Slate: How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape?

I noticed they conveniently left off the McDowell study. Also, the 90% figure is from Ireland from what I understand. And, they don't specify why they think it was 'flawed'.
-ax

for 40+ years now, and only recently has anyone even asked for sources.
it will take time and intellegent query to undo the damage.

reminds me of the stat's for seatbelt use. i had a fender bender a few
years back and the emt's were asking me the usual questions
from some form. society was still studying seat belt use at the time,
and passing all the laws we now have. anyway, when the question of
"were you wearing a seatbelt" came up, and as i was about to answer,
i happened to glance at the cop writing tickets, and he looked at me over
his shades, waiting for an answer, so, of course i was wearing a seat belt.
doesn't everyone?

hard core women feminists have no shame. never have had, never will have.
they always want more more more. just like their princess girlfriends.

Claiming that generalizing the findings of the Kanin study is somewhat questionable is very different from finding his methodology was flawed. His study which found that 41% of the accused rapes were recanted seemed sound to me. The lie detector bs is a real reach. Someone who was actually raped is not going to be intimidated by a lie detector. Let them point out where his actual work is flawed. Until then his study stands as one solid indicator that false rape reports are far more common than anyone believes.

It is mind numbing to see the multiple hoops that our culture jumps through to insure the anonymity and safety of those who claim to be raped while simultaneously publically shaming the accused and insuring no mechanisms to protect his safety. The Kanin work gives us real reason to start protecting the accused in these situations. Not doing so is bigoted and heartless.

As already mentioned the article does a poor job of disproving the research showing higher rates then 10%. It seems that from the authors point of view 10% sounds logical and that is what they are going to believe.

However, there are some reasons to suspect higher rates - just ask The Innocence Project. What I mean is, just as we know that not all genuine rapes are reported, we also know that some GENUINELY FALSE accusations result in conviction. The article does not mention this factor at all, yet we know that most accusations of rape are 'he said, she said' affairs without the safety of DNA evidence at all. So the cunning liar has as much chance of obtaining a conviction as a genuine victim most of the time. The Hofstra accuser WOULD have obtained multiple convictions had it not been for video evidence proving her claims false. Which leads to the next point...

The author seems to be convinced that police still treat victims as liars, and sites some random prosecutor's letter as proof. Well, the cops treat rape complainants pretty much identically to Domestic Violence complainants who are female - they arrest whoever the person accuses first and get around to asking questions later, maybe. To claim that rape victims are wholesale treated badly by police is false. Especially when in many countries there exists very real financial incentives for rape victims to come forward.

These same financial incentives could possibly encourage (no government will fund a study to find out if there is a link between money offered and false accusations because frankly, the results would be embarrassing to that government). In other words, in many places police are not on the lookout for false accusers they are very intentionally looking the other way, in hope none of the accusations they receive are ever proven false.

The media coverage of false accusations does not have a huge impact on ANYONE, because any potential impact is negated by the even more massive media coverage of rape accusations. Don't believe me? Prove it your self. Google 'Phillip Garrido' and you get - 3,320,000 hits at the time I wrote this. Now Google 'Hofstra False Accusation' and you will get 26,100 not all related to the false accusation at Hofstra recently. Now Google 'Hofstra Girl Raped' and you get the 217,000 stories that were reported BEFORE the girl was proven a liar. Isn't it neat that you only get 20% of the hits talking about the lie compared to the number of reports of the allegation. So where's the real media bias? What is going to be more fresh in ANY potential juries mind, the story they may have heard something about some girl being a lair, or the 20 or so allegations in the media today of another girl being raped. Plus, just read some of those articles about the Hofstra case that are talking about the false accusation. Most of them are harder on the victims (the falsely accused then the criminal who invented the story)

That brings us to the next point, false accusers are looked at with TREMENDOUS sympathy by the media, the justice system and most of the general public. They are viewed as troubled and in need of help rather then punishment. Plus, the fact that they do not use force directly, they use the police and justice system to crush the target of their accusation. It's easier to hate the rapist because they inflicted the harm themselves. The false accuser attacks by proxy. The system is designed to resist admitting it's own mistakes - that's why they don't like prosecuting liars. They'd have to admit they did something wrong opening themselves up to potential liability. Plus, since it's all in the name of defending real victims and hating real rapists, the falsely accused get brushed off as acceptable casualties of the war on the boogieman. In reality, sexual assault cases are ANYTHING but black and white, but it is our irrational fear of the potential evil monsters that lurk out there that drives us with such vigor to prosecute rape claims with great ferocity. Recognizing our own fear based bias' is also useful in understanding that we are as a society will always be much less able to determine the rate of false accusations for crimes like rape that hold such a deep emotional attachment.

