America’s New Sex Bureaucracy • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#281

Post by justinjlynn » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:04 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #269

bonerman69 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#BelieveAllWomen was in fact a real thing, a year ago....

As a reaction to a system where literally thousands of women's rape kits are not tested for years due to a combination of mismanagement, underfunding and understaffing, as well to structural issues such as male police officers not taking sexual assault accusations seriously or subjecting victims of assault to traumatizing questioning with no care about their mental well-being. Back then, the status quo was "if you're…

It's still that way, no matter how you present. If you're a woman, good luck getting justice after going through the horror of an exam and a police report in which you have to relive that same experience and a trial in which you often have to face your assailant directly, reliving it yet again. If you're a man, good luck even having your initial report recorded in the official record and then receiving no support in dealing with the trauma and violation and then risk being outed and treated like you're a weak subhuman if you dare try to reach out for help. It's one hell of a sick joke all around.

Believe everyone when they say that they were assaulted, full stop. Everyone is entitled to compassion and care. In terms of making sure no one else is assaulted by the same person who assaulted them again? Collect all evidence, with all care, every single time, process it in a speedy manor and let the usual standards of criminal justice apply, as they always must. Anything less is a direct menace to society.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#282

Post by harimau777 » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:05 PM UTC

notfashion wrote: post #28

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #3

>But after a lifetime in service of the feminist cause, she took on the case of a friend whose son she came to believe had been wrongly convicted of rape and won his acquittal on appeal. This is one of the big ways in which sexism is a much more tractable problem than racism and less potentially explosive. Women and men both have members of the opposite sex that they genuinely love. I have heard that fathers with dau…

I'm not sure the scenarios "some of my best friends are of the opposite sex" or "some of my best friends are of another race" have much bearing on sexism or racism. Loving someone from a different category doesn't automatically dissolve all antagonism or prejudice—it might just override it in a specific case. Relationships are multidimensional. You would need to provide evidence that these bonds of love/affection som…

I think that it's likely not that having affection for someone of a different race or sexuality means that someone isn't or won't be bigoted. Rather its that it provides an opening for someone to re-evaluate their beliefs.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#283

Post by LurkersWillLurk » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #277

janetacarr wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes the court system is infallible though when we know it is not. Plus, I can see something like this deterring actual victims from coming forward.

something like this deterring actual victims from coming forward This is also a possibility, but it's pretty much universally accepted that it's better to let a criminal go than to punish an innocent person.

I don't agree. I would argue that the rise of the victims' rights movement suggests that culturally, the United States is beginning to see the few false reports/convictions as an acceptable casualty to the vast majority of truthful reports.

I mean, we have Marsy's Law being added to state constitutions left and right. One of its provisions is that the victim[1] can refuse a deposition before trial. This obviously conflicts with the accused's right to access all the evidence, does it not?

Another provision limits the amount of time a convicted person can seek post-conviction relief. The goal here is to remove stress from the victim, but again, we have seen many convicted people be exonerated due to DNA evidence, or other evidence that arises after the fact. Again, this is a statement of values - that the deprivation of liberty is less important than the desire of the victim to not feel anxious about the perpetrator's possible release.

[1] I would argue that calling a complainant a victim undermines the presumption of innocence. If you're a victim, it follows that the accused is a perpetrator.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#284

Post by slimed » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #278

kenneth wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should make the punishment for falsely accusing someone of rape equivalent to the punishment for rape. That's take care of the problem.

You should watch the Netflix series "Unbelievable" or read the true story it's based on: https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an... It's eye opening about how hard it is to be believed about even a "classic" masked stranger, home invasion rape. Having read that (and watched a couple of episodes of the Netflix adaption) I'm more likely to believe the original commenter's friend commited a rape and…

The woman admitted she lied, in private, to friends. Where is the coercion? Are you saying we should only believe women when they are accusing men of rape? And disbelieve them later?

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#285

Post by atq2119 » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #215

jeffdavis wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True in the sense that it creates a "floor" for the depths to which people might sink. But this process can still sink pretty low. Consider how women couldn't vote in the US until 1919 -- a half century after blacks. And a more modern example that was on display for all to see: the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. There were not a lot of facts available -- no date, no place, no witness that could remember. Y…

> Consider how women couldn't vote in the US until 1919 -- a half century after blacks. Not letting women vote is arguably not necessarily a marker of sexism. It is more a marker of the relationship between a country's military leadership and institutions. Originally originally (~400BC) voting was basically for the army to decide when and where it would fight; hence male-only because men are the physically big ones w…

> Originally originally (~400BC) voting was basically for the army to decide when and where it would fight;

This simply isn't true, since other topics were definitely voted on. For example, rather famously, there were votes on whether a person should be exiled from the city in ancient Greece.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#286

Post by BonerBoi420 » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #269

bonerman69 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#BelieveAllWomen was in fact a real thing, a year ago....

