I'm going to be brave and start a thread to discuss why we think that some false rape allegations are made

[ChickensHaveNoLips]

And has there been any research in to why? Because I don't buy that there are cackling women plotting and planning to ruin some man's life up and down the country for fun. I suspect that when it does happen, it says a hell of a lot about how disempowered women feel. I find it hard to articulate, but I think that if you are reduced to a sexual commodity, and you are constantly told that your attractiveness to men is your only value, then it might seem that you have very few weapons to strike back with. I'd wonder in what circumstances those claims are made, and what leads up to them.

I really hope that no one reads this and thinks for ONE SECOND that I am dismissing the fact that far more women are raped than make false accusations, and that far more rapists walk free than men are falsely accused. But the 'women lie about rape' gets thrown up a lot, and it causes doubt in general. Maybe if we could work out the how's and why's of false allegations, it would hold less power in a jurors mind.

AFAIA police stats suggest that the majority of allegations that they are sure are false, are made by women with mental health issues.

Really, Beachcomber? The being sure bit is problematic in itself, isn't it, because so often there are no witnesses. I know that a lot of rape cases don't even make it to court based on this, but are those women accused of making false allegations if it can't be proved? That's a horrifying thought.

My little sisters boyfriend was once falsely accused of rape (before we knew him). His girlfriend at the time accused him as he decided last minute to not go see her again and ended it. Next thing police was at his door and he spent the next night in prison being questioned.

I think maybe she wanted attention cause she was only about 16/17, maybe she wanted revenge I'm not sure.

I think she's sick as its put people off reporting real rape!

Isn't it worth considering why she did it, though? I mean, why not accuse him of theft? Or being a liar? Or cheating on her? Why did that young girl think the only way to hit back was a rape accusation? What does that say about how valuable she feels, and where her worth lies?

Also, there's a girl I used to know, who said she was raped and gave a discription of a guy she knew who was then arrested because she missed curfew and didn't want to get in trouble. She then later admitted she had lied as she didn't want to be in trouble for being late home. She was 16 at the time.

I'm at work and am going to get fired if I link, and I'm going to take a bit of a break anyway, but there's a report on rape done by some female academics at London Metropolitan University. As far as I know they are the only people doing sustained research on rape reporting.

They find false allegations to be low and complicated by the fact that all sorts of things get lumped in as 'false'. It's freely available if you google it.

I think I'm considering deliberately knowingly false. So, a woman who chooses, knowingly, to make a rape accusation against a man when she knows it has taken place. But I hadn't considered the retraction issue. Are they included in statistics of false allegations? Because that has got to skew the data massively.

Thanks Victor.

Chickens to try and figure that out, would be impossible. I don't know the girl so I couldn't possibly try and work out why.

But from knowing the guy all I can say is if she'd of told people he lied or cheated he wouldn't of cared, but the rape allegation was a way of hurting him, his family and his rep.

Maybe she thought it had to be something big to get his attention I don't no, but I'd love to ask her why.

ChickensHaveNoLips, I know you mean well but I suspect this thread will become an airing for lots of anecdotes about false rape allegations.

False rape allegations are very rare - again police stats show false allegations to be no higher for rape than for any other crime.

I'm of the opinion that rape culture is much more of a problem than false rape allegations.

When I was 15 my friend had sex with her boyfriend and subsequently had a pregnancy scare.

She told her parents that she'd been raped after confessioning to being scared that she was pregnant (She wasn't). I can remember being really shocked that she'd lied about it and our friendship fizzled out after that.

Looking back on it all I think it's dreadful that we live in a society which places such blame on women for having a sex life - it was actually preferable for my friend to tell her parents that she'd been subjected to a terrible crime rather than being able to tell them that she'd had consensual sex. I'm sure if she had been pregnant then the boy she'd been sleeping with wouldn't have felt the need to tell a lie about his sex life.

Also let's remember that rapists are the ones who lie most about rape - not women.

Sorry.

I should have put a * trigger warning * on that link.

Oh, I agree Beachcomber. I was just interested in the reasons why a woman might make a false allegation, because I strongly suspect it's about how she sees herself valued in society. But I take your point that this thread might well go in an unpleasant direction, so perhaps I should ask MNHQ to remove it. It was not my intention to make 'women lie about rape' a legitimate response to rape culture.

Thanks for the links.

The only 'false accusers' I know of personally are vulnerable young women.

My friend works with young people with behavioral and learning support needs. It is quite common for her students (both male and female) to make false accusations of a sexual nature against each other and against adults.

It gets instant attention. Phone calls are made. Normal life stops. These kids have problems understanding the consequences of their actions, so they do not think it through the way others would.

As an example, a teenage girl refused to go to her work placement because she said an old man had said obscene things to her (placement was a care home). After many phone calls, meetings etc the girl finally said that it hadn't happened, but she had made it up because she didn't want to go to work.

Not sure if this is relevant to op, but is the only experience I have.

Interesting, Nola.

ChickensHaveNoLips - sorry I didn't mean to make you feel you should ask for the thread to be removed. Really not at all.

She told her friends in advance ie 'I don't want to go to work, I'm going to say Jimmy said x to me so I can get off'.

Beachcomber, I know you didn't. But I think you're probably right. And FWIW, I've just got it. Why some feminists refuse to engage with 'some women lie about rape'. It's because it's a smokescreen, isn't it? Because it's a tiny number that deliberately lie, and a not insignificant number classed as 'false' allegations are women retracting. And might not be 'false' at all. Now I get it. Why it's derailment. The 'some women lie' bogeyman stops jury's convicting and stops women being believed. I genuinely hadn't considered it that way before.

Nola the daughter of my parent's neighbour told her family she was pregnant (at the age of about 19-20), by her boyfriend of about 18 months.

Although I don't know her very well, we grew up together and I am sure she had an active sex life for a year or two before that (not just with that guy).

However her odd mother had hysterics and insisted that the boyfriend must have raped her because her 'darling daughter' would never have done something so horrible as have sex.

It didn't turn into a rape accusation (in fact they got engaged for a while) but it does illustrate the continuing prevalence of the attitude that it's preferable for a woman to have been attacked than for her to have a consensual sexual relationship.

I have also read reports of rape accusations where a woman was in a relationship, went out, had a one night stand, and then used the allegation as an explanation for her regular partner as to why she didn't come home/came home with signs she was with another man. She then had to continue with the allegation to back up her story, only withdrawing it when the seriousness of the situation became clear to her.

I think things like this detract from true rape situations, but are partially driven by the societal view that women can't possible enjoy sex...

Yes. That is totally it ChickensHaveNoLips.

Bang on.