The problem is that while the author acknowledges that false accusations are as devastating (I would argue more devastating) as rape upon it's victims, the author comes down firmly on the side that only rape victims are deserving of sympathy, support, protection and encouragement. The focus of the article is still very much the harm that false rape accusations do to rape victims and not the multitude of problems that men primarily face with the specter of false accusations hanging above our heads.

Addressing Ms Brownmillers "2%" claim... stop it already, that's long since been exposed AS A LIE!

See: http://www.usfcralliance.org/forums/f269/mythos-busted-debunking-myth-male-690/

which discusses Edward Greers ‘Legal Dominance Feminism’ http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v33-issue3/greer.pdf papers clearly explains the origin of Susan Brownmillers “2% of rape claims are false” mythos, tracing this Canard to an interview in 1975 that was 1- based on nothing more than interviews with NYPD detectives, 2- taken out of context and 3- repeated ad nauseum until the ‘Woozle Effect’ (in it’s purest form) applied. Further: While the frequency of false accusations is difficult to measure, it happens far more often than we are led to believe.
Almost every month, DNA clears a man after years of imprisonment for rape. A U.S. Air Force study found over one-fourth of women who accused men of rape recanted either just before taking or after failing a lie detector test — their most common reason being “spite or revenge” — and it concluded 60% of the rape allegations were false. (Forensic Science Digest, v. 11. n. 4, 12/85; Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1994, v. 23, n. 1.).

In divorce proceedings, false accusations of domestic violence or child abuse, and restraining order abuse, are common. Without warning, men are arrested, jailed and barred from their homes and bank accounts without due process.

More than 50% of child sexual abuse allegations are unsubstantiated. (Eckenrode, Powers, “Substantiation of child abuse and neglect reports, Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psych., 1998, 56, 9-16; Lewis, “Reliability rather than zealotry,” Summer 1996, Kentucky Bench & Bar, 60, 23-30.)

False accusers are rarely prosecuted.

Speaking of Feminist LIES:

The myth: We’ve all heard the infamous “Domestic Violence is the leading cause of injury to women between ages 15 and 44 in the United States - more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.”***. We see it on TV, in magazines, in the county health office in [OMG IT’S A CRISIS!] literature, etc... I mean it’s everywhere.

The Fact: This is not merely untrue, it is so patently untrue that to allege it is an outright malicious lie. Here’s the data on the leading causes of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States in 1996 (again, not the 'high year' nor the 'low year', merely the year I pulled the data on):

Event type / Number / Per Cent
1) Motor Vehicle Accidents / 1,504,119 / 21.2%
2) Accidental Falls / 1,243,538 / 17.5%
3) Other and unspecified environmental and accidental causes / 1,162,272 / 16.4%
4) Accidents caused by cutting and piercing instruments or objects / 515,986 / 7.3%
5) Sports injuries / 483,223 / 6.8%
6) Injuries purposefully inflicted by other than spouse or intimate / 399,240 / 5.6%
7) Overexertion and strenuous movements / 339,014 / 4.8%
8) Drugs, medicinal and biological substances, in therapeutic use / 166,687 / 2.3%
*9) Injuries purposefully inflicted by spouse or other intimate / 153,555 / 2.2%*
10) Injuries caused by animals / 137,639 / 1.9%
11) Accidental poisoning by drugs / 131,928 / 1.9%
12) Misadventures during surgical and medical care / 124,230 / 1.7%
13) Suicide and self-inflicted injuries / 102,392 / 1.4%
14) Struck accidentally by falling object / 87,485 / 1.2%
14) Caught accidentally in or between objects / 74,995 / 1.1%
15) Foreign body accidentally entering orifice other than eye / 69,590 / 1.0%
16) Accidental poisoning by other solid and liquid substances, gases, and vapors / 57,846 / 0.8%
17) Non-transport machinery accidents / 56,455 / 0.8%
18) Venomous animals and plants / 50,111 / 0.7%
19) Accident caused by hot substance or object / 49,766 / 0.7%
20) Foreign body accidentally entering eye and adnexa / 47,788 / 0.7%

This data is taken from the 1996 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Data File, which can be downloaded via ftp from the ‘National Center for Health Statistics’.

Domestic Violence, referred to in the table as "Injury purposefully inflicted by spouse or other intimate", accounts for ONLY 2.2% of injuries to women in this age group.

Rather than being a ‘greater cause of injury than car accidents and other things combined’, Domestic Violence results in only one-tenth as many injuries to women as motor vehicle accidents alone … and a paltry zero decimal one percent ahead of injuries caused by 18) Venomous animals and plants, 19) Accident caused by hot substance or object and 20) Foreign body accidentally entering eye and adnexa ... COMBINED!!!.

