Public opinion is not the same as legal guilt. People get off for stupid reasons all the time, that isn't moral justification. I will say people can jump on a bandwagon too quickly though.
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Do you think "innocent until proven guilty" is starting to change?
- Thread starter Kaeden
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I'm actually totally okay with accusations being able to get people shunned and vilified, in the case of sexual assault and similar things, because society has proven it has no intention of actually bringing those things to justice. It's the only thing protecting any women. The amount of men that get off totally free from sexual assault far far far outnumbers the amount of men getting falsely accused.
That's not how it works.
You can't be irrational and destructive and then collectively pullback and suddenly become more balanced, rational and fair. People as a whole simply do not work that way.
And you can most certainly tear down rape culture without destroying innocent people.
Accusers can be afforded dignity and respect without publicly slaughtering the accused. If and when evidence (and that includes multiple allegations from different people) emerges, then we can effectively ostracize and shun those individuals who have engaged in this vulgar behavior.
Remember, any false allegation will be amplified by the Alt Right as "proof" that sexual harassment is an overblown issue and rape culture doesn't exist.
We have to be smart enough going forward not to give these people ammunition to use against us and those women who have braved the public tumult to share their stories.
Except it's so minor of an actual problem in the face of the MUCH MUCH MUCH greater problem of rape culture that you putting so much focus on it and considering the actors of the "alt right" and what they think at all is what's not helping
First post was on point.
The court of law must be held to this standard. That said, it is an imperfect system, which frequently fails survivors and victims. This is due in large part to influences and corruption, and also in part to mis/disinformation (i.e. "she was wearing a SKIRT and drinking the ALCOHOL so she was basically ASKING for it amirite members of the jury?").
It's always going to be ugly, and it's always going to be murky, but I believe that the more we teach young men how to be actual (and I know the use of the word "actual" is WILDLY interpretive) men, the better our society will become.
The court of law must be held to this standard. That said, it is an imperfect system, which frequently fails survivors and victims. This is due in large part to influences and corruption, and also in part to mis/disinformation (i.e. "she was wearing a SKIRT and drinking the ALCOHOL so she was basically ASKING for it amirite members of the jury?").
It's always going to be ugly, and it's always going to be murky, but I believe that the more we teach young men how to be actual (and I know the use of the word "actual" is WILDLY interpretive) men, the better our society will become.
Glad this was the first post.
Society can ostracize someone based on accusations but our legal framework should spare them only until they are rightfully convicted.
And I don't care if there's a 99.9% rate of truthful reporting to sexual assault. There should always be a trial and there must always be more evidence than accusations.
There are plenty of men that were/are in hot water for one woman's accusation.
They can, yeah.
I don't think they necessarily should.
Unless the person is already known, papers and news stations here dont share suspect names.
And I like it that way.
The whole name-and-shame thing is pretty screwed up coming from official news outlets.
It reminds me a lot of To Kill a Mockingbird. It is very scary stuff because it can ruin ones life and/or career.
Unfortunately, the nature and desires of those in power sometimes pits the equality of black people against the dismantling of rape culture and abuse of women.
It has been this way for years, and even more so now. It just seems ramped up now due to social media.
Reminder for everyone to watch The Hunt for a reminder of how destructive the court of public opinion can be.
I agree with this. Laws must work differently and should never be based on emotions.
Public opinion always has been like the medieval mob and runs purely on emotion. There is a saying that "One Human is smart, a group of Humans are a bunch of dumb animals.". On top of that is that the general human is pretty stupid to begin with. This gets further boosted by reducing the teaching of critical thinking in societies like America. Critical thinking requires you to take out the emotion and make an objective decision along the lines of perfect but unreachable ideals of justice and morality.
But this works in both ways, positive and negative, if you get a positive public image then people will defend you until the last drop of blood. Just get yourself a positive image in the human "hive-mind" and you have got a good defense against allegations.
I was not speaking about the judiciary system, but about the public eye.
As a male, i think i have the right to point out toxic behaviors inherent to our (socially-constructed) masculinity. Our masculinity and self-worth is tied to our capacity to seduce and "get" women. This present a immediate danger for women and need to be eradicated. I think that we are also victim to this, too often cutting ourselves emotionally with half of humanity. Furthermore, how many families were broken by this destructive masculinity ?
