To be clear: Numerous (to me) means approaching 20% of all accusations. That's only 1 in every 5 accusations. Does numerous mean something else to you?
Can you please cite your sources?
Even the very definitions of what counts as sexual harassment / assault / rape / hate speech etc are deeply controversial. A most prominent example are radical feminists like Dworkin who essentially say that all heterosexual intercourse is rape.
That's a stupid argument. Can we please not equivocate exceptionally dumb arguments with serious ones?
(Also, while we basically live in a post-satire society, I still like to call Poe's Law on exceptionally dumb arguments.)
In the UK, official government research put the figure at 10% of all (rape) accusations being false. But if you read the reports, you'll see that the true figure must be much higher, as the methodology reclassifies lots of data points to avoid them being considered false.
Which paper do you mean by Jan and what replications have you got in mind? And where do you recommend I look for the UK figures?
A word of warning. I've found that there is a shocking rate of lying about these studies, both in other academic papers and the media. Moreover you have to read the papers carefully because they're often written by people with an explicit agenda (to minimise the false reporting rate - exception is Kanin who appers to have no agenda). You really have to watch out and not take any claims at face value, even when they'd appear to be in credible reports from credible sources. It's very sad but it appears that in a rather meta way, the topic of false reports of rape is dogged by false reports about studies of false reports about rape!
The idea that the rate of false reporting is very high is probably once of the most controversial and dangerous topics in our society today. If you write your paper you are very likely to be attacked for it, at least if your paper is based on police report data. Good luck!
Kanin, 1994
https://ia800209.us.archive.org/4/items/FalseRapeAllegations...
He reviews police reports for every single rape allegation in an unnamed American town, selected because the police department had the time and resources to investigate every allegation thoroughly. In 41% of the cases, the allegation was false. In this study, for a report to be considered false the accuser had to agree it was false. Thus the true rate must be higher, as there was no real incentive for the women to admit they lied to the police. The study provides data on the motives for why the false allegations were made.
Note the appendix. The original Kanin study was done on an unnamed American town. In the appendix they replicate the findings in a US university. Actually the percentage there is slightly higher at exactly 50% false reports (admitted false by the accuser).
The data Kanin provides on why false allegations are made has been replicated by the Dutch police:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313830325_Motives_f...
This Dutch replication doesn't examine the percentage of all claims that are false, just the motives for cases proven false.
Jan Jordan, 2004
http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/3925/4925HomeComput...
This study examines New Zealand police reports and replicates Kanin, by finding a 41% false reporting rate. The paper is horrendously biased, but nonetheless contains useful ground truth data about the NZ police conclusions in a large number of rape reports. The breakdown is:
- Genuine cases, 21%
- Uncertain/insufficient evidence, 38%
- Police investigated and concluded the complaint was false, 33%
- The complainant themselves said their own report was false, 8%
If we add together 33% and 8% we get 41%.
The paper goes into a lot of detail if you're looking for material.
Finally, the UK study is here:
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218141141/ht...
It states that in 9% of cases the claims were considered false by the police. This is quite far off Kanin and Jan, so what's going on? Again, it requires careful reading. About 20% of all reports are "no crimed", that is, the police classify the report as "no crime occurred". This classification is intended for very narrow and unusual situations like the original report being made accidentally, but the prevalence shows it's not being used like that. The UK has put considerable pressure on its police to always 'believe the victim' etc, and they appear to have come up with this way to minimise the number of reports classified as false. It should be clear that if someone files a report of rape (which can't really be accidentally reported), and the police conclude no crime occurred, this is the same thing as a false report. These two categories take the UK to 29%. Lower than Jan and Kanin but still very high. The missing chunk is probably the category where the accuser withdrew their police report so investigation did not continue. These reports may or may not be false. This study also contains some data on motives.