***: This quote is sourced to a 1994 ‘ Parents ‘ magazine article claiming "in 1992 the Surgeon General announced that domestic abuse was the leading cause of injuries to women between the ages of 15 and 44".
In truth, then-Surgeon General Antonia Novello (14th US Surgeon General, served 1990 to 1993) wrote a letter in which she said "one study found violence to be... the leading cause of injury to women ages 15 through 44 years"…note the use of the word ‘violence’… rather than ‘domestic violence’.
The study Novello referred to was a study of extremely poor, crime-ridden, inner- city African-American women in Philadelphia… a population not even vaguely representative of the rest of the country.
In a 1995 phone interview, Dr. Jeane Ann Grisso, the study's lead researcher, said that even if her study had concluded that ‘domestic violence’ was the leading cause of injury, she would "never apply that conclusion to the total population of American women"
If in actuality 2% of women’s injuries are genuinely due to domestic violence − not “half” or “a third” or “most” as claimed − how is it that we accept without question, let alone with no indignation, the horrific portrayal of men that this lie implies, an inflation of the truth by up to a staggering 2,250% (Two Thousand, Two Hundred Fifty percent)?

Want another Feminist LIE?

# “Up to 50% of emergency room visits are attributed to domestic violence” (the figure of one-third has also been highly publicized). According to the Department of Justice report "Violence-related injuries treated in hospital emergency departments," August ‘97 in all hospital emergency visits nationwide in 1994, 0.3% of women's visits were due to domestic violence.
This false claim represents an exaggeration of two orders of magnitude, or an inflation of at least 10,000%.

# Ya gotsta LOVE their creativity: “Domestic Violence is responsible for more birth defects than all other causes combined”. This often-repeated factoid is erroneously attributed to ‘a March of Dimes study’ that never existed (translation- has NO BASIS IN REALITY!).

# “A woman is assaulted by her male partner every 15 seconds.”, this famous factoid actually is attributed to valid scientific research, namely the groundbreaking work of pioneer researchers Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Suzanne Steinmetz. What is never reported, however, is that this scientific study also found that a man is assaulted by his female partner every 14 seconds.

# The infamous “Super Bowl Sunday” Mythos that “men batter women 40% more on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year” (thank you Sheila Kuehl, for this line of BS). Good Criminy this one is so completely bogus … even Snopes has a page on it: snopes.com: Domestic Violence on Super Bowl Sunday

Are we done being lied to yet???

The Myth: “More women are killed by Domestic Violence than any other cause in America!”. Yes this one, that you see boldfaced and italicized in DV ‘Crisis Center’ brochures and plastered on the walls at your local county health agency.

The Fact: The simple truth is that in EVERY nationalitygrouping, and in EVERY age grouping… more women are killed by accidents (ie unintentional injuries) than die as a result of ANY violence – Domestic (ie DV/IPV fatalities also called Homicide) or otherwise.
To whit: Per the US CDC (United States Centers for Disease Control) NVSR (National Vital Statistics Report), Vol. 56, No. 5, November 20, 2007 Table 1. (Deaths, percentage of total deaths, and death rates per 100,000 for the 10 leading causes of death in selected age groups, by race and sex) for the year 2004 (not the high year, nor the low year… merely the year I pulled the data from):

Age Group # Deaths A/H % Deaths A/H Causative ranking A/H ( A = Accidental Deaths, H = Homicide )

a) White Females
1 to 4 508 / 88 34.2 / 5.9 1 / 4
5 to 9 318 / 38 36.8 / 4.4 1 / 4
10 to 14 412 / 37 36/5 / 3.3 1 / 6
15 to 19 1,805 / 162 56.7 / 5.4 1 / 4
20 to 24 1,599 / 237 45.4 / 6.7 1 / 4
25 to 34 2,607 / 419 30.0 / 4.8 1 / 5
35 to 44 3,976 / 462 17.4 / 2.0 2 / 8
45 to 54 4,097 / Na 8.3 / Na 3 / Na
55 to 64 2,640 / Na 3.1 / Na 6 / Na
65 to 74 2,679 / Na 1.8 / Na 6 / Na
75 to 84 5,871 / Na 1.9 / Na 8 / Na
85 and over 7,808 / Na 1.9 / Na 8 / Na

