...to think that women should be able to warn other women....

[thebrollachan]

...about the behaviour of specific men in their friendship group?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cancel-culture-death-oxford-university-b2643626.html

(The incident appears to have happened a few days before his death, was sexual in nature, and involved an ex-girlfriend.)

Maybe it was a lie. Or a mistake. Or it really happened and she didn't want other women to run the same risk.

What it wasnt was "cancel culture".

I don't think anyone should be speculating about the guilt of the protagonists, or even whether the 'cancellation' caused the eventual outcome.

What caught my attention was that someone revealed something with arguable justification (though possibly to the wrong people?) and it had horrible disproportionate consequences.

So my aibu is about the conundrum facing women who don't want a brouhaha but do want to pass on a warning.

Also, you've persuaded me that this really was cancel culture, so you learn something new every day.

This, @BarbaraHoward do you have children? A partner? Someone says, Barbara's 'family member is a criminal...' you obviously agree and ostracise them don't you? I mean someone said they were told they were!!

". But if I had had an encounter that left me feeling violated I think going to my ex and various other male friends would be the last thing I’d do. I’d tell a female friend and wouldn’t want it being spread around."

So that's ok. And she could avoid him herself- which means leaving every pub session, club, brunch, sports event when he turns up to the friendship group. Ostracising herself basically. Or telling one female friend who then may also isolate herself from the group on principle when he turns up- presumably on some made-up pretext each time, if nobody else must know why. Meanwhile the man can just carry on like nothing has happened.

Well perhaps the woman correctly surmised that the censure of male friends is more effective for a miscreant than one woman alone or with one female friend. Men mostly give more of a shit about what other men think of them than what women think of them.

She didn't report it- whatever it was- but most sexual misdemeanours from rape downwards take place behind closed doors and are completely unproveable. It's he said/ she said, and if you're one of the friends you more or less have to pick who to believe, unless the woman does the socially easy acceptable thing of telling nobody, so as not to make things awkward for anyone.

While I would personally believe in my husband and children's innocence, no one is obliged to be friends with them for any reason.

Do you have children? If your daughter (or son indeed) was assaulted and her friends remained friends with the perpetrator, would you think that was fair enough because she hadn't provided enough evidence? Would you believe her yourself?

We can both play that game.

I don't see it as a game @BarbaraHoward.
Your viewpoint is if anyone alleges anyone is a criminal then they are, so why would you believe your family was innocent?

We don’t know what happened. People
readinb between the lines as usual on here

A family has lost a young man with the potential to have a bright future, so distasteful

So 400 people per year year kill themselves whilst under police investigation. Not even people who have been charged, just interviewed. And we can now add to that sorry number those who kill themselves because of gossip.
No. It is not acceptable to attempt to have someone ostracized because you think they have done something wrong. Go through the proper channels or STFU.

No. My viewpoint is that if a woman alleges she's been sexually assaulted, I believe her in the vast majority of cases.

Yeah no one would lie about it unless they were twisted

So you belive your partner/son is a potential rapist?

I've already stated I would believe my husband was innocent. I don't have a son. I've also said I would believe a woman in the vast majority of cases - not all cases. You're not pulling the gotchas you think you are.

I've also answered your questions, you haven't answered mine about if it was your daughter claiming to be assaulted.

To reiterate - no one owes friendship to someone they think may be guilty of sexually assault. No one owes friendship to anyone for any reason.

The DM published a non-paywalled update with more information:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14060637/Oxford-University-student-20-killed-cancelled-female-friend-told-pals-felt-uncomfortable-sexual-encounter.html

It seems, after all, that he was not subjected to an organised, systemic college-wide shunning. All that happened was that he was repudiated by his two close male friends, but sadly that was enough. He left them a note expressing remorse and saying that he felt his actions were unforgivable.

It seems like a slender case on which to hang an investigation into cancel culture, and a bit insulting to the young man for whom this was an individual (and timeless) tragedy, not an excuse for an anti-woke circus.

