Have you re-read that link to see how your summary of it might be a little off?
#metoo exists because the old way of “just believing some women when they deserve to be believed” didn’t work. Just talking to the person instead of tattling to HR didn’t work. Appeals to existing structures didn’t work.
Everyone’s suggestions for what to do instead of #metoo-world solutions are ultimately about going back to the status quo. That’s not an option. Believing women only when they could prove it was a failure. It created a society where assault and gender inequality is the norm; where men act out sexually towards women who are powerless to stop it.
Unless and until we’re willing to, as a general rule, believe women and look skeptically at the men who deny, we will tacetly be supporting assault and rape.
Judging from the replies on the Christine Blasey Ford thread, you’re probably going to hear that nobody should believe women unless there is evidence. Of course, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape often don’t leave incontrovertible evidence, which makes it easy for them to deny it happens. They’d rather believe that women who speak up are hysterical liars than deal with the issue, itself.
And you can tell them until the cows come home that it’s about believing women, not persecuting men, but it won’t do any good. Apparently they believe no business is aware of wrongful discharge suits and that every business owner who hears of one incident from one woman fires the accused post haste and without investigation. As I said earlier, it’s all about how they view women in general.
I’m sure being a falsely accused booger-picker was very traumatic for you. Almost as traumatic as being a falsely accused rapist.
Oh, wait… That’s not the same thing at all! Silly me!
I believe people who make credible accusations supported by evidence. I do not believe people whose accusations are not credible or contradicted by evidence. I fail to understand what is wrong with that.
Yeah, turns out it is WAAAY easier to convict somebody when you don’t need to actually prove your case.
I’m sorry to say this but… duh. If something has no evidence, that makes it pretty hard to believe in it. That definitely makes it hard to justify firing or prosecuting someone.
I understand the difference. I just fail to comprehend why I would believe something without evidence.
Google “Mike Nifong” and see what you get.
What’s wrong is that your method leaves us with a society where gender-based workplace and social inequities abound, and where sexual assault and harassment are routine experiences for most women.
Whatever kind of fairness and logic you think you’re applying, it in fact ends up facilitating those experiences of women and the causal behaviors of men.
I’m not talking about convicting people in a court of law, and you know that. Don’t pretend I’m saying something I’m not.
You believe all sorts of things “without evidence” on a daily basis. It’s a fundamental necessity of human interaction.
Like I said never been in one of those mythical work environments.
I get references to an unethical prosecutor who exploited and sabotaged a rape indictment that was based on a false accusation, and who was eventually disbarred, sued and bankrupted for his conduct.
I’m not sure why you think that supports your argument.
Never been in one of those “mythical” work environments where people actually do work while they’re at work?
Well, that could explain why your total SDMB post number is nearly one-third of mine even though I’ve been on these boards over six times as long as you. 
Perhaps that is why you are scared of false accusations?
Also, testimony, including the testimony of an accuser, is legally a form of evidence. What JB99 meant is that he doesn’t believe the statement of an accuser without supporting evidence.
Which of course, as you point out, is nonsense: people routinely believe unsupported accusations, from “Some asshole cut me off in traffic this morning” to “My sister cheated me out of half my inheritance”, as long as the accusations seem credible to them.
But in the case of women accusing men of sexual misconduct, some men have decided to set up an artificial criterion of personal belief that officially defaults to disbelief in the absence of supporting evidence. This has the advantage of allowing them to go on ignoring a lot of sexual misconduct.
Disapproval of mob “justice” is not fear.
So you’re worried that a woman will falsely accuse you of assaulting her, and a mob will form and they’ll lynch you?
That’s your fear?
How much time out of the day do you worry about this? More than two hours a day might be excessive.
[quote=“JB99, post:245, topic:825626”]
I’m sorry to say this but… duh. If something has no evidence, that makes it pretty hard to believe in it. That definitely makes it hard to justify firing or prosecuting someone.
Nobody’s asking you to fire anybody. And unless you’re a judge, you’re not throwing anyone in jail, either. But this “Sorry, when it comes to sexual harassment, if there’s no proof, I don’t buy it” attitude is disingenuous. If a buddy tells you his lunch was stolen from the fridge, do you say, “Produce evidence you put that pastrami sandwich in the fridge, Frank, and that someone took it, or I won’t believe you”? Doubtful.
Look, an employee telling a supervisor or HR she (or he) was sexually harassed is NOT in and of itself going to result in someone getting fired. First there’s an investigation.
At my workplace, we employees were told to tell the offender in no uncertain terms to knock it off; take screen shots of any offensive texts, photos, emails, or PM’s; document.
But what happens when someone sexually harasses a colleague or subordinate, is told to stop, and doesn’t. What then? He claims she never told him to stop. (He wasn’t stupid enough to do it when others were around.) You don’t believe her without evidence; in other words, you say it didn’t happen, and she’s a liar, even though it did and she’s not. And the harasser gets away with it That’s what #Metoo is about: for all of us who had to put up and shut up, here was the chance to share with others, to be believed after years of put up and shut up.
I keep hoping–and I mean this sincerely–that the “I believe nothing without evidence” folks here never have wives/daughters/sisters/friends that get sexually harassed or, God forbid, sexually assaulted, because some of you apparently won’t believe them unless they have incontrovertible evidence. Odds are, though, someone you care about has already been sexually harassed or assaulted. They’re just not going to tell YOU about it. Guess why.
Missed the edit window. Here’s the link for the quoted material:
Well if you think accusations should be sufficient to rile up a mob and demand loss of job or enrollment at a university just say you’re in favor of mob justice. No need to be silly about it.
Are there cases where real criminals don’t get the consequences they deserve? Absolutely. But this thread isn’t about that. It’s about cost/benefit analysis at work.
Note, of course, that not believing the accuser without evidence is effectively equivalent to believing the harasser, equally without evidence.
The default position, for people maintaining this attitude, is not actually a neutral suspension of belief: it’s defaulting to a belief that misconduct did not happen, and that solid supporting evidence is required in order to change that default belief.
Considering how often sexual misconduct does happen in the workplace, it’s odd that so many people’s position on the subject defaults to maintaining the firm belief that sexual misconduct didn’t happen, unless and until they’re confronted with evidence so incontrovertible that they can’t possibly go on disbelieving it.
I mean, that is not really where the smart money would place its bets about the chance of sexual misconduct occurring.
If an orderly form of redress for this illegal behavior was available this “mob justice” you are afraid of wouldn’t exist.
It is the denial of due process and the disenfranchisement of groups that typically leads to this type of media exposure.
It may be hard for you to accept but announcing to the world that you were sexually assaulted typically doesn’t end up being a positive thing for the victim. But when it is the only option due to a refusal to address a problem some individuals will pay that price.
Developing policies, rules and laws based on rape myths does nothing to prevent this issue.
I repeat: Why isn’t this alleged “cost/benefit analysis” applied to the costs of what women have to endure from the far greater incidence of men actually committing sexual misconduct?