One theme that crops up in quite a few of these papers is that when police officers are interviewed and asked to estimate the rate of false reports, they give rates in the 40-50% range. In media reports you will frequently see a rate of 2% being quoted, so this is an exceptionally large difference in perception between journalists writing about the topic and police who deal with it. The UK study has some anonymised quotes from police talking about the problem.
There are many posts in this discussion thread stating that men are wrong to worry because "the statistics prove false allegations are not a problem". That claim appears to be false: replicated studies show the problem is vastly larger for rape than any other crime (false report rate for murder is ~2%). Men are probably right to be wary.
Shockingly, the UK government document you cite explicitly suggests "Expanding the concept of ‘real rape’".
If that’s not enough to clear his name, how can anyone ever escape the stain of a credible accusation? It seems prudent given that problem to ensure that no accusation will be credible.
People refer to Kavanaugh as a rapist when he wasn't even accused of rape. 50% (or more) of the country still thinks of him as such. His family and children received death threats.
The case of Brian Banks is an example that should meet your standard. Black man with a potential professional football career goes to jail, DNA evidence exonerates years later.
Your past is still vital to who you are, both in your own eyes and in the eyes of others. Your comment is ignorant of the trauma that these circumstances bring to the accused - if you can have empathy for the victim, you should be able to carry the same empathy for the accused.
Again Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina-Lisa_Lohfink
The matress stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_rape_contr...
But we know of those only because they were public figures or have been carried out in public. You don't hear about the private ones.
Also people here really seem to be assuming any case where someone is found not guilty means the accusation was false, which is not how it works. Just ask OJ Simpson.
>Also people here really seem to be assuming any case where someone is found not guilty means the accusation was false, which is not how it works. Just ask OJ Simpson.
For a third person this is kinda how it works.
The last I heard about Kavanaugh he'd been totally exonerated. There's no reason to believe he did anything to this woman.
First, his name was Mark Judge not "Mike" Judge - so get off the high horse about being factually correct when you can't even get one name right.
Zero corroborating eyewitnesses, zero recollection of the location of the "party" from 35 years ago.
You know that Kavanaugh was shortlisted by Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign? Predating Dr. Ford's timeline for documenting the alleged abuse during therapy.
I don't think this is any different. The chance of being falsely accused is probably very small, but I know I'd absolutely crushed, both mentally and physically (lack of sleep for months in a row) if it happened to me. Even if, a year or two later, they'd clear my name. It's sufficient to have just a few high profile cases to increase that fear.
That doesn't mean that I'd go out of my way to avoid hiring women...
*Citation needed on that claim.
The reality is that "false" sexual assault/harassment claims are around 2% to 10%. And that number is likely higher than reality because some law enforcement agencies will call a claim "false" simply because they could not find enough corroborating evidence. [1]
If anything, there is a disincentive to report sexual harassment/assault, because the victim has HISTORICALLY been victimized again in the media. The vast majority of sexual assault crimes go unreported because of this and other reasons. [2, 3]
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/03/health/sexual-assault-false-r...
[2] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vnrp0610.pdf
[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-compassion-chron...
This sort of willful misunderstanding of concerns feels like a subtle gaslighting campaign.
The vast majority of men being discussed here have zero problems in their treatment of women. They quite rationally have calculated that being around women at work is now a significant risk to them, with little or no upside in return, so they're bowing out.
You can preach all you like, but in my experience it's almost impossible to get people to act against their own self-interest, especially when the welfare of their loved ones is on the line.
Welcome to the new normal.
Men are now protecting themselves against possible accusations of wrong doing by women, in professional settings, conferences, school... because now anybody can accuse them of abuse on Twitter with a simple hashtag and the world will never believe they are innocent even they have been deemed innocent by a court of law.
I personally refuse to be with alone with a female coworker in any situation, even elevators. And any private meeting is done with the door open.
Why can't these men just learn
Side note: How many women have been accused of sexual harassment?
