After reading the story of a young woman who accused three men of rape and was then
convicted of falsely reporting the attack, I found myself disgusted. I was disgusted because some male judge with little background in this type of case basically railroaded this girl because of his ideology and sexism. I could see no going forward with the rape charge -- although I think that should properly be the decision of a jury, not a single male judge -- but the ruling that she should be charged with a crime is just plain ridiculous. His rationale -- which sounds like something a kindergarden student would come up with -- was that she didn't act like she got raped and that the "boys" (which is what he called the grown men involved in the alleged attack), despite admittedly having inconsistencies in their stories, were somehow more "credible." This strikes me as judicial malfeasance. I'm sure this conviction will be overturned on appeal, but I don't think that goes far enough, I think the judge should be punished and I don't think he should be allowed to preside over similar cases in the future.
(
Shakespeare's Sister and Kevin at
American Street have more on the story, including a personal connection).
The judge's basic idea here is that somehow a false accusation of rape is a serious crime and a serious societal problem that needs to be addressed harshly. Now, while I will concede that a false accusation of rape is a serious thing, it is in no way -- and I mean absolutely no way -- a crime anywhere near the importance of rape. The big argument seems to be that the person who is accused carries around the stigma of the accusation for life. And this is the conventional wisdom. Everybody seems to believe this. But is it really true? Is there any actual evidence that this is either common or even likely? Deborah Lipp, anecdotally, suggests it isn't:
Some years ago, at Starwood, I co-taught a workshop that included material on child sexual abuse and incest. We were talking about a wide range of topics and some people were talking about false memories, false accusations, all that. A man raised his hand to say that he'd been falsely accused of molesting a young girl, and then exonerated. We invited him to share his experience. What he said was striking. He said it damaged his reputation for a while, but not forever. He said in his opinion it was worth it for a small number of people to go through what he went through, in order to protect children. He said that there was no way of ever prosecuting real child abusers without the risk of false accusations such as fell on him, and it was a small price to pay for protecting our children.
By and large, I think his argument, his heartfelt and compelling argument, arising from a deep and personal place, applies equally to adult victims.
I completely agree with this line of reasoning. While I think such a false accusation is wrong and clearly has a negative impact on the person accused, the level of the crime is nowhere near that of rape or child molestation or anything like that. Furthermore, this isn't really an issue. In Oregon, where the story mentioned at the beginning of this post takes place, approximately 3% of such reports are false. That means 97% of rape accusations are borne out. And we have nearly 400,000 rapes in the U.S. every year, putting us with a rate of rape more than three times that of Sweden, the country in second place. Rape is a massive problem in our society. False accusations of rape are so rare as to be almost non-existent as a societal problem. Yes, they do happen, and they should be dealt with seriously when they do, but false accusations are a minor issue and not worthy of some kind of judicial crusade.
This got me thinking of the similarities between this issue and several posts related to Blog About Racism day. The big problem racism and sexism have in common is that most of the people accused of being racist or sexist are white males and white males overwhelmingly belittle or denigrate these concepts. One way they do this is by overplaying the problems of white guys who falsely get accused of being racist or sexist, despite the fact that such false claims are very, very rare. Even if we were in a vacuum, where all such claims could be evaluated equally, rape or racism would still be worse than false accusations of the same. But we don't live in such a vacuum and the evaluation of these problems has an added component -- that rape, sexism and racism are really common while the false accusations of such are not.
I'm a strong opponent of any kind of sexism and racism and I think rape is one of the most serious crimes in society (behind only murder and child molestation). I'm sad to say that most people like me -- white males -- don't seem to see these things as major problems and many don't see them as problems at all. The very belief that racism is not a significant problem is racist. The very belief that sexism is not a significant problem is sexist. The very belief that rape is not a significant problem is sexist. Period.
Most white males I've known in my lifetime, growing up in the South, who have ever said anything to me on the issues of race or gender, have said racist or sexist things to me. As a white male, they somehow assume that I'm a member of the club and let me in on their beliefs about the inferiority of women or blacks. This goes for most of the men in my family, most of the guys I grew up with, most of the students I went to school with, most of the workers I worked with and most of the students I have now. If you check out the anonymous surveys that I give my students, you'll see openly racist and sexist comments and opinions stated frequently. That means many guys are not only willing to say such things, they are willing to put them in writing.
What can we do about this? For one, education is a key. A lot of this stuff is passed down from one generation to the next and we can attempt to counteract that through the educational system -- by providing the overwhelming statistics, facts, evidence and logical arguments that sexism and racism are not only immoral, they are the exact opposite of reality. The sexist white males are in a lot of trouble in this area, as women are greatly outpacing men in college attendance and graduation. It won't be too long before the good old boy network will be overrun by women who are smarter and better educated.
As for racism, I fear things are getting worse and I'm not sure there are any short-term solutions. Younger generations are more multicultural and less racist than older ones, but I don't know if they'll maintain that and get into positions of power quick enough to make a major difference in our lifetime. I'm hopeful, but I just don't think the signs are all that encouraging.