Why are people so defensive towards alleged rapists?

I read your post clearly, Emma. My response could've been clearer, though.

Gone, men's humanity is the default. No one on this thread has said false accusations of rape are just dandy. They are not as serious a crime as rape and they are multitudes less frequent than rape, but the airtime they get (as per earlier posts) along with the "he said/she said" meme seems to add up to a societal impression that an accusation of rape is really quite likely to be false; in fact, it's very unlikely.

None of this rules out a fair trial, any more than noting that for all crimes, false accusation rates are well below 10% rules out fair trials for those crimes.

Off for dinner now.

New I have some issue with your position saying that 'you just would know'.
There has been plenty of threads on here where the OP was saying that they don't want their DC to have contact with X family member because let's say there has been some child pronography on their computer but other family members know that said person would do any harm to the child. Or one person is accused of rape, trial says that there isn't enough proof and family (eg his DW, dcs, friends) all know that's because he never did anything anyway. How? How do all these people know when there is often some clear proof that person isn't that nice?
I would say that's because it's so far from the image they have from that reason that they can't reconcile the facts with what they think so they have decided to ignore the facts.

I'm also unsure about what is 'false allegation' in this thread.
For me a fals allegation is something that someone has said KNOWING it wasn't the truth.
Someone who is taken to Court for rape and then is said to be 'innocent' isn't someone who has been proved to be innocent. It's someone where no proof strong enough to be 100% sure that he is the perpetrator has been found (eg there might be some proof, he might actually be guilty but we haven't been able to prove it) That's very different and someone who is coming out as 'non guilty' wasn't in my books facing 'false allegations' iyswim.

I do fully agree about the system being fair for everyone. But I'm finding it really interesting that, on a thread in the feminism section, so many people are concentrating on what happens on the very very small minority of men that happen to face REAL false allegations but no one talks about the victims or the victims that didn't manage to bring enough proof to have their rapist condemned (how can we change that?), etc etc

Goid???

Whats goid???

Good obviously

And i belive that our justice system is very goid and gives fair trials to those accused of any crimes

Why do you think that men dont get a fair trial?

I think they do , as do women

gone

When did i say you did talk about false accusations?

rufus

I'm not aware of having talked about false accusations. I've had to clarify several times that I wasn't talking about false accusations and have been accused of talking about it when the words definitely had not been typed :)

If you don't think men accused of rape deserve a fair trial, why don't you just say so?

Then we agree. Lovely

Shall I take that as an acknowledgement that you reread my initial comment more carefully?!!

The only point that the vast amount of posters on here have made is that cases of rape far, far, far, far ,far, far outnumber cases of false accusations

Yet everytime some one talks about rape people come on to blether about false accusations

I could start a thread now about being mugged and not one person would say" well i know someone who was falsely accused of nicking a car"

And i say this as someone who knows a person falsely accused of assault

I'm with @Gone.
I don't see feminism as benefiting in any way by minimising wrongs affecting men. I support the #heforshe principle, but it has to work both ways.
I am as appalled by the plight of any man suffering an injustice or crime as I am of any woman suffering an injustice or crime. Why? because if as a feminist, I aspire to equality of opportunity, then issues where men suffer discrimination have the potential to negatively affect women as society becomes less gender specific. I get that the focus here is on women's issues, but on occasions when the two come into the same sphere I think it is an error not to be respectful of both.

Then why arent men doing it then?

Why are women expected to do this and not men?

That's just the point. Men are expected to do this. That's exactly what you're expecting them to do. And they could say exactly the same thing back at you.

jacquetta

If you want your own humanity to be fully acknowledged, you must fully acknowledge the humanity of the person in the dock, and in all men.

How can you expect men to care about justice for women unless you show an interest in making sure your position is just towards other groups in society? How can you expect there to be such things as justice and compassion if you are not interested in seeing that anyone except women receive it? How can you expect others to take the time to see things from your perspective if that perspective deliberately does not bother to include their perspective?

Why are women expected to do this and not men?

Why over the last few hundred years have men not seen things from a womans perspective, or been interested in justice and compassion?