As to whether the friends should have believed the woman, and whether she should even have spoken up, at least one PP has said she should have STFU, but I don't know about that: she couldn't have predicted the outcome.

(Not specific to this case as I don't have enough information).

If someone is denied rights - such as opportunity to work, education, health care, housing, etc. - as a result of an unconfirmed rumour, that's a problem and in many cases a legal issue. But no one has a right to friendship or society or a romantic/sexual relationship because you can't force individuals to associate against their will (sorry, Jordan Peterson). If no one chooses to be with a specific person, they will be alone.

Objections to girls/women warning each other about dangerous boys/men often feel like they're prioritising the COMFORT of one boy/man over the (real or potential) safety or even lives of many girls/women. But women and girls are just as important as men and boys. And as Stanley Baldwin said, "safety first".

"An inquiry into the case revealed 'a concerning culture of social ostracism', or 'cancel culture,' among students which involved 'the exclusion of students from social circles based on allegations of misconduct, often without due process or a fair hearing,' said the Coroner.

Students could 'rush to judgement' without knowing all the facts and 'pile on' to the cancelled student, and begin to shun them. The practice was found to be 'established and normalised', and existed not just at Oxford, but in the education sector more widely."

What is "due process and a fair hearing" in cases of sexual misconduct when only two people "know all the facts"?
If a woman's experience at the hands of a man is unproveable, as they almost always are especially if it was a one -off should she

• STFU and get on with it
• tell one close female friend but swear the friend to secrecy, have a little girlie cry and cheer up
• quietly warn her female acquaintances that the man is anywhere from "a bit handsy" to "Not Safe In Taxis" or even "ugh, creepy, rapey, Avoid Avoid Avoid" depending on situation; but not tell the lads and let the male bit of the friendship circle carry on happily unburdened by any awkwardness; ie warn the women to alter their own behaviour to stay safe in future
• ask a couple of his male friends to have a word with him , in the hope that this will alter the man's behaviour to keep women safe in future

-tell the police and have the whole thing grind through a formal investigation, which will take months or even years if it does get to court, where it will be thrown out due to lack of evidence.

That's a really good summary of the woman's dilemma, thank you.

Regarding your quote about cancel culture, let's say the college does have a widespread culture of righteous ostracism based on hearsay and rumour. But that's not what happened here - this was a falling-out between a small group of friends over a short period of time.

By even mentioning cancel culture, the coroner is implicitly accusing the two young men C and E of being knee-jerk woke warriors rather than thoughtful moral actors in their own right.

I think that ostracism isn’t just a case of choosing who you mix with, it is publicly telling others to also ostracise the subject and that, if they associate with him, they too will be ostracised.

In most avenues, it is not considered acceptable behaviour. In the workplace ostracism is considered bullying and can be used in constructive dismissal claims.

There have been a few articles in The Times about this case, one saying that he had a meeting with his friends when they told him they ‘needed space’ and would ‘check up on him in a couple of weeks’. The second was a first person account by an Oxford student whose friend had been accused of racism. Others set up an Instagram group to tell the year group not to contact him and, if they did, they too would be ostracised.

So, I think there are two issues. It isn’t the girl’s fault that she chose to share details with friends, but their reaction that seems the issue. I also think that when the coroner mentioned ‘cancel culture’ he clearly had more facts, and these do seem substantiated by a broader issue in student relationships and social media groups.

Well, obviously: but that's not what happened here. There is no issue with the friends' reaction, because all they did was step back from the friendship. If they had incited a college-wide shunning via Instagram I am sure it would have been mentioned.

They've been smeared by association with something they haven't done, and no doubt made to feel to blame. Horrible.

It's not quite as simple as all they did was step back from the friendship though.

If they'd been close buddies then both sides would have had been fielding questions about why they weren't hanging out any more. What would they say? It sounds like quite a few people already knew, so the chances were that it would become generally known.
And in a small college community rumours can go round like wildfire, getting increasingly wilder as time goes on.

And he couldn't have escaped. He was living there, eating there, attending lectures together. Because of what he was being accused of he would have felt he couldn't ask for help without being judged. I can see why he felt he had no way out.