Pedophilia was not used as a comparison but to point out why (too) many males are using this "guilty until proven innocent" only about this case. We don't see the same amount of defense force when somebody is accused of pedophilia, by simple testimony, because pedophilia is an extreme form of deviant sexuality, and our capacity to perform sexual assault is an inherent part of our masculinity. We cannot shy away and cry "not all men" when the majority of women in the West will suffer a sexual assault once in their lifetime. It would be like saying "not all cops", or "not all whites", when those issues are so systematic, so paradigmatically engrained in our culture and society that the subject is not "some rotten apples" bad behavior but the whole basket that need to be rethinked.
All your point about race are valid though, but this is a different issue, the perception of the black man as a sexual threat for white society. I understand your concern but i think that there is a way to integrate both issues in the same critical stance. My point is not to just call for a tougher stance on crime and expect the state to resolve the issue (since we know who will pay and who will not), but more profound. The least we can do is to SHAME those behaviors.
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Thank you for making my argument more eloquently than I could.
Bolded for emphasis. We don't work like that. We have never worked like that. If there's one thing I've learned in the US, is that we're really good at ignoring a problem way too long and then overreacting like crazy to try to make up for it (see: Columbine and 9/11 as modern examples off the top of my head, could argue Somalia is also a modern one) and not considering the consequences of the reaction.
The part that worries me about this is that this still all at least appears like we want to be SEEN as doing good rather than actually doing good. I think that is at the heart of why, in social media, you see people who defend someone else's rights (even if they disagree with them) accused of being like-minded. I'm still not sure people actually care as much as they want to be seen as they actually care.
EDIT: Relevant to the topic - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/the-question-of-race-in-campus-sexual-assault-cases/539361/
Zelas, Tetra-Grammaton-Cleric; I had no idea about the racial aspect of this, so thank you for bringing it to my attention. Racism should also be reacted to with disgust - and that's all I'm talking about. I'm not saying people are ever justified in forming lynch mobs, be it for men accused of rape or for pedophilia.
I'm talking about a shift in the cultural standard that makes women less afraid, and makes men more aware of their behaviour, and more conscientious. Same idea as driving under the influence. Plenty of people still need to have "it is never acceptable to drink and drive" jammed down their throats. I'm strictly speaking about changing attitudes towards these behaviours so that they align with crimes we already consider hot-button acts of utterly unacceptable behaviour. I am not advocating witch hunts or mob justice; and certainly not trying to pretend that the justice system isn't rife with problems of its own.
I'm talking about a shift in the cultural standard that makes women less afraid, and makes men more aware of their behaviour, and more conscientious. Same idea as driving under the influence. Plenty of people still need to have "it is never acceptable to drink and drive" jammed down their throats. I'm strictly speaking about changing attitudes towards these behaviours so that they align with crimes we already consider hot-button acts of utterly unacceptable behaviour. I am not advocating witch hunts or mob justice; and certainly not trying to pretend that the justice system isn't rife with problems of its own.
The problem is that while this is true in the media, who get clicks based on outrage, it's much less prevalent amongst real people. It blows my mind how blasé people still are when it comes to reacting to real women they know who survive assault, and how resistant they are to condemning men.
Public opinion mostly skews the opposite way, though in a court of law it must remain innocent until proven guilty.
I agree with this wholly. also believe that in american culture now, it's not about being good or decent human beings, it's more about me me me. take what you can. if you do something wrong, dont get caught. if you get caught send out a fake apology. its not about "be decent. dont kill, hurt, rape, steal, etc". it's "dont get caught doing those things." plus the punishment for such things is laughable.
i should fucking hope so, law & the courts should not be anyone's morality - and giving women the benefit of the doubt is a huge step towards, you know, not having to start a whole other forum because some folks are trash, for example
That's a very pessimistic view on society :/
That's like saying, "welp murder and crime have always been part of our species, nothing we can do about it".
This probably says everything I'd have to say about it, and did a better job at it.
Yeah like other PoCs have said earlier in the thread, I'm not into instantly believing the accuser in sexual harassment situations due to how dirty blacks have been done in the past over this thing. If the accused has past issues and controversy over sexual harassment I am generally inclined to believe the accuser, however.
I support due process for the accused and for the allegations of victims to be taken seriously. I don't think peoples lives should be ruined by mob mentality. That is not a society I want to live in.
US courts already kind of abandoned it in practice. They burden people with so many charges, and set bail so high, that the person is essentially ruined regardless of guilt. I saw a documentary a while back that explored how these practices really hard black communities, I think it was titled The 13th.