genius. I would say this, though, before this gets out of hand: as an American boy born during the baby boom, I was cut (as was every guy in my high school gym class, as far as I know without going out of my way to look), but I am not offended over the idea that my foreskin might have been used for skin grafts or beauty products. I think it's unjust that they didn't pay us for it, and the entire practice is barbaric, but that's a different question. That practice in a different universe than using the skin of people murdered because of their heritage for lampshades.
On the circ issue, I wish it hadn't been done to me, and I support outlawing it now, but my parents and every other boys' parents were just doing what was commonly accepted. They certainly didn't intend to hurt us. Kind of like how primitive tribes drive bamboo sticks through their skin. The more civilized a society becomes, the less mutilation is acceptable.
Important action alert at False Rape Strike Force.
The usual argument against anonymity is that it interferes with rape prosecutions by making it harder for a serial rapist's other victims to report him.
But you can just as easily argue against anonymity for rape complainants on the same basis: if you grant a false rape accuser anonymity, that makes it harder for her other victims to come forward and prevent her from falsely convicting her latest mark.
At any rate, granting anonymity to one party while denying it to the other is obviously unfair. It's like the referee of a soccer match choosing sides before the game even starts. A trial is supposed to DETERMINE the outcome, not steer automatically in the direction of a PREDETERMINED outcome.
But one of our biggest problems is that nobody in the legal community wants to admit just how unreliable the system is.
If it really was the clean white marble temple of justice that the nifongs pretend it is, then the victims of false rape accusations never had anything to worry about in the first place. But we all know that isn't true: false rape accusations put their victims in terrible peril.
Instead of 'never had anything,' try 'would never have anything.' Sorry for the sloppy proofreading.
Anon, you are correct about how flawed our system is. We have cops sympathetic to rape claimants, who see their duty as believing any woman who says she was raped. We have corrupt SANE nurses, with misandric agendas. We have D.A.s who don't understand that rolling the dice with doubtful rape claims that might send an innocent man or boy to prison if the D.A. "gets lucky" isn't part of her job. And we have judges who simply refuse, in most cases, to properly punish false rape accusers.
In a perfect world, the system would see through the liars, but we don't live in a perfect world.
If feminism never happened, all women would still be stuck in the kitchen, staying at home with the kids, not even having the right to vote.
If feminism hadn't happened, we'd have no female scientists like Marie Curie.
If feminism never happened, the way we treat the mentally ill would have never changed.
If feminism never happened, women would still be the property of man. Like how they were since the beginning of civilization up until what, 90 years ago?
I bet you wish you could just undo feminism. Send us all back to the kitchen, take away our rights etc etc.
Now that the tables are turned, and you men are the ones facing the discrimination and sexism (after thousands of years of being the dominate, controlling sex) all because you were born male you get a taste of what women had to put up with the last couple thousand years.
If feminism never happened, all women would still be stuck in the kitchen, staying at home with the kids, not even having the right to vote.
****
Yeah, that's the feminist party line: just accuse MRAs of wanting to send women 'back to the kitchen.' It's the stereotype of pre-modern family life that they have burned into the minds of the ignorant.
But you're completely wrong: if feminism had never happened, modern appliances still would have 'liberated' women from housework. That was the result of technological advancement -- it had nothing to do with a bunch of hairy-legged communists burning their bras and making up lies about men.
Staying home with the kids? Yeah, that would be horrible.
Not voting? Unlikely, as the expansion of jobs for women was pretty much an inevitable result of the growth of capitalism and the requirement of the modern war state. (Remember: the right to vote was a 'thank you' for filling in for the boys when they went off to war.)
Marie Curie was born in 1867, so you can't give Gloria Steinem any credit for her. She was also the child of two teachers; so much for the myth of pre-feminist female home enslavement.
In short, everything you have just said is based upon historical inaccuracies and stereotypes having no relationship to reality. But thanks much for admitting that our society is a misandrist hell hole -- that much you did get right.
Now that the tables are turned, and you men are the ones facing the discrimination and sexism (after thousands of years of being the dominate, controlling sex) all because you were born male you get a taste of what women had to put up with the last couple thousand years.
***
Don't laugh. We can always rearrange the furniture again.
By the way, I hope that the admins will allow the hateful, seething comment at 6:15 to stand. It is important to show everybody what the feminists are really about and how they rationalize their vile agenda in terms of largely imaginary historic injustices. (Which is also what the Nazis did, incidentally.)
These comments make our arguments for us much more effectively than we ever will.
"If feminism never happened, all women would still be stuck in the kitchen, staying at home with the kids, not even having the right to vote."
Women got the right to vote 10 years after the franchise was extended to non-landowning males. Oh yeah, centuries of political powerlessness there.
"If feminism hadn't happened, we'd have no female scientists like Marie Curie."
There aren't any female scientists AFTER feminism either. You named Marie Curie. Try naming 5 female thinkers in the same category as Hawking. You can't,because they don't exist. All the feminism in the world won't change the fact that men are biologically more inclined to math and science.
"If feminism never happened, the way we treat the mentally ill would have never changed."
That much is true,we do treat the delusions of feminists with more tolerance than we used to.
"If feminism never happened, women would still be the property of man. Like how they were since the beginning of civilization up until what, 90 years ago? "
I was fortunate enough to have many conversations with my great-grandmother,I think she would have mentioned being the property of a man at some point.
"I bet you wish you could just undo feminism. Send us all back to the kitchen, take away our rights etc etc."
SEND YOU BACK TO THE KITCHEN!? God,no! I don't know a single woman who can cook as well as I do. The last place I'd want any modern woman is the kitchen, many can't even boil water without assistance, and to think, women once rejected instant cake mix because they didn't feel like they were being allowed to demonstrate their cooking abilities if they weren't mixing the ingredients themselves.
"Now that the tables are turned, and you men are the ones facing the discrimination and sexism (after thousands of years of being the dominate, controlling sex) all because you were born male you get a taste of what women had to put up with the last couple thousand years."
Oh good. I suppose you'll be "oppressing" us in the exact same way we "oppressed" you for "thousands of years",i.e.,paying our bills, buying us diamonds, taking us out to dinner,inventing gadgets to lighten our workload and battery-operated sexual devices for when you're away on business,allowing us to take half your wages when we decide we like the milkwoman better than you,giving us foot massages and roses on Valentine's Day. You know, real hardcore stuff, like what the blacks got under Jim Crow.
"Now that the tables are turned, and you men are the ones facing the discrimination and sexism (after thousands of years of being the dominate, controlling sex) all because you were born male you get a taste of what women had to put up with the last couple thousand years."
It's an idiot argument because sex isn't hereditary. A person's ancestry is equally male and female.
Oh good. I suppose you'll be "oppressing" us in the exact same way we "oppressed" you for "thousands of years",i.e.,paying our bills, buying us diamonds, taking us out to dinner,
***
Not to mention dying in wars to protect us. Somehow feminists always forget that part.
Civil war casualties (male): 618,000
Civil war casualties (female): 60
Yeah, that sure is better than the real degradation of being expected to cook and sew and even spend time with your own children. Women sure had it rough!
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