The scenario you describe isn't new though: it could have happened at any time in the last eighty years (feels like the plot of a cp snow novel).

It's not an example of the 'cancel culture sweeping through Oxford University' to quote the DM.

The unrelated Insta-shunning is a much better example of an emergent phenomenon that the authorities have a chance of clamping down on.

But they can't micromanage every student relationship.

No, this isn't cancel culture. Cancel culture isn't a thing. It's a buzzword used by right-wing culture warriors to foment fear about the modern world and anything progressive.

Women warning other women, and talking to other men, about men who've made them feel sexually uncomfortable, is not new. People withdrawing their friendship from men who make women sexually uncomfortable is not new. It hasn't been commonplace and it probably still doesn't happen enough, but those things went on when I was at university 20 years ago and in many different social circles since. Using a unique tragedy to spin that as an example of "woke cancel culture" and discouraging it is absolutely vile of the Telegraph.

And the point of women warning women (and men) in this manner is that sexual assault and sexual coercion should carry a social stigma - for the perpetrators, not the victims. That is how the message is hammered home.

Of course the information we're missing (and not entitled to) is what exactly Alexander Rogers did or didn't do, which could be anything from unintended and brief boundary-crossing to full-on assault. And if we're being honest at the former end of the scale, it's bloody hard and awkward to navigate if you're young and inexperienced at sex, and for whatever reason there's a miscommunication between you and your partner. So it's a tragedy. It's not one that needs to be turned into an example, though.

"And he couldn't have escaped. He was living there, eating there, attending lectures together."

Presumably so was the woman. So either she cuts herself off from the group for a while , inflicting punishment on herself for what he did and makes up some lie to explain her absence from all the fun stuff and the day to day life, while he continues on with the rest of the pals.

Or she tells nobody and carries on with the group with him in it like nothing happened.

Or she tells his mates that he did something shitty and they put him on the naughty step for a couple of weeks while she can carry on with group life.

I can't think of any alternatives.

Pure good sense from gannett in the post above mine.

How can anyone really say “cancel culture” isn’t a thing? What do people think happened with women such as Kathleen Stock or Maya Forstater if cancel
culture isn’t a thing?

I agree that it could have happened in past years. But I don't think it would have.
I suspect even 10 years ago it wouldn't have been seen as a dreadful thing to be accused of.
20 years ago the attitude would have probably been far more on the "good on you, mate, bet she enjoyed it". Or "she asked for it" level. Which we know to be wrong now, but that is how it often was.
The woman would most likely not have spoken out for fear of being shamed-and definitely not to any male friends.

When I was at school, bullying was something that wasn't talked about really except in an abstract sort of detached way.
Now being accused of bullying is seen as been (rightfully) bad, but I've also seen it used in a way which is in itself bullying "if you don't do as I say, then I'll say you're bullying me". That wouldn't have happened when I was at school because being bullied would have been seen as something to be ashamed of.

We need to learn to navigate this situation where victims are believed, in a way they weren't in the past. However we also need to be able to look after people who are accused, and judged by their peers on the word of one person - which this sort of thing always would be.

I don't have any answers to this. It is tricky because it will come down to one against another every time, with strong feelings all ways - and there will be times where there is no right or wrong side.
And I think online stuff doesn't help in this way with things like the "Fifty Shade" stuff, which glamorises being "rough".
So we also need to be educating young men on this, I'm not sure saying protect them from it is going to work, but educating them.

There is no easy answer which protects all victims from abuse but also from slander (and that can happen to either side)

This is not making any comment on which side the case in point comes down on, more a general comment on how things are currently in the world.

Exactly.

A tragic suicide in the wake of a sexual assault is a story we're all familiar with, unfortunately. It's usually the victim, shamed and disbelieved and isolated.

It's still a tragedy when it's the alleged perpetrator - but the shoe being on the other foot for once isn't evidence of modern society gone wrong. The only positive I can take from this awful story is that a young woman who felt violated was able to talk to her peers, male and female, and she was believed.