The myths feminists manufacture to discredit the falsely accused

Kate Harding, a typically foul-mouthed radical feminist who uses the word "dude" a lot as a kind of shorthand put-down of all things male and who believes rape is rampant on college campuses, urges us to be "skeptical of claims that are used to discredit rape victims every day -- e.g., 'She wanted it'; 'If she didn’t want it, then he didn’t know he didn’t have consent -- it was all a big misunderstanding'; 'Afterwards, she didn’t behave like I think a victim should'; “She’s just mad and trying to punish him'; 'She hesitated to report it/wavered on pressing charges'; 'She’s a crazy man-hater.'”

I haven't seen so much straw man since Dorothy met up with Ray Bolger on the way to Emerald City.

But give the she-devil her due. Harding's tactic is actually ingenious. She derisively posits things that are true as supposed evidence of a massive lie, and she dismisses them so off-handedly that the uninitiated will assume she must know what the hell she's talking about (this, of course, is supported by the view that every feminist is an authority on rape, even though she isn't, and that every feminist has had all manner of profound life experience that has somehow completely eluded the rest of us).

Let's shoot down her assertions in quick order:

"She wanted it."

I never knew what that meant, did you?  "She wants it."  Hmm. Is it supposed to mean that a rape victim "wants" to be raped?  Which, of course, begs the question, if someone wants to be raped, is it really "rape"? 

Let's be honest: virtually no one walking around in 2011 says this about a woman who's been raped.  Unfortunately, it can aptly be said about a hell of a lot of women who have lied about being raped.  But we're not supposed to talk about them.

"If she didn’t want it, then he didn’t know he didn’t have consent -- it was all a big misunderstanding."

When you say we should be "skeptical" of this claim, Ms. Harding, do you mean we should be "skeptical" of the forty-nine percent of the women that your high priestess, Mary Koss, says were sexually assaulted but who actually labeled the experience a "miscommunication"? A full 73 percent of the women whom Koss characterized as rape victims said that they hadn’t been raped.

Hmm. That's a problem, isn't it? I mean, if the women who were "raped" didn't know they were being raped, how on earth do we assume their "rapists" knew they were raping them?  (Of course, why let that little conundrum get in the way of a good feminist victim fetish?) But thankfully, those women had Mary Koss to tell them they were "victims" because they might have gone through their entire lives not knowing it.  See, Koss, and now Kate Harding, know better than most women. Ignore, for a moment, that this is a most un-feminist sentiment. As Heather MacDonald said, "ignoring women’s own interpretations of their experiences [is] supposedly the most grievous sin in the feminist political code."  Kind of like how we're supposed to believe every woman who claims she was raped, but to disbelieve every woman who recants her rape claim.

Seriously, Ms. Harding, you're not really so stupid that you don't know miscommunication is a major problem? I mean, you're not, are you?  Alcohol-induced misunderstandings are the elephant in the room that most folks just don't care to discuss. The fact that Ms. Harding doesn't seem to know that is not surprising. In my experience, the typical feminist doesn't have the first clue that "consent" has nothing whatsoever to do with an accuser's subjective or secret desires, whims, or beliefs, as opposed to her outward manifestations of willingness to engage in sexual relations.  The typical feminist doesn't think there is any such thing as "miscommunication" because rape occurs whenever the woman says it occurs, even if it's hours, days, weeks, months, or years after the fact.  Which kind of tells you everything you need to know about the typical feminist.

"Afterwards, she didn’t behave like I think a victim should."

This is among my favorites.

Cite any behavior -- she reported right away/she waited forty years/she was excitable/she was calm/she laughed/she cried/her narrative was evasive/her narrative was painstakingly detailed -- any and all of it is evidence of rape. How dare anyone assert that even the behavior of an obvious liar might possibly suggest dishonesty.  The only thing that matters is that a claim of rape has been made -- its timing, the accuser's demeanor, the far-fetchedness of her claim -- you see, none of that matters. And your misogynistic notions of how a rape victim should act are utterly worthless, of course, compared to a feminist's (because, again, every feminist has had all manner of profound life experience that has somehow completely eluded the rest of us).

Make sense to you? Me neither.

I remember the wise jurist I once worked for asking a "rape victim" advocate in open court why evidence of post-traumatic stress syndrome should be admissible for rape cases and not, for example, for robbery cases when someone has had a gun pointed at his head. The non-answer the judge received spoke volumes about the arrogance of the sexual grievance industry.

“She’s just mad and trying to punish him."

Um, yeah. Right. That's a real far-fetched reason, isn't it?  Ha ha.  Like these recent cases we've reported on here:  the young woman who had her boyfriend arrested for rape because he took too long to buy cigarettes. Or, remember the women who didn't want to pay cab fares, so they accused innocent cab drivers -- working class nobodys -- of rape, just to hurt them? How about the girl who wanted to get back at her teen ex-boyfriend: her rape lie not only got him arrested and convicted, but two of his friends as well. Or the woman who wanted to get back at her ex-boyfriend for breaking it off, so she falsely accused him of rape, and candidly admitted: "I just wanted him to be hurt because of what he’d done." Or the women who called the police and falsely claimed her ex was having sex with a minor. Or the young woman who told a rape lie about her young ex-boyfriend "because she wanted him to feel extreme pain." 

Remember them, Ms. Harding?  Of course you don't.

Then there was the woman who sent a man to prison for five years because she was bored. And the woman out for revenge after a road rage incident. And the woman who tried to destroy the life of a man she didn't even know because he wouldn't give her a beer. And the maid who accused her employer of rape because she didn't like her workload. And the girl who accused a man of rape for throwing a flower at her. And the woman who falsely accused her lover of rape because he had the bad manners to go speak with a roommate after having sex instead of staying with her. And the woman who caused three men to be interrogated for rapes they didn't commit, all because she wanted a day off from work.

Some women need no excuse at all. An 18-year-year-old boy was hauled out of class and arrested on a random false rape claim by a girl he'd never met. He was jailed for a month. Oh, and let's not forget the serial false accusers. Can't forget them.

So, yeah, Ms. Harding. That's really a far-fetched claim you cited there. Yep. You are one persuasive feminist, you are.

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And we could go on and on, but you get the point.  The fact is, no group on earth is more adept at inventing straw men than the sexual grievance industry. Their insistence has taken on the qualities of a cult with people like Kate Harding repeating their chants with mindless zombie-like repetition. Except they sprinkle it with the "f" word every couple of sentences. You know, to show us how empowered and angry they are.