The Myths About Women Who "Cry Rape"

[DontCallMePeanut]

From The Telegraph

Sorry, my head's not in the right place to provide any critique of this at the moment, but thought this would interest the members of the feminist section. Will attempt to comment when I have a clearer head.

Good point about the mental health aspect, TAB. Thank you.

If you read my posts, you'll see that I came on asking questions (this is because I wanted to understand more about the issue and had hoped that knowledge would be shared).

As I am being criticised by all sides, it's beginning to seem that such an approach, which starts with trying to find what the actual evidence is, is not welcomed in this forum.

DCMP, excellent point re the maths. It's 5 to 8% of the 15% that are reported that turn out to be false. That means between 98.8 and 99.25% of women saying they've been raped are in fact telling the truth.

MissHodgeInHay, you are wilfully missing the point. Enormous, disproportionate attention is paid to the vanishingly small number of cases in which the woman has made a false allegation. The British court system is already set up to favour finding someone innocent over finding someone guilty, precisely to protect defendants. What gets very little air time is the fact that thousands of women are being raped every year with no punishment for their offenders.

DF, given the vilification poor Ms Banon has faced since she broke her silence, I'd say that her mother was actively seeking to protect her in the face of a horrible, traumatic choice - suffer in silence or face public assault on top of private assault.

ive been abused/raped[and nearly murdered]in the past.
as ive said before-when this happens to someone it can lead to more abuse.
im not going to say when this started or ended-but i will say that sometimes and even often-it can go on and on.
being basiccally told no one believes you in the first place is just as devistating as the abuse/rape itself[themself]
the rape and then get told you a liar completly fucks you up-and you never get over it.
if you was telling lies i doubt that x years later you would still be devistated
anyway-this leads to all sorts of things-more abuse in all sorts of ways.
prostistution/drugs/alchahol sometimes.
for some of us-we end up doing anything/putting up with anything just to be "wanted"!
in this-we will be called names like"slag and whore"!
we are not as good as the next woman-cos after all-how can we be-we are "used goods"straight from the off![in societys eyes]
right-heres the bigger picture-society-well the partriarchy to be exact WANTS and NEEDS women like us-we are a commodity to them.
where would some of the men in society be without us?
for the ones that dont rape us-they can have us easily cant they.
we end up with no self esteem and they can do with us what they like[im not on about all men]
we become "easy"in all sorts of ways-and this is a good thing for some men.
the partriarchy needs us and untill people realise this-rapists will get away with rape and the abuse will carry on.
other men will carry on taking advantage of women who have been raped/abused and women will carry on suffering.

Lenin, what has been put at 10%? False allegations or reported cases? Or convictions, which I didn't mention. I'll post this one again:

www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/documents/Rape%20-%20The%20Facts.doc

Wikipedia has the answer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

HOWEVER:

Ditto what Lenin said at 11:12.

Thank you, slhilly. :)

Aha, the US stats give the higher reporting rate. Does anyone know if the US is less stigmatized towards rape? Sorrty, can't access the Fawcett Report atm.

LeninGrad, rapecrisis and Scotland's anti-rape campaign give low statistics. It could be cultural differences toowards rape in the US, as the data is from a US survey. Add to that, I'm always dubious about wiki's reliability

I've read all your posts on this thread. When you say "I came on asking questions", that is just not true*. Your very first post did nothing of the sort. Your very first post said: "Try not to get wound up about the insults! This forum is notably intolerant and hostile if you are not part of the claque. I keep posting despite that, as it is important that proper debate takes place, and occasionally it does.

There are no good statistics AFAIK about false allegations, on rape or other crimes (unless you are prepared to count things like false accusations against teachers, which can be shown to be on the rise, some of which are sexual in nature). For other crimes, estimates vary. So there is plenty of space in this question to make whatever assertion you like.

There are admitted cases if rape (and other offences) where false allegations have been made, but it is not because of these that all evidence does have to be fully tested in Court - that is in itself an important pillar of the judicial system and one that (rightly) applies to any trial."

There is not a single question in that post. In fact, you positioned yourself as already knowing the facts about this topic. You made no fewer than seven assertions of fact.

So there's no point in posting now with a wounded tone of "I was merely trying to find out a bit more" when the fact that you were absolutely not doing so is recorded for all to see.