b) Black Females
1 to 4 136 / 80 26.0 / 15.3 1 / 2
5 to 9 101 / 22 32.3 / 7.0 1 / 4
10 to 14 118 / 27 30.8 / 7.0 1 / 3
15 to 19 192 / 127 29.0 / 19.2 1 / 2
20 to 24 241 / 154 22.9 / 14.6 1 / 2
25 to 34 407 / 282 13.5 / 8.7 2 / 5
35 to 44 647 / 275 8.3 / 3.5 4 / 6
45 to 54 708 / Na 4.7 / Na 5 / Na
55 to 64 356 / Na 2.0 / Na 8 / Na
65 to 74 303 / Na 1.3 / Na 10 / Na
75 to 84 Na / Na Na / Na Na / Na
85 and over Na / Na Na / Na Na / Na

c) American Indian or Alaska Native Females
1 to 4 16 / 2 34.0 / 4.3 1 / 4#
5 to 9 11 / Na 44.0 / Na 1 / Na
10 to 14 17 / 2 53.1 / 6.3 1 / 4
15 to 19 44 / 7 49.4 / 7.9 1 / 3
20 to 24 48 / 7 50.5 / 7.4 1 / 3
25 to 34 78 / 7 33.3 / 3.0 1 / 6
35 to 44 99 / 8 22.1 / 1.8 1 / 8
45 to 54 65 / Na 9.4 / Na 4 / Na
55 to 64 23 / Na 2.7 / Na 7 / Na
65 to 74 43 / Na 3.9 / Na 6 / Na
75 to 84 38 / Na 3.1 / Na 7 / Na
85 and over 18 / Na 1.8 / Na 9 / Na
# Tied with ‘diseases of the heart’

d) Asian or Pacific Islander Females
1 to 4 17 / 3 21.0 / 3.7 1 / 5
5 to 9 14 / Na 35.0 / Na 1 / Na
10 to 14 14 / 3 29.8 / 8.4 1 / 3
15 to 19 40 / 5 42.1 / 5.3 1 / 4#
20 to 24 57 / 6 42.2 / 4.4 1 / 5@
25 to 34 69 / 23 20.1 / 6.7 2 / 4
35 to 44 78 / 15 12.2 / 2.3 2 / 6
45 to 54 84 / 21 5.9 / 1.5 4 / 7
55 to 64 70 / Na 3.4 / Na 5 / Na
65 to 74 99 / Na 2.9 / Na 5 / Na
75 to 84 126 / Na 2.4 / Na 7 / Na
85 and over 86 / Na 1.6 / Na 10 / Na
# Tied with Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities
@ Tied with Cerebrovascular diseases

e) Hispanic Females
1 to 4 127 / 35 30.8 / 8.5 1 / 4
5 to 9 76 / 15 35.5 / 7.0 1 / 3
10 to 14 74 / 12 31.5 / 5.1 1 / 4
15 to 19 216 / 47 45.1 / 9.8 1 / 2
20 to 24 230 / 63 40.1 / 11.0 1 / 2
25 to 34 353 / 118 25.0 / 8.4 1 / 3
35 to 44 369 / 93 14.3 / 3.6 2 / 5
45 to 54 281 / Na 6.7 / Na 3 / Na
55 to 64 204 / Na 3.4 / Na 6 / Na
65 to 74 179 / Na 2.0 / Na 9 / Na
75 to 84 230 / Na 1.7 / Na 10 / Na
85 and over 200 / Na 1.6 / Na 10 / Na

Note: In EVERY nationality and in EVERY age group, ‘Death by Accidents’ (ie
unintentional injuries) exceed ‘Deaths by Assault’ (ie homicide) and in fact ‘Deaths by Assault’ (ie homicide) fail to even rank in the ten leading causes of death from age 44 onward.

Nowhere, on ANY part of Table 1, does it indicate that more women are killed by violence (domestic or otherwise) than die in accidents!!!

Want some more Feminist LIES???

Go review: http://www.usfcralliance.org/forums/f269/

That's my page.

Gunner Retired
Falsely Accused Father & Disenfranchised Parent
Georgia State F4J Coordinator
National Parents Rights Assoc Research Consultant
FCRA, AFRA & BHS Armorer
and KITTENS DADDY!!!

25-40% is quite likely true if they are including date-rape, marital, ex-marital, and acquaintance rape allegations in it. There are plenty of motivations for people to file false charges, including: pure vindictiveness factor of many relationships ending, factor of buyer's remorse, blackmail/extortion, hookers whose John's don't pay and/or get in trouble for trying to rob them, get back at for real/imagined cheating, to cover actual cheating by the complaining party, cover for something else, financial rewards, usefulness in removing business/teaching/professional adversaries, divorce tactic (for the incredibly cruel - and include those almost always false allegations of child rape), same-sex encounter buyers remorse/not willing to be public with sexuality, considerable population of women (and men for that matter) that are bipolar, borderline personality disorder, or other personality disorder, or otherwise emotionally unstable, the attention seekers, and the considerable propaganda on many college campuses (where some claim its rape if she has two martini's and goes home with her husband).

