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False rape accusation - how much prison should she get?

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It's not that, not mostly anyway. Women are considered more trustworthy and more ''moral'' than men, they are almost seen as superior beings in many cultures . Every man around Jesus betrayed him or sold him out, the only people who stood by him till the very end were women. Who does he reveal himself to first after his death? Women. Women are the moral compass of the world, at least in western cultures. Even in literature or movies, there is always that perfect, wise, female super-being who directs men the right way (Lady Galadriel in ''The Hobbit'', the oracle in ''Matrix'' or the ''Blue Fairy'' in Pinocchio) when they reach the ''crossroad''. She's a mysterious, almost divine being who will show you the right path if you are willing to look for it, as a man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/“Women_are_wonderful”_effect

Yeah sure, that's kind of what I meant in a roundabout way, though I'm not sure I was phrasing myself particularly well. Either way I think it relates back to gender constructs that are not necessarily grounded in reality; they're all quite interlinked. Indeed, the 'moral women' idea causes all sorts of problems for both genders in my eyes. It's part of the reason that, in earlier times, sexualisation was seen as immoral for women, and those who dared to sexualise themselves were immoral to the extent they were whores (as in, literally prostitutes). Also reminds me of a particularly bad experience I had over summer, where I met a Thai guy and gave him my email address because he helped to run a dive centre on an island and promised discount if I took my university society there. I thought nothing more of it and didn't read my emails until I got back and realised he'd taken my lack of reply personally and took the opportunity to tell me how all western women are immoral and whores because they wear short skirts and kiss guys and sent me a number of fairly disturbing emails describing how he would rape me if I went back to Thailand but how I would 'deserve' it because I was a typical immoral
Western girl... It's still prevalent in some cultures, but unfortunately at times it has even more dramatic consequences.

Reply 221

Bames

There should be a national register of people who make false rape and sexual abuse allegations, being accused of these things when you are innocent is so horrific, it damages people, their families, and destroys their psyche lying about rape is just as damaging as commiting it, false rape and sexual abuse allegations, must come with 30 month custodial sentence , pay compensation to the one accused and that person name should be released to the national media and put on a national register of false rape accusers.

Reply 222

QuantumOverlord

Original post by MostUncivilised

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/271195-kimberley-wheelhouse-admits-falsely-accusing-two-men-of-rape/

90 hours community service? That's a ludicrously light sentence; women who make false accusations of rape should face a sentence similar to that of rape.

By making that false accusation, you are raping someone's reputation, putting an innocent person at risk of years in prison. It's just as damaging

Agree but the only issue is, how viable the admission of guilt is. If that is literally the only evidence of her guilt then it is a little more complicated. There are so many cases where people are coerced into admitting they are guilty when they are not, and perhaps the judge didn't want to take the small risk of imprisoning a rape victim.

3-5 years in prison.

Original post by MostUncivilised

Utterly nonsensical. Murdering someone, and unjustly ordering their execution (if you are, say, a despot) are the same. Though I suppose you're arguing that because the despot spoke the words, rather than wielded the axe, it's actually not that bad?

I don't understand your analogy here.

Reply 225

PJEffect

Original post by Messalina

Why when it's a rape case do false accusations suddenly become necessary to have the same sentence as the crime they are accusing somebody of? You don't hear people shouting that somebody should get a life sentence if they falsely accuse somebody of being a murderer. I find it quite odd. False accusations are abhorrent but as far as I know false accusations of any crime don't carry a particularly high sentence. Why should this be different?

Also I don't buy into the "ruining an innocent man's life" thing, when somebody is found guilty of false accusations then the accused is obviously innocent within a court of law. Going through a court case can be traumatic but I doubt it constitutes a ruined life by any means.

To be accused of a sexual offence is to be guilty in the eyes of the general public, it leaves a permanent stain on your reputation that you can never remove, whenever people see you walking down the street they will start talking, some of them will get violent and some people will stalk you and try to kill you outright

Being accused of murder doesn't get this reaction from the public because the conviction rates for murder are much higher than the conviction rates for rape, in essence, when someone accuses you of rape when they know full well that you didn't do it they are taking your current life and throwing it in the shredder, people have lost their jobs, homes, friends and families over false accusations of rape