Well, sure. If there's reason to believe them. Not as a collective, but as individuals. And not automatically just because they are women. No one should be believed automatically, especially without good reason.
All women sometimes lie because all humans sometimes lie.
To believe someone just because they're a woman is sexist. You have to have a better reason than that, no matter what they are claiming.
Some women have falsely accused me of things in the past; claims they made as a way to try to get some sort of power over me. Most women haven't done that. I know which ones were lying; other people have no way to know. It would be ridiculous to consider me guilty just because someone says something about me.
And, yes, just like in all cases, I believe it's better that one hundred guilty people "get away with" something than to have one innocent person punished. But that's just me and my bias against punishment/revenge.
I think it should be addressed, and not ignored or dismissed, when a woman makes an accusation. It should be taken seriously, ..BUT not without or against reason. You have to have some kind of factual basis, something to substantiate the claim before accusing someone and ruining their life over it.
ReplyDeleteA woman with scrapes and bruises reporting being raped by an unknown man fitting the description of a man hanging around her work parking lot constitutes looking for the man, then checking out to see if there is anything to connect him to the crime. A woman saying THAT GUY raped me means checking out to see if there is anything to connect THAT GUY to the crime.
But you cannot actually accuse until you have something conclusive to connect him. Nor can you harass him with an investigation that is just as damaging as an accusation. It has to be based on something, and be fair and honest in order to be just.
Then there's Rep Jared Polis, who said any man on a Colorado college campus who is accused by any woman of sexual impropriety should be immediately evicted from that college, without a hearing or proof or anything. He then said if that means ten innocent men get evicted to get rid of one guilty man, he's OK with that outcome.
ReplyDeleteEssentially the same standard of "proof" that used to get black men lynched in the South.
Wonder if his opponent has the cojones to point out THAT parallel.
Jim
Excellent article and excellent comments above. Justice is reached after a fair and unbiased inquiry and not with a shoot first attitude. Thanks Kent!
ReplyDelete