Its not that I think the percentage of the population that is truly mentally ill enough to do this kind of thing is that large, its that the ones that are, are often frequent fliers. One need only look at battered women's shelters and see the number of women who are on their 5th, 6th, 7th + abusive boyfriend to realize the problem is pretty likely on the end of the person in the shelter (either a hooker with a pimp, or someone who makes their relationships violent through effort).

Its actually in the list of questions I ask before I'll agree to go on a date with someone. "Ever been raped?" "Ever taken prozac, paxil, zoloft?" "Ever had depression?" (Depression is a catch all people with more serious problems will admit to. Some bipolars will blurt out they are bipolar, but most borderlines wont tell you if they know, and many don't know and just think the world is screwed up and they are "okay"!). Ever been abused? (Which I leave very open ended.) Why did your last three relationships end? (Can be very revealing), along with "Tell me some things you liked about X-boyfriend/husband..?"

Yes to the rape question is a near automatic exclusion for me. If they were genuinely raped, they likely have some severe psychological trauma from it that will come back to bite me somewhere down the road. If they weren't, the story is for sympathy/other psychological reasons/psychotic, and very dangerous to be around. Potential false accuser, and either way - best to avoid. I do give some consideration to "I have an encounter once that if people hadn't been around I don't what might have happened" (so long as they don't have several of these stories.) The prozac question should be self-explanatory. While not everyone is perfectly mentally healthy all of the time, its a good bet if they admit to depression that they probably had some other problems as well (substance abuse? Bipolar? Borderline? Anxiety issues?) and it should make one want to explore that very completely (and talk to some people that know them to see what they have to say about them). Ever been abused is pretty obvious too. One boyfriend that was bad, and they left without a federal issue -- everyone can get unlucky once, maybe even twice, but three times in a row? Problem child. The reasons for their relationships ending are often clues, though seldom honest. Its just interesting to see how they slant it. The level of vindictiveness can often be judged here. The last one:If they can't say anything good about several of their ex's, its a bad sign. If one is all good, and the others all bad, also a bad sign. (I actually ask these questions a couple times). If they waiver on the good/bad with a person, its likely they have some type of black/white thinking problem, indicative of a personality disorder.

I didn't used to be this paranoid, and I had a greater ability to overlook red flags. Expensive life experiences have taught me the folly of my old ways. Now I imagine "What if she gets pregnant...I could be stuck dealing with this person for 20X years, or on the other side of a divorce or worse". I had the experience is being accused of rape when I was 20. The person did it to seek attention. Their attention seeking ruined my reputation with countless people, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me why she was doing it at the time. Her severe mental health issues didn't become obvious to the entire world until about 6 years later. Thankfully she picked a scenario for it that couldn't have happened, and nothing legally came of it, but I was miffed at the time. I should have been truly terrified at how easy it was. She has gone on to accuse a couple others of rape as well. One woman I went out with twice (and there was a reason there was no third date) - actually stabbed herself in the stomach and blamed it on an ex-boyfriend to cover up her inducing an abortion via drug abuse. She did this stunt not once,but twice. (The creepy vibes from her by the 2nd date made me want to run!)

Rape shield laws make this all the more disturbing. In some places in the US you can have an accuser that has made 2-3-4 false allegations in the past of rape, and you can't even introduce it (or find out about it unless they are one of the rarest of birds to get criminally charged) in your defense.

If they are talking about stranger rape, the 10% figure doesn't become as unreasonable to believe, but its still probably closer to 15%. Police departments tend to have a fair degree or scrutiny, but its political suicide to unfound rape charges without overwhelming evidence that it was simply impossible to have taken place, or the 'victim' giving a full recantation, or you have an absolutely air tight alibi *(such as in another country at the time).

Given my experiences, I look at every allegation of rape as suspect, and the same with most allegations made during divorce, and for abuse. I do, however, tend to believe a lot of the allegations of consensual sex with teachers though. There are a considerable number of gay & lesbian teachers who do not have a problem taking home a 15 year old, so doing it with a student doesn't become that far fetched to me. There are a smaller number of straight male & female teachers that were attracted to the profession because of an inappropriate interest in kids, and more that might not pass up the opportunity to take home someone far younger. While its a slightly different ballpark taking home a 17 year old versus a 12 year old, I find both of them highly disturbing, and far too common. I have both sons, and a daughter, and I worry for both.