As a reaction to a system where literally thousands of women's rape kits are not tested for years due to a combination of mismanagement, underfunding and understaffing, as well to structural issues such as male police officers not taking sexual assault accusations seriously or subjecting victims of assault to traumatizing questioning with no care about their mental well-being. Back then, the status quo was "if you're…

#testallkits seems more appropriate than #believeallwomen.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#287

Post by harimau777 » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #3

>But after a lifetime in service of the feminist cause, she took on the case of a friend whose son she came to believe had been wrongly convicted of rape and won his acquittal on appeal. This is one of the big ways in which sexism is a much more tractable problem than racism and less potentially explosive. Women and men both have members of the opposite sex that they genuinely love. I have heard that fathers with dau…

I think that may be because, at least in America, ethnic minorities are over represented in crime and the "under class" in a way that isn't true of gay people.

I'm not saying its right to draw the conclusion "black people are overrepresented in crime therefore black people/culture must be bad", but I think it is human nature to do so. Going further, if an individual has had a negative experience with a person of another race (e.g. being mugged, living next to an addict, etc.) then there is also likely to be an emotional component that is difficult to overcome.

Again, I want to emphasize that I'm not saying that this is right, just that it's human nature.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#288

Post by naasking » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

wahern wrote: post #107

mieseratte wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand “why,” in that they are required to. What I don’t understand is why this is a thing to begin with. Government end-runs around standard systems of due process is odd.

The requirement comes from the original Civil Rights Act. Say you're a minority student and some other students start using epithets to taunt you (as was common). Are you going to make a federal case out of it? Is it administratively efficient to require a student to make a federal case out of it, especially if all that's required is a firm rebuke from the administration to cease the hostile behavior? Remember, the d…

> The requirement comes from the original Civil Rights Act. Say you're a minority student and some other students start using epithets to taunt you (as was common). Are you going to make a federal case out of it? Is it administratively efficient to require a student to make a federal case out of it, especially if all that's required is a firm rebuke from the administration to cease the hostile behavior?

I'm confused, a student being racist against another student is not a crime as far as I know. A student raping another student is a crime. How are these remotely comparable?

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#289

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:15 PM UTC

slimed wrote: post #284

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should watch the Netflix series "Unbelievable" or read the true story it's based on: https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an... It's eye opening about how hard it is to be believed about even a "classic" masked stranger, home invasion rape. Having read that (and watched a couple of episodes of the Netflix adaption) I'm more likely to believe the original commenter's friend commited a rape and…

The woman admitted she lied, in private, to friends. Where is the coercion? Are you saying we should only believe women when they are accusing men of rape? And disbelieve them later?

I think we should take statistics into account.

I think there's a likelihood that someone will lie about being raped, and a likelihood of them identifying a named individual (two numbers that should be considered seperately, since young girls who fall pregnant may lie to avoid blame, while not trying to blame anyone in particular).

I think that similarly, there's a percentage of retractions that will also be false, for various reasons.

This is similar to the statistics question about whether someone has cancer when a test comes back positive. It depends on the accuracy of the test and the base rate.

I could easily believe that there's more false retractions than false accusations (both as a percentage and an absolute number) so I'm not sure a retraction actually increases my belief in their not being a rape, particularly if a specific person is named, without taking into account other specific evidence.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#290

Post by watwut » Wed, Sep 25, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #234

DoreenMichele wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recovered from being sexually abused as a child in part because I actively sought out protective male friends. I've long believed the antidote to "bad men" is "good men." In contrast, a lot of rape victims simply conclude all men are evil and it becomes a barrier to recovery. I think they don't know another way to feel safe. It seems like the safe bet to them: just don't trust any men. That wasn't my reaction.

A family friend raped one of my nieces. She was 15 at the time, and got pregnant. This was a religious community, and the rapist was married. But another family friend, who was single, married the young woman, and they had a long and apparently happy marriage, with two more children. So I guess that it all sort of worked out. They did forgive the rapist father, and he contributed to my niece's family.

She was quite lucky then that she did not had to marry her rapist. That would sux more.

She did not had choice in whether she can stay in contact with her rapist, tho, despite the money. But it is nice she did not had to marry him, have children with him and be dependent on his income.