I don't believe in We Believe You

"when you're not giving weight or consideration to the woman's assertion that she was raped"

The problem with date rapes is that it's very often going to be someone's assertion about what happened versus else's assertion. The assertions should be equally considered and if that doesn't happen that's wrong. But to automatically load weight onto one and not the other because X is the complainant and Y is the defendant is not the right way to go imho.

Obviously this applies to two adults arguing about what happened. Not where there is power on one side.

SpeakNoWords - I can think of 2 good friends I would not believe automatically. In fact there would be a higher than 50% chance they, whilst not necessarily outright lying, were bending the truth.

I totally agree that lying about rape is incredibly rare.

However, it does happen. Of course it does because women are human too. I believe some of the allegations coming up in the context of Dolphin Square have now been massively discounted because the accuser (male I think) is now thought to have been a fantasist. Lives have been ruined as a result. I think it's important to retain some balance.

If it's a friend then of course I believe them. I don't need to be balanced. I need to support and I know they don't lie. But a random stranger on the internet to whom I should intone "I believe you" when I don't know them? No, then I'll stick to listening and being supportive.

Can you explain why you find it "a bit undermining to women", backing?

'I wouldn't automatically "believe" a perfect stranger just because she's a woman talking about rape"

I'm betting you would believe her if she told you she'd been burgled though.

Sorry, too slow! That was to backing and milk

I have my priorities straight thanks.

As I said in my first post, I care about all the things you mentioned. But issuing a blanket "we believe you" is not the way I choose to go about this.

I tackle victim blaming where I see it. I tackle male aggression and expectations of dominance where I see it. But I also find "We believe you" unhelpful and actually a bit undermining to women. I appreciate that this is not the intention but that's my take on it and the OP was asking for views on it and that's mine.

FWIW I disagree with almost all of what her friend said.

So if someone was telling you they'd been raped, you'd not tell then you'd believe them? Charming
At the end of the day it has no material bearing on the case whether or not the mumsnet members follow "we believe you". A culture where victims feel they will be believed is important though to raise reporting rates. All those saying "I wouldn't automatically believe them" or "I think it should be I'm listening and I support you", how do you think you would feel if that was a response to you disclosing something extremely traumatic about your own life (not necessarily rape)?
"My mother used to beat me as a child"
"I'm listening and I support you"
"But do you believe me?"
"Not necessarily, I need to wait until I've heard both sides in court"
"Why would I make this up?"
"I'm not saying you are, but wouldn't it be awful for your mum to get a reputation for beating children when she's done nothing wrong"
"But she used to beat me up!!!"
"We'll let's see what the evidence is but in the meantime you can always talk to me"

'We are listening and here to support you' doesn't address the culture, unique to rape, that assumes victims are lying or at least responsible for what happened to them.

The odds are so stacked against victims of rape that any attempt to change that should be a good thing. We Believe You is trying to address the imbalance and lack of justice for victims of rape, who rarely get justice. It has no basis on law and the conviction rates remain as low as ever, men continue to rape with impunity and in a recent high profile case a young woman was grilled about her sexual history. Yet people want to complain about a campaign, predominantly started by women, to support women who are victims of rape and unlikely to ever get justice. Some people need to get their priorities straight.

"taking their story seriously rather than automatically dismissing it"

This is at the heart of it for me as to why I don't like it. Absolutely it shouldn't be automatically dismissed and police failure to follow up on allegations should be tackled. But the opposite of automatically dismissing it is not saying "We believe you". It's properly investigating.

In the absence of much evidence either way as would be the case in many situations, it's very difficult to come to a conclusion. That's why "We believe you" is damaging I think. If something can't be proved then it can't be proved. And although a tiny minority would lie about something like this, some would. And the alleged perpetrators deserve the same hearing as anyone else.

I wouldn't automatically "believe" a perfect stranger just because she's a woman talking about rape any more than I would automatically believe a man who said he hadn't done it.

It's the kneejerk use of it I don't like.

.

'They will just make sure word gets round that X has raped them and with a campaign like 'We Believe You' behind them the damage is done.'

Really? When does this happen? In my experience most women don't want it spread around that they were raped because of the appalling victim blaming they encounter. Just look at the girl in the Ched Evans case, even when their was a conviction she was outed and abused on social media to the point where she has had to change identity more than once and go into hiding. And when men are found not guilty there are always cries of how the victim should now be prosecuted because she must have been lying, completely ignorant of how hard it is to get a conviction. You can argue against the campaign but please don't make damaging stuff up to do so.

