"Ranee Mueller" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:In article <[email hidden]>,
Jani said:No, it doesn't. But it does show that where rape is concerned, women are
perceived as a homogenous group, rather than individuals - if this girl
had
claimed to be robbed, and it turned out to be false, would the next woman
who actually *was* robbed have been regarded with scepticism? Probably
not.
The two cases would have been treated on their individual merits, and no
particular connection made between the two.
I'm not sure it points to women being perceived as a homogenous group
so much as rape victims. It's a fine point, but I think it matters.
True, and a good point, but the majority of rape victims *are* women.
Quoted message said:Also, since rape is such a personal violation, and taints the
perpetrator for life in a way that robbery doesn't, I think that is part
of the reason someone falsely accusing someone of robbery isn't apt to
make people skeptical of another accusation in the same way.
And yet, if a specific individual is falsely accused of robbery (as opposed
to the supposed victim saying "I was robbed" when they weren't) this does
not tend to colour people's perceptions of any subsequent allegations of
robbery against other individuals. This is why I can't understand why one
person being shown as a false accuser should prevent those who aren't from
coming forward, except that where rape's concerned, there does seem to be a
pervasive attitude that the existence of *some* false allegations proves
that *all* allegations should be treated sceptically.
Robbery is
Quoted message said:greed, and can be personal, it isn't a lifelong violation of a human.
Rape is violent at its root, and has whole life consequences for the
victim. They are not really comparable crimes, IMO.
Agreed, but I was looking at the way society sees the whole issue of false
accusations, rather than the different impact on the victims.
Quoted message said:Forgot to add:
Quoted message said:Also, except in cases of fraud, a false accusation of robbery (still
using your comparison) means you have the wrong person. A false
accusation of rape, when you find out that nothing actually happened, is
an attempt to ruin someone else.
In both cases, if the allegation is known to be false (as opposed to a
genuine mistake in identifying the perpetrator), then the aim is malicious.
But we don't tend to say "because A accused B of theft and B was innocent,
C's accusation of D will be treated as false" and thereby discourage C from
making a *genuine* accusation against D.
Jani
