The Dotson case? That was not what you described. In that case, she LIED and claimed she was raped to cover up a pregnancy. Which, while wrong and disgusting (and she should be in prison for what occurred) , is NOT the same as someone being successfully charged BECAUSE a woman changed her mind. Honestly, do you think if I went to the police and said, “Officer, I was raped-we had sex last night and I really regret it!” they’d do anything besides laugh me out of the station?
:rolleyes:
And for godsakes, stop saying all feminists are anti-male. Repeating it every post doesn’t make it so.
Guinastasia, while I obviously don’t have an on-line cite for it, the reputation and ultimately marriage of a very dear friend of mine were ruined because he was falsely accused of being a sex addict and a sexual predator. I suppose I could, if you insist, arrange an introduction. The offense he committed was placing his hand on a young woman’s thigh after they and others had been in a hot tub together. The damage done to his reputation and to him were quite real. I know because I stood by his side through this and gave him a place to stay when he moved back to town, his old life and marriage in tatters. Things like this happen; they’re real; and they’re unfair and stink to high heaven. I’ll do what I can to change them, but I’m afraid there will always be unethical people among us. If you need more information, e-mail me or call me, but I’ll be incredibly busy for the next few days.
That’s also why I can’t spend much more time on this board, at least, not if I want to eat dinner tonight!
I haven’t read the whole thread, so this may be a repeat, but I thought of this thread title while reading a review of Are Men Necessary? as well as an excerpt of the book.
I can only imagine the outcry if someone were to write a serious book with that title about women, much less parrot offensive generalizations like “if there’s one thing men fear, it’s a woman who uses her critical faculties.”
Why did feminism become synonomous with man-hating? Well, it might have to do with at least some feminists hating men.
Well, that’s very true. I’m just saying that I don’t believe those cases are the majority, nor should they be used as a weapon against a girl with a legitimate charge. I don’t think most people cry “rape!” falsely-those that do usually have major issues of their own.
Here are three simple reasons why I believe many sane people don’t want to associate with feminism:
It has no clear goals in the U.S. “Ending female oppression in patriarchal society” doesn’t bring to mind any clear action items especially since many people don’t know exactly what you are referring to. What is it supposed to DO? How are you going to get people identifying with the movement if all you have to offer is some dense literature and some statistics on female circumsision in Africa? Fire the marketing department.
It tries to be both a social movement as well as a very vague and obscure academic subject lying in its own little universe of rules and terms. I am pretty sure that I could write a computer program to generate an award winning feminist academic essay. You can work magic with a small list of buzzwords inserted into sentences: " e.g. patriarchal, goddess, sacred, mystique, oppression, vulva and symbolism".
The term “Feminism” is trite, inappropriate, and antiquated. It would be similar if people that work for race equality called themselves “abolitionists”. It was once a great movement but that stage is over. Time to celebrate a victory and move on. You aren’t going to get many recruits with a name like that. Masculinism is a real term but has only a very small movement. You know why? Because no one in their right mind is going to call themselves a “Masculinist”. That differs from feminism only in degree.
Last I heard about 25% of people who cried rape to the police were accusing people who were later convicted. And barely over 50% of cases that made it to court resulted in a conviction.
Or to put it another way 3/4 of people who cried rape were falsely accusing an innocent man, and half of those who proceded to trial were accusing innocent men. After all we still assume anyone not proven guilty to a reasonable standard is innocent don’t we?
Of course the standard (feminist) response to this is that this is simply indicative of a flawed legal system when it comes to rape. The problem with that line of reasoning is that it’s circular nonsense. We don’t want to believe that the vast majority of people who cry rape are doing so falsely so we say that our method of determining the truth of the claim must be flawed.
But by the best standard we have of judging whether those who cry rape are doing so with a reasonable degree of honesty then most of them are indeed making false claims.
catsix, it also occurred to me why there may not be as many men’s shelters-how many men do you know who would admit to being beaten by their wives?
Or hell, witness the threads we have about female teachers who molest their male students. Some wiseass always has to pop in and say, “Gee, I wish I had had her for a teacher when I was in school!” Don’t you think that’s another problem?
Maybe if society didn’t just automatically think they were lying, pathetic, or the ‘real abuser’ in the situation, those that are would actually admit it and get help before they end up like Phil Hartman.
I think it’s a huge problem that crimes against teenage boys and pre-teen boys are not taken seriously. I blame the sexist and harmful attitude that men have to be tough, and that any man who admits to being a victim is not a real man.
Feminists buy heavily into that stereotype, considering how much time they spend protesting against men and all their ‘macho chauvanism’.
There are better statistics avaliable which separate out those rape complaints where the alleged attacker wasn’t identified from those where the attacker was identified and questioned by the police. Those are even more shocking IIRC, with something like 75% of men being accused based on evidence insufficent to warrant prosecution and 75% of those who are prosecuted being convicted.
Even by the figures given above, of those men arrested for rape only 80% warrant further prosecution, and of that 80% only 58% result in conviction for rape. IOW only 46% of men arrested for rape are actually gulty of rape, the rest are innocent men. Allow that some proportion of those who aren’t arrested will be accused but not warrant arrest, and another sizable portion will be accused but the accusation later withdrawn. I’m not going to do an in-depth search for figures to back up my claim of 75% falsely accused but it’s hardly inconceivable.
But the precise figures are rather academic.
I think we can safely conclude that most of the people who cried rape were falsely accusing an innocent man, and around half of those who proceded to trial were accusing innocent men. After all we still assume anyone not proven guilty to a reasonable standard is innocent don’t we?
Or, they’re ashamed to admit that they’re being beaten up by a woman, because it somehow makes them “less of a man.” Think of terms like “pussy-whipped”, “throws/hits like a girl,” “you were beaten by a GIRL?”
Which is exactly my point.
No. Not against MEN, per se, against stereotypical “Macho Caveman” type thinking. That a real man has to be such and such, and if he’s not, he’s a sissy, or a “fag.” (Even if he were the latter, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that!). I’m not saying guys have to be New Agey-weepy wimps, but at the same time, we need to stop expecting EITHER gender to live up to some outdated roles.
Feminists aren’t the only one saying this. How many men bash each other for being “pussy-whipped” or “not manly enough?” It’s not just feminists. I’m talking about the macho, he-man stereotype that a lot of people-male and female, feel that men have to live up to, or they aren’t "real men. Think of men who freak out when they find their 2 year old sons playing dolls with their sisters. We had a topic here about a boy who wanted to dress up as Dora the Explorer for Halloween, and the parents weren’t going to let him, because that wouldn’t be right. Several people said, “Well, he’s a boy, he shouldn’t dress up like no sissy girl!” or something to that affect. Can’t we agree, that’s just as wrong?