But many people make all sorts of false reports for all sorts of crimes. They're very rarely included in home office statistics due to the nature of police recording (although that is changing, expect MASSIVE jumps in next years stats)

So if a good friend came to your house and said they'd been mugged on the way there, you'd not automatically believe them? You'd think there was always a 50/50 chance they're fantasising?

We Believe You is simply a campaign to take rape victims seriously and not start from a position of doubt or victim blaming.

We Are Listening And Here To Support You would be more accurate and one that I would totally support.

Yuck. If you hadn't said he was gay I'd think he'd be the kind of man to do coercive sex not realising it's rape. Not sure I could stay friends with him.
I think men don't realise just how many women have been raped/sexually assaulted (either because it's taboo or because they do the mental equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la-la-la-can't hear you) so they think it's this fictitious "lying bitch" rather than their friend, mother, sister, girlfriend whatever.
I think I'deserve ask the whether it would be wrong to believe a victim of a different crime (e.g. theft because there's an insurance fraud angle to suggest a victim might lie)? If the answer is different then why.

Isn't we believe you as much about saying we believe the victim of the crime as anything else? If your house is burgled, people's first instinct isn't to assume that you are lying, even though people certainly do lie about being burgled to make false insurance claims. That's not even a he said/she said, there is no other side to be heard (unless you're saying your neighbour burgled you, but all rape victims aren't accusing a named individual - although the fact it is much more commonly perpetrated by someone the victim knows does make it a 'named' crime more often that it isn't).

But your friend is saying that if a man raped him on a date, that isn't real rape? Why not?

Walker - but no-one is suggesting "we believe you" as a legal standard of evidence in court. We're simply suggesting that outside of court, it might be nice to extend rape victims we talk to in everyday life the same courtesy we extend to victims of burglary and muggings - that of taking their story seriously rather than automatically dismissing it.

Incidentally if the Home Office stats are right that only 3% of rape accusations are false, then there's an interesting point about the psychology of belief. If you subscribe to a Bayesian model of belief formation and revision, then everyone has prior probabilities (their best guess about the truth of a situation based on the general way things tend to be) before hearing the precise details of that particular situation and adjusting their beliefs. So the person sitting in the jury on a trial of an alleged mugger might go in there with the belief that most alleged muggings have actually taken place, and therefore it will take some pretty strong evidence to convince them that this wasn't really a mugging (such as the police finding the supposedly stolen phone in the bottom of the canal where the supposed victim had dropped it).

For this reason, there's going to be a big difference in how plausible the man's story has to be if the jury believes that 50% of rape accusations are false compared to if they believe that only 3% of rape accusations are false. Puts a whole new complexion on the idea of reasonable doubt, might open the way to more prosecution barristers asking "what made you think you did have consent for this act in these particular circumstances?" It might even stop juries thinking that "I tripped and fell erect penis first into her vagina" was a plausible enough story to introduce "reasonable doubt" (yes, a man really did successfully use this as a defence recently). Because it's not just her word against his word at the moment, at the moment, frankly the man can say "well, the dog ate my homework" and this will introduce "reasonable doubt". And part of this is because juries go into rape cases thinking it's 50-50, which given the stats on the percentage of men who will admit to rape, and the stats on the percentage of women who make false accusations, simply is not a sensible set of prior probabilities.

SpeakNoWords - not automatically, no.

We Believe You is simply a campaign to take rape victims seriously and not start from a position of doubt or victim blaming. It is massively needed in order to shift the appalling way victims are treated, in a way that doesn't happen with other crimes. Your friend can relax though OP, the likelihood is that most men, even the guilty ones, will never even see the inside of a courtroom, let alone be convicted. The odds are still very much in their favour.

And Mayella Ewell was raped and abused repeatedly, by her father.

I'd be interested to hear the reasons you think a woman might want to have her vagina photographed by strangers and have to stand up in court and talk about the types of sex she enjoys.

The problem with that is that you're assuming that all allegations get that far. The (few) women who lie will say that they don't want to report it, that it's too traumatic, because they know it is for genuine victims. They will just make sure word gets round that X has raped them and with a campaign like "We Believe You" behind them the damage is done.

I think MilkTwo has worded it much better than I. Their short post has summed up my long post.