I’ve just been mulling this over today after seeing/ hearing the above phrase (or some variation thereof) used several time over the last few days. Each time referring to a woman who had supposedly falsely accused a man of rape or sexual assault. Obviously, falsely accusing someone of rape is an abhorrent thing to do and anyone who does so whilst of sound mind, should be properly punished for this. However, after recently seeing this phrase being repeated on MN and hearing it in conversation I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
Maybe I’m a bit late in realising this, but isn’t this just another way of making women responsible for sexual assaults? It’s well known that many women who’ve been assaulted are afraid to come forward due to fear of not being believed but, in my experiences, this is because of the low prosecution/conviction rate, the myths surrounding rape and the unhelpfulness of some police forces and prosecutors. Not because of the very small number of women who have made false accusations.
On the other hand, I suppose it could be said that false allegations may be on the mind of a jury in an assault trial, potentially influencing their verdict, and that thought could be on a woman’s mind when considering reporting. But these numbers are so small compared to the number of actual rapes committed. It seems completely illogical that something that happens so rarely (false allegations) could have such a big impact on something that is comparatively common (rape or assault).
Surely this phrase could make women even less likely to come forward, as it increases the fear of not being believed and then being labelled as one of those women (“women like that…”)? However it is generally used in a ‘supportive’ manner IYSWIM (i.e. if these women didn’t lie, ‘real victims’ would be believed) and usually by other women (although I realise this is a big generalisation based on my observations only).
Any thoughts? Am I massively overthinking this? Or am I only just realising something which is blatantly obvious? Apologies if this has been discussed on here before, but I didn’t remember ever seeing it directly brought up.
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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
“Women like that are the reason so many women don’t come forward…”
41 replies
NotMyRealName2015 · 02/01/2016 21:46
OP posts:
slugseatlettuce ·
04/01/2016 09:23
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