And i am talking about men as a class...not my dp or yours, or my brother or yours, or my sons and yours

The OP is a good case in point. The OP is not remotely interested in what any innocent man might go through when falsely accused of rape. Not interested in how his life might be affected. Yet we expect that same man to be intensely concerned about women. We expect him to automatically believe all women who say they have been raped. Yet we aren't interested, apparently, in seeing that he is punished for what he has done. Instead, it looks like we would like to see every men accused of rape being punished by society from the moment the accusation is made, whether they have done it or not. And any suggestion that this is unfair is met with a personal dislike and anger that comes across as unmeasured and bitter.

Men are not the enemy. Most men are there to be worked with and alienating them/not caring about them is not likely to engage them in fruitful discussion or bring about change.

It's interesting that my point about the 'I believe you' campaign was ignored earlier. It's a strong point. We don't have that for any other crime. As a society, we don't stand up and say 'yes, we know he's a thief/fraudster/etc' before we know any facts and before he's had a chance to put his narrative across. That does change things.

New

Yes, I would have doubt over a close family member because I know how very rare false accusations are. As per Aye's point, I would also know that many men (and women, for that matter), do not perceive some rapes as rape (eg if victim is very drunk)

Because I expect women to be perceived as fully human, gone.

Gone completely agree with you

Aye i see where you're coming from but still maintain I would know as I know him, I know how he thinks and know his values. Maybe it's not that common, but I know him inside out.

So am a the only one who feels they could do this? Would you all have doubt over a close family member? Just out of interest, not looking for a bun fight.

Feminists seem to think they are (1) fair and (2) should be obeyed and unquestioningly supported by other women.

Fiddlesticks

jacquetta - Read your response to my post (to which i was replying).

Bad analogy re: heart disease IMO. They're not competing interests.

How can you expect men to care about justice for women unless you show an interest in making sure your position is just towards other groups in society? How can you expect there to be such things as justice and compassion if you are not interested in seeing that anyone except women receive it? How can you expect others to take the time to see things from your perspective if that perspective deliberately does not bother to include their perspective?

"However, that said, the starting tariff for rape is higher so it indicates that the courts (and I) agree that while no false accusation of rape is inconsequential, the seriousness of a rape (without aggravation and with mitigating factors) is a more serious crime than the a false allegation (without aggravation and with mitigating factors)."

Then we agree. Lovely.

See I can tell if my brother is lying a mile off

Plus, he may not even be lying. He may truly believe that he didn't rape the woman.

As we discussed earlier, there have been studies done that showed that when rape was described using different words that did not include the word "rape", a third of men said they had done or would do this.

We have also upthread discussed consent and enthusiastic consent. How men persuade women they were getting intimate with to go further than the woman wants to. And they believe this is a normal part of sex; that women need to be persuaded and worn down until they agree to give the man sex, as is his right (if he's put in enough effort, he's rewarded with sex).

So the man might not consider this rape/coercion. The woman might. So the brother wouldn't think he was lying; he'd just think he'd got her drunk and she didn't resist and didn't say no so she obviously wanted it.

Feminists seem to think they are (1) fair and (2) should be obeyed and unquestioningly supported by other women.

If you are pushing the agenda for women in the knowledge that not everyone's interests can be considered priority all the time and prioritising women may be at the expense of another group in society, can you appreciate that not everyone is going to feel you are in a position to talk about what is 'fair'? You are not even trying to be 'just'; you're attempting a pendulum swing in the opposite direction. And can you then appreciate that women are a great deal more than their sex and are sometimes likely to, and perfectly entitled to, care about the interests of these other groups in society? I am a woman but I'm many other things besides and feel deeply uncomfortable with the feminist rhetoric that often does not acknowledge the partiality of the feminist position. I also dislike the bullying emotionalism that feminists reserve for women who want to consider difficult situations from the point of view of others.

".are you aware that this compromises feminism and makes feminists appear impartial and bitter?"

Bitter? How so?

If I campaign for cancer research, am I bitter if I tell you my focus isn't heart disease?

To what, and why?