Luckily I don't have those concerns, but I certainly would if I had a young daughter. But that wouldn't change the concerns I have about my sons.
The legal burden of proof is of course on the side of the accused, but on college discipline boards and in the media, it would be hard to argue that the burden of proof is against the accused.
I'm sorry, I find it very hard to sympathize. It's pretty rare for a man to be falsely accused of rape and for it to have any material consequence on his life. I knew a couple guys in college accused of rape and they all got off and got their investment banking jobs. Most of the time they end up being heavily sympathized with by other men and a lot of women regardless of guilt. Women being the victims of assault and just having to live with it is much more common. I've been there myself.
It actually is not possible to truly determine the frequency of false complaints of sexual assault, given that some false complaints will never get uncovered as such. Same thing with wrongful convictions generally. That being said, I don't think being a terrible person is restricted to either sex. There are some shitty men who rape/sexually assault, and there are some shitty women that will use rape or sexual assault accusations for all sorts of devious reasons.
I have three young daughters and one young son. At this point I mostly care about keeping them alive. But yes, one day they will all need to have serious conversations about these sorts of things.
i mean ask women you know if they have been assaulted and ask men you know if they have ever sexually assaulted a woman and you will get a fast insight into how both sides an issue this is
It is actually. Sexual assaults and rapes are rarely reported, and even more rarely legally pursued in general. Of those, a fraction are false claims. Rape trials are incredibly arduous for the alleged victims. But please, give an example of a man sitting in prison who you think was falsely accused and convicted of rape.
Surely you don't think that every person convicted of every crime is truly guilty, do you? I don't think false accusations happen very often, and they are likely far less of them than there are unreported assaults, but there are documented cases. We have no way of knowing how many there are, but to suggest it doesn't happen is wrong. My guess is the fear of false accusations and shakedowns is why some pro athletes turn to escorts in the first place. We always wonder why young, rich athletic guys are paying for sex. But they likely see it as less risky than meeting a stranger at a club. Getting caught with a hooker won't end your career or land you in prison in most countries. But having someone accuse you of something you didn't do in order to get a payday can do both. Obviously, even for athletes, being falsely accused of something like this is very rare. But so is dying of Covid if you are young and I see plenty of young people wearing masks around town these days.
Obviously not. False convictions happen. But it really bothers me that the narrative has switched to MEN being the primary victims of rape cases, when in reality it's incredibly difficult to be convicted of rape and women are actively discouraged from pursuing these cases in general, or even shamed from reporting assaults to health authorities. Every single publicized rape case ends up with the WOMAN being shamed as much or more than the man. That's why they aren't pursued. That's why it took Harvey Weinstein YEARS and tons of complaints and victims with the same story to finally get prosecuted.
It's got to the point where if you're a straight male teaching in a university, you have to be very careful when you have female students in your office: make sure the door remains open and there are plenty of people around, never fall for after hours visits or students trying to talk to you of personal issues with the door closed. Anyway, time will tell how this develops, but being such a commodity CHO will have a decent team of lawyers.
Well in this case we are talking about rape, not verbal harassment. Which is a whole other issue. But yeah, if you aren't an utter creep there's no reason to be terrified of female students. most men behave properly and most female students just want to get their degree and leave.
you hopefully realize that the vast majority of these cases are versions of he said/she said and are not black and white on even the fact. what someone thinks is consensual and what someone potentially later regrets (both usually fueled by alcohol) is again an opaque zone. IMO colleges have gone too far to assuming that the male is criminal.
Yeah because unlike other crimes, there's no real evidence other than he said she said. There's no murdered person, no black eye, no shady bank account transfer. That's why women almost never win these cases, but they almost never bring them to begin with because they are discouraged from doing it. And with a high profile public figure? you need an army of other women with the same story to take the perpetrator down. Colleges can't bring a criminal case against a student and never do, so I have no idea what you are talking about.
fair enough on the criminal side although the consequences of getting thrown out of school are huge. I see that 150 lawsuits have been filed against colleges by men who feel they weren’t given a fair chance. My guess is that’s the tip of the iceberg. I guess one could say that women are discouraged from bringing action with life altering consequences without any evidence but how is the opposite a good thing where accusation can be credibly made with nothing behind it? This is particularly bad for minority men who are disproportionally accused of, and subsequently punished for, these crimes on campus.
There's no legitimate way to actually know the number of false claims. We may know the number of claims that have proven to be false. But that's necessarily going to underestimate the total number of actual false claims, because some never get proven to be false. Anyways, if personal anecdotes are the touchstone, I know of men who have sexually assaulted women. I also know women who have lied about it. So there you go.
You'd be surprised at the number of times female students hint that they will accuse you of something if you don't up their grades. I have no reason to think it's any different in high school. In fact, it may even be worse, but IMO you need to be a mashochist to teach high school. At least in university half of your students are somewhat interested. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/false-abuse-accusations-against-teachers-on-the-rise-1.1173682 Teachers across Canada are having their reputations ruined as increasing numbers get falsely accused of abusing their students, or acting inappropriately with them, experts say. "We are getting more and more 'teacher-talk' evidence and teacher narratives that clearly indicate that false accusations are on the rise," Jon Bradley, associate professor of education at McGill University, told CBCNews via email. --- This is not rape of course. It's just a student threatening you with telling faculty that you asked her out or something like that (something you NEVER did) unless you give her an A. But, still, it indicates the prevalence of a certain gestalt in our current society.
Nah, it’s not on the onus of the suspect to prove he’s innocent. It’s on the onus of physical evidence. Rapes don’t turn into convictions by testimony early. If she consents to it, she will take a rape kit which includes photos of physical marks inside and outside the body as well as a DNA test. There’s plenty of things for your sons to worry about. Tell them to be a good person(which includes not being a rapist) and they will be alright in 99% or situations.
Shouldn’t that be happening already? I mean, it just seems stupid if that hasn’t always been general good sense.
No, it was not supposed to be this way. As a professor, you were expected to have a close relationship to your students, in particular at the higher levels (last year or grad/post-grad). Now that's not possible any more: you have to keep a safe distance with all, because if you don't then you can also be accused of 'sexism' for giving preferential treatment to the male students just because you take extra-care when dealing with the female ones. The bottom line is that the mentor/pupil relationship needed in STEM has been irreparably lost at this point. It's no wonder these days the highest achievers come from the background and get the direct mentoring they need from their parents, while professors are each time more and more pressed to turn their research into (often misguided) private ventures, since their time with the students has been reduced to a minimum.
I lived through the Duke lacrosse case (not going to rehash that), so I guess that colored my views as a father a bit.