yet another reason I'm a feminist.

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http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/18/mis ... ?hpt=hp_t2
Way to go, Missouri.

Last edited by LKL on 21 Aug 2011, 1:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

You need to correct the link.

fix'd

Anyone with a daughter in Missouri needs to flee the state for a more enlightened place - Unbelievable!

What the hell? That makes me sick. Ugh, why do people suck so much? That's just........ What the hell could they possibly be thinking? That poor girl. Twice?!?!?! With DNA evidence?! !? And they still don't believe her?!?!?!?

Totally pathetic, and I'm sort of a borderline feminist, my sister's not one at all and we both think its ridiculous...

You don't have to be a feminist to know that is wrong, but being a feminist gives you more perspective I guess.

There's an epidemic of false rape claims at the moment, figures vary, but no matter which studies you read you'd be utterly shocked how often rape claims are false. Even among her age group.
Let me play devil's advocate.
1. Young girl reports rape (yes rape is a nasty crime - but, given the statistics, a claim alone should be met with a great deal of skepticism)
2. She goes to a special education school (makes her testimony less reliable, sorry it's true).
3. She recanted her story at one point.

The potential damage from publicly accusing an innocent boy or man of rape (even if they are fully acquitted at a later date) is immense. Assuming they aren't sent to prison (where they are likely to be raped) for months awaiting trial or years if convicted, it's a black mark that never goes away. It affects everything you do personally and professionally for the rest of your life. Authorities are just waking up to the prevalence of false rape claims, they've started punishing women and girls who cry rape quite harshly whereas there used to be no punishment at all. They no longer automatically lock up the accused and put his face on all the papers without so much as a word (unless he's a public figure - hello Dominique Strauss-Kahn). Anyone who reports rape these days can expect a pretty harsh interrogation and even though it can lead to a victim recanting, as I imagine it did here, it's still the right thing to do.

Point 3 is key. She RECANTED her story. It's terrible that in this particular case it seems as though she was in fact raped, but from what information I can glean here the school officials did the RIGHT thing based on the evidence they had at the time. Yes, even when they made her write an apology letter (to mitigate further punitive measures against her)Yes, even when they expelled her.

BS. Authorities haven't 'just started' anything; women and girls have always been harassed and bullied when they report rape, to the degree that most rapes go unreported. Yes, false rape claims are terrible - but unreported rapes, and women and girls punished for reporting a crime - are even worse. The fact that this girl initially recanted is no more relevant than the fact that some people report alien abduction or non-existent sexual abuse when they're hypnotized by shrinks who ask leading questions when they're vulnerable.

That's what I was trying to figure out how to say.

It's hard to quantify two wrongs, but in my mind I'd rather be raped and not believed than accused of a rape I didn't commit (which as I mentioned earlier can lead to prison rape anyway). Yes, it is important she recanted, often one person's word is all anyone has to go on in rape cases even when there is DNA evidence - many false claims arise after consensual sex has occurred.


Sounds bad at a glance, but any good defense lawyer would have said that.

The school officials made an honest mistake and got a girl raped. Again. Believe me they feel terrible about it, but they did what they thought was right given then information they had - remember they've probably had to deal with false rape allegations in the past, against both students and teaching staff.

Crap that's in my state < <

Have you ever had any interactions with people who've been raped and seen what it does to them? Even reporting it is incredibly difficult - and then when they're not believed, she was actively treated like she was a criminal because they didn't want to believe her claims.

False rape claims can be a huge problem. People who've been raped being treated like criminals is far far worse. You're taking someone who already has probably developed PTSD from the occurance, as well as had it rip apart who they are, and telling them that admitting that something has happened to them makes them a criminal.

natures f****d up, most species reproduce by rape. luckily humans see it as bad.
but I could care less about that girl, hell I would laugh at her.

The media love writing these articles in such a way as to let the imagination run wild. All we know is that she recanted at one point. Thanks to the tone of the article the first image that I'm sure comes to many peoples' minds is the poor girl being dragged off into a back room and shouted at, viciously cross examined by hot-headed teaching staff under which she recants. We don't know that, it more likely the questioning was very gentle given the nature of the accusation. She may even have recanted to her peers privately which somehow made it's way back to the teachers.
We do know a rape kit was not taken the first time, we can only speculate why. It's possible the girl specifically stated she did not want one (she would have had to back this up by emphatically stating the rape did not occur). It's also possible the girl's mother did not believe her and denied her access to it. [For fairness lets also say it's possible the school officials believed she had been raped but somehow denied her access to a rape kit in order to cover this up. I find this scenario unlikely.]

Our system is not perfect and it never will be - guilty people will sometimes go unpunished and innocent people sometimes go to jail. That's just the way it is. I'm not trying to diminish the severity of rape. It's easy to rain down judgments with perfect hindsight, but to bring a rape accusation against a man or boy is to destroy his life, whether the rape occurred or not. The only thing I am trying to do is defend the school's staff, who I believe made a tough choice (the right choice given what they knew). They don't deserve to be punished for their actions.

I'm also irritated by the title of this thread. Associating these stories with feminism only serves to fuel the man-hating machine that is feminism. There is no such thing as rape culture. Men take rape extremely seriously (before you mention some hardcore muslims, yeah ok I admit their attitude is a little puzzling but they are an exception).

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These are just ones from the last couple of months and are also just the ones that were uncovered as false.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNsrK6P9QvI[/youtube]

You are factually incorrect. Some species reproduce nonconsetually; most do not.