*Ironic, given the topic

I just worked out the statistics, and it's actually 29.175% in 2006, according the Forcett report. (confused).

I've never seen Wiki be wrong, as far as I know. There's so many people on it, if you put something wrong it gets edited out pretty quickly (or so I'm told).

Also, RE the mental health, they also are known to retract their claims as they feel more ashamed of it and blame themselves becasue they can't rationalise why they were not in control at the time. Add mental health stigma to rape stigma, and it's not hard to see why.

have we got any statistics of the men that take advantage of women/girls that have been previously abused/raped please?
and have we got any statistics of women that have suffered from being called liars please?

I don't know about statistics, but I will varify it. As I've mentioned, I've known of rape and abuse hapening to people, and it is highly common to respond with promiscuity (horrid word, but it's the best I can think of). It has to do with self esteem issues and normalising the event. I have read about it, but can't find any links at the moment.

I've just had a good look through google. Whilst I have found lots of write ups on the subject from victims (and one from a councillor), there is no actual article on the subject that I can find.

Yes, that's true Spoons.

I've also known two women, and I was convinced they were doing it to regain some sort of control. They were chosing the worst type of scum they could find, and had some idea that by doing so they inflicting punishment or taking some sort of sexual control. I didn't quite understand it, though. It has something to do with viewing the act as a weapon that should be harnessed, not as an act of loving/pleasure/intimacy to be shared.

The Stern Review - meditrina - you indicated you'd like to read something with facts etc.

It's not for anyone else to decide what is right and wrong, I guess. It's perspective that decides what's a good and bad memory after all. But in reading the stuff that comes up in searches, a lot seem to regret it. I don't know if that's societal stigma or actual regret. There is also a big difference in having sex with a number of people and becoming a prostitute.

The Daily Mail loves to publish stories about "false" claims of rape. Reporting of these stories is completely out of proportion with even convicted rapes.

See this Home Office Report into Ending Violence Against Women & Girls - lots in there about the media and coming up with a Code of Practice for journalists re this issue. (Topical too with all the recent press revelations).

Sparky/DCMP please accept my sympathy for the horrible experiences you've been through.

Sparky asked about repeat rapes. I found this a 1999 study by Acierno, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Saunders and Best published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders. They seem to be prolific authors in established American science journals, along with another author called Clum, so I think their studies would probably stand up to peer scrutiny.

Anyway, their study of 3000 women concluded that a woman who has been raped once was seven times more likely to be raped again.

I presume that this is for a number of reasons, such as:
? Many rapes are carried out by intimate partners/former partners.
? Others will be perpetrated by someone in the victim's social circle which can leave them vulnerable to a repeat attack and reluctant to report
? Disadvantaged, vulnerable young woman would be much more at risk for obvious reasons
? Due to the trauma of rape, some victims will engage in promiscuous behaviour as a coping strategy or put themselves in positions where they become more vulnerable.

Just because a defendant isn't convicted, it doesn't mean the complainant lied.

This was my first thought. Finding someone 'not guilty' of a crime, and I mean any crime, doesn't mean they didn't do it. Just look at O.J. Simpson.

I think some people confuse the fact that over 90% of rape trial see the defendant cleared, and take this to mean that a large number of those cases are where the woman lied, but it doesn't mean that at all. It simply means that in the jury's mind, there wasn't enough evidence to convict.

There are men walking around around who were cleared in a court of law, but who did commit the rape, and are therefore rapists. My brother-in-law is one of them.

There are a small number of women who do make up rape claims, but more often then not they admit the truth sooner rather than later, and thus such cases rarely get to the trial stage.

So small is the percentage of women who are believed to make up rape claims, that my first inclination would always be to believe the woman, as the vast majority of women are telling the truth.

We know that false reporting of other crimes occurs. People fake burglaries for the insurance money, or claim valuable items were stolen from them when they either lost the item or never owned it in the first place. Yet when someone reports having a mobile phone nicked in the street, the automatic response from friends/colleagues and even the police is not usually 'Are you sure about this? Lots of people tell lies about mobile phone theft.' Even when the 'victim' tells lies that (for instance) contribute to local racial tension eg claiming that his/her property was stolen by a member of a particular ethnic minority when in fact the victim sold the property already or never owned such a thing, the victim is still believed at least in the beginning.