In my experience, the "position of power" reply is a canned response that is being used to deflect a question. It is in my experience never accompanied by a substantial understanding of what power actually means, and of an awareness of the long tradition of difficulties of defining the concept of power.
In order to help you get away from this naive position, let me invite you to consider reflecting on the fact that the ability falsely to accuse others of heinous crimes and get away with it might be a power in itself. (Cf how the Khashoggi murderes are likely to get away with it -- would you or I get away with murder?)
Stanford: Myths about false accusation [0] BBC: The truth about false assault accusations by women [1] CNN: Sexual assault false reporting: What the statistics say [2]
[0] https://web.stanford.edu/group/maan/cgi-bin/?page_id=297 [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45565684 [2] https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/03/health/sexual-assault-false-r...
Consensus seems to be
- "only about 40% of rapes are ever reported" [0]
- "the number of rapes and sexual assaults which are never reported or prosecuted far outweighs ..." [1]
Pretty much by definition of "not reported", it is difficult to believe that one can confidently make statements about the number of rapes that are not reported. Another shortcoming of [0, 1] is that they don't in fact say what they mean by rape. The very definition of this term is controversial (e.g. statutory rape, which is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent. Note also that the age of consent varies between different legal systems). This is a serious omission.
Given this, why should one take the rest of the articles serious?
> A late-40-something in private equity said he has a new rule, established on the advice of his wife, an attorney: no business dinner with a woman 35 or younger.
The article focuses on the self-preservation concerns and it would be a lie to suggest that there's no CYA involved.
But it's not the only dynamic. As a senior exec I both legally represent my employer and am seen to represent it by many employees. If how I act or communicate is misconstrued this could have far reaching consequences.
But more important to both of these (because the real risk of something going pear-shaped isn't that large), is the effect that, seemingly inconsequential, actions can have on the recipient.
As an example, a mentee of mine received an email from a senior colleague asking her to go for drinks. She asked my advice as she felt obliged to go but didn't want to give the wrong impression. She was quite concerned. Turns out, he had invited a number of people who had performed well on a project but had omitted to be clear about why they were invited. Entirely innocent, easily misconstrued.
In my view, if senior folk get more thoughtful about their actions, it's likely to be net positive. There may be some unintended consequences (there usually are) but I don't believe the real risk is especially high.
I agree with your conclusion that "if senior folk get more thoughtful about their actions, it's likely to be net positive".
You also mentioned that "If how I act or communicate is misconstrued this could have far reaching consequences". I agree -- and this also cuts both ways.
The original point I was trying to (clumsily) make was: One could easily see the men in the original article as actively excluding women from positions of power. The 'far reaching consequences' in this case would be punishing women who have legitimate grievances for raising those grievances and emphasizing a power gap between genders.
But you just assumed yourself that these men are somehow flawed.
Just because one is wearing a seatbelt doesn't mean she s a bad driver.
Most of women also treat men like the humans they are.
The problem lies in the fact that bad women treat all men badly and bad men treat all women badly.[citation needed]
Hence, fear results in good men and women having to avoid eachother, for lack of a better response.
Chance of getting falsely accused of anything sexual is on average probably very slim, but the fallout of such an accusation can be devastating.
However, I think public figure/political circumstances are the outlier and don’t agree with the concept of avoiding women. That’s just dumb on a number of levels. But I can understand the risk-adverse thinking. Ironically, the crowd screaming to “believe her” despite a lack of evidence actually caused more harm to women in the long run since the implication is that a women accusing anyone of anything is going to be “believed” regardless of evidence and without a consideration of due process. That’s a scary place to be as a man, knowing that a mere accusation and public flogging awaits even if there is no evidence of any wrongdoing having occurred.
Why run the risk that you get a sociopath who will make a false claim for their own gain?
They're not worried they don't know how to treat women with respect. They're worried that in 5, 10 or 15 years they they'll be put on the spot to defend their behavior in an interaction they don't even remember happening.