Due process is the key for me. Before whole careers are razed, it’s important to have - and to urge - due process. That’s where MeToo falls on its butt.
I think he walked this comment back in the face of a social media backlash to his career by the #metoo piranhas, but I like the way Norm MacDonald simplified it.
“I’m happy the #MeToo movement has slowed down a little bit. It used to be, ‘One hundred women can’t be lying.’ And then it became, ‘One woman can’t lie,'” Macdonald said. “And that became, ‘I believe all women.’ And then you’re like, ‘What?’
This was the comment that more caused him a problem I think:
Well, Louis [C.K.] and Roseanne [Barr] are the two people I know. And Roseanne was so broken up [after her show’s reboot was cancelled] that I got Louis to call her, even though Roseanne was very hard on Louis before that. But she was just so broken and just crying constantly. There are very few people that have gone through what they have, losing everything in a day. Of course, people will go, “What about the victims?” But you know what? The victims didn’t have to go through that.
The metoo movement was especially problematic because it started to target anyone who questioned it. It wasn’t just going after sexual assaults, just anyone who doesn’t go along their movement.
Also the line between actual rape to basic human misunderstands between sexes and everything in between became blurred and diluted.
I curious on how some of the me too supporters on the forum still feel about it.
Yes, and not only that they ruin careers over minor offenses. Take Norm Macdonald in @tempogain’s quote above. The only thing Macdonald is guilty of is being insensitive - which is bad enough. However, not good enough. They would have been happy to attempt to ruin his career if he hadn’t walked his comments back and apologized.
Well, Louis [C.K.] and Roseanne [Barr] are the two people I know. And Roseanne was so broken up [after her show’s reboot was cancelled] that I got Louis to call her, even though Roseanne was very hard on Louis before that. But she was just so broken and just crying constantly. There are very few people that have gone through what they have, losing everything in a day. Of course, people will go, “What about the victims?” But you know what? The victims didn’t have to go through that.
Yeah so signal A is sent by the woman but signal B is received by the guy, who goes on to make what turns out to be an inappropriate sexual gesture. That can range from an inappropriate kiss to rape, but the way #metoo has things set up they’re both equally bad. Inappropriate is inappropriate, according to #metoo (although rape is also a crime).
So what happens is that a kiss becomes almost as bad as rape, and worse a rape can come to seem like nothing really worse than an inappropriate kiss (or at least that’s the way I see it happening over time). A simple mistake is no longer possible, human understanding gets squeezed out. Any mistake becomes the Worst Mistake Possible.
Who’s to judge? No judge necessary, the accusation is enough all by itself.
Sexual assault and rape is just a serious and nasty accusation to make about someone. It never goes away pretty much even after innocence proven. There’s always that doubt in the air with the person
A teammate of mine who played for another school in high school got accused of rape by a girl who had some issues. He was nice and befriended her, she got a crush on him and said he didn’t have mutual feelings for her when they were hanging out. She accused him of rape. Got kicked out of school without any proof. Criminal charges pressed on him. Everyone stopped associating with him. It was a huge deal in my area and I think it became bigger than the girl thought it would be. Luckily for him, the detective did his job and saw holes in her story and she later confessed he didn’t rape her. This dragged on for maybe more than a year. During this time many schools didn’t want to take him so he couldn’t even go to school and when he did no one would talk to him. He became so depressed he tried to commit suicide even after he was proven innocent. That reputation just doesn’t wash off and he became a drunk. Not that anyone made him drink but it definitely had an impact. But happy to hear from him that he’s good and sober now.
But guess what happened to the girl?
Nothing. Not even a fucking slap on the wrist.
Something serious and heinous as rape needs to go through due process.
Remember the fake UVA accusation that Rolling Stone published without even sourcing? Ruined some lives, and neither the RS article writer nor the accuser suffered any real consequences.
Now, I’m conflicted. Because of course there are real sexual assaults and rapes that also destroy lives. My mom was a victim of sexual assault in college and she never reported it, but it left a huge impact on her. So there’s the impact on those falsely accused, but the false accusations also muddy the waters when REAL rapes occur and that’s also a tragedy. A real rape victim is less likely to be believed in an environment where false accusations are flying left and right.
Oh the other side, my friend was sexually assaulted on spring break and to make matters worse they videoed and spread the video. coincidentally another Virginia school around the same time actually. She went MIA and I had to find her with a group of her friends and my law professor at the time happened to be the DA and I got them to meet.
Sadly the school did pretty much nothing. And the offenders basically got community service.
If people want to make the case that rapist get off to easily, I’m willing to listen to that argument and agree. I’m not ok with the mob mentality ok me too.
But I also have to say there’s been too many cases of false rape accusations, which wouldn’t be such a big issue on my mind if the false accusers were actually punished in what I would consider fairly.
It’s very odd how successful convictions for sexual offences have plummeted, in the UK at least, over the past 2 years. It’s almost as if #metoo is having the opposite to its desired effect.
By their nature, sexual crimes are very hard to gain a conviction. However, the conviction rates are ridiculously low. I wonder whether polygraph tests could be used. I know they’re unreliable and should never be used solely to gain a conviction but, in conjunction with other evidence, perhaps the accused and the accuser could each take three polygraphs. It might give the prosecution a slightly greater chance to sway the jury in what is otherwise usually a he says she says argument.
I don’t know. I can empathise with the frustration women feel, but removing a fundamental principle of justice for sexual crime trials is not acceptable.
Idk, do you think you could be calm enough to give an accurate baseline reading and stay calm during interrogations when you know your life is basically on the line. Plus it’s a bit up to the interpretation of the person conducting it, the interrogators can also question you in a way to basically get things to read in their favor if they want you guilty. Not a good idea imo.
They should be difficult to get convictions of. And as insensitive as it may sound, low conviction rates also have to do with people not coming forward right away or not at all. I pushed my friend who got videoed to pursue legal action because I knew it was what needed to be done if she was ever going to move forward even if she lost. Shit like that will haunt you if you stay quite.
That’s an interesting statistic, given that the 70s is today proclaimed as the dark days of misogyny when a rape conviction was virtually impossible to secure.
It might be related to the way crimes are prosecuted. The CPS is apparently referred to by the police as the Criminal Protection Service because it often refuses to prosecute on the basis that there’s no cast-iron guarantee of conviction (the logic being, I suppose, that it’s cheaper to let a criminal go free and catch him after his next crime, which might come packaged with better evidence). Rape being notoriously hard to prove, it’s probably the CPS refusing to prosecute, rather than the courts being unable to reach a guilty verdict.
I suppose an alternative explanation is that the #metoo movement (and similar campaigns preceding it) is bringing a shitload of cases to court that have no merit, eg, drunken one-night-stands that the woman later regrets.
After a couple of widely publicised collapsed prosecutions, the CPS are highly cautious about which cases they accept.
My money is defence lawyers have nailed getting rapists off. Notice how more often than not the defence lawyer is female? They’re not daft - cynical and amoral, perhaps, but smart.
It’s about the same for burglary - 5% or so. However, this is a crime of violence so really should be higher. It’s odd that murders have an almost 75% rate - and they aren’t even a he said she said situation, as one of them is dead. Murder clear-up rates are also falling, though.
EDIT: You’re right about the definition of conviction rate, btw. Apologies. I should have been saying attrition rate.