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Right, I've finally been able to get into Substack via the app, which I seldom use. The website is currently broken and unusable, which is why I appear to be ignoring everyone's comments. I don't know if Paula has been able to get in either - not sure whether she uses the app or the website.

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I'm here now

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Substack lost its brain just at the point everyone wanted to have something to say!

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Brilliant piece, oddly reassuring to read those figures in black and white. Pushing the "practically decriminalised" myth doesn't help women at all, but then I tend to find that Feminism is less pro-women and more pro "a particular vision of women as CEO girlbosses liberated from biology unless it suits".

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Very interesting.

I believe that the biggest issue as it relates to rape, is that it's been weaponized to an extent. There are too many women who have filed false rape claims. Even though real rape is happening, jurors are much less likely to believe the victims. However, when there's a history of rape claims against one individual, then something is done about it. Keep in mind I'm talking about incidents where there's no physical evidence, she said/he said.

It's similar with sexual harassment. That also has become weaponized. People can use false claims for potential gain. This is widely known. And because of that, real harassment is often written off as a false claim. It's only when there's a history of continued harassment that something is done about it.

The fact that a history needs to be historically established, necessarily results in a large number of first time offenses being written off by jurors. And a large number of victims not being believed.

This is compounded by the second offense, because the first case against a rapist was dropped, then a second case again might go in favor of the defendant.

You see where in going with this. Once people learn that they can manipulate public opinion for personal gain, they do it. Not only that, but they do it on both sides.

Often, the outcome is bad for everyone.

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But this isn't what the stats show. Jurors convict more than they acquit. They don't believe rape myths. These are the results of Thomas' groundbreaking studies.

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I'm not arguing that the rape conviction rate isn't high. I just think that there are tons of people who get away with rape, and when they do, it's because of the climate created by those who abuse the system. Similarly, that climate includes the idea that convictions are unlikely to happen, so fewer rape victims come forward.

I've spoken to many women who have a sort of weird anger towards women who have been raped. It's really weird. Not being a woman I can't comment as to why someone might feel that way. I can only assume it's like a man that's been raped in prison. Once something like that happens, and the people around (the rape victim) are aware of it, they will act differently.

This part of your piece is brilliant!

*** It’s time for feminists to choose between their desire to destroy a patriarchy only they believe in, and women’s rights and genuine egalitarianism. ***

You just wrapped up the major problem with most feminists in that quote. The vast majority of feminists are "raising awareness" and protesting against a giant straw man that they can't accurately define. That's why many people have a generally negative view of feminists.

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Interesting. However, I have never seen that statistic being described as ‘of cases that go to court....’ but rather ‘of reported rapes...’ - not saying it doesn’t happen; I am sure it does, but I am also sure that misrepresentation is not the norm. I’m certainly well aware that the problems being proclaimed are with the police and the CPS, not the judiciary or juries.

What is relevant to victims thinking of reporting is, surely, ‘what is the chance that this report will lead to a conviction?’ And if 2% of rapes reported to police lead to a conviction, that is a relevant figure. If that is 1/3 of the rate for other crimes, as you suggest, that is a very disturbing figure, especially as those ‘other crimes’ presumably include the criminal damage, petty theft, and similar offenses where one has to be very optimistic to believe anyone will be accused. Rape is both a more serious crime and one where the alleged perpetrator is far more likely to be identified or identifiable.

I think there is a problem. I don’t know what the answer is, particularly as rape is so often ‘he said she said’ and there is the constant claim that women keep crying rape (really? It’s hard to imagine, given how intrusive questioning of alleged victims can be - is there evidence of this?) but 2% cannot possibly be a reasonable number even where it is correctly used.

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"but I am also sure that misrepresentation is not the norm."

Why are you sure of this?

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What would be "a reasonable number"?

How do you know what that number would be?

What, specifically, would be required to get to that reasonable number?

Would it remain reasonable even if the way to get there required more miscarriages of justice?

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What makes you think there are ‘miscarriages of justice’ when things get to court? are you in a position to know better than the judges and juries reviewing the evidence and taking the decisions? Do you think it reasonable that the chance of a guilty verdict in respect of a report of rape to the police is *one third* that of crimes in general according to the statistics quoted here?

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Are you serious? You are, I see.

I also notice that you pretend you don't see questions that are asked, and decide to simply "get back" by asking questions yourself. It's a bad faith orientation to conversation.

So I won't be attempting to engage with you again. Have a blessed day.

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Are there miscarriages of justice in life? Yes. Are there more in rape cases than anything else? I see no reason to think so. Are they difficult to prove - of course, as I said in my original comment. But the idea that they shouldn’t go to court because ‘miscarriages of justice’ - that isn’t what is stopping them from getting there, come off it. Maybe murder cases shouldn’t go to court because there have been miscarriages of justice in murder trials too.

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Nope.

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Yet, Scottish feminists are looking to end trial by jury to single judge bench trials. Bench trials have a far greater chance of miscarriages of justice occurring. Why do you think feminists would want this?

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That's not what it says. That's an average across all crimes which is another fudge feminists like to make.

Looking at real contexts, the conviction rate for rape is higher than for GBH, manslaughter & others.

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Do you do Holocaust Denial too? /s

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Re your first paragragh:

This misrepresentation is the norm. In 2010 (13 years ago) feminists were asked by The Stern Review to report stats more responsibly. They ignored the request whilst the police & cps spent millions honouring their requests.

The problem of the police & cps not prosecuting due to lack of evidence is another myth. The number one reason for prosecutions not proceeding is because the complainant retracts the complaint. And who can blame them when they are told they have only a 2% chance of justice. This is the most unconscionable element.

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Nope. The main problem is complainants withdrawing their claim. The police & CPS do everything they can to try and keep the complainant in the system knowing the outcome is favourable to them statistically. Read the longer version of this essay here https://paulawright.substack.com/p/i-am-lumpenfrau-hear-me-roar and also about feminist fear tactics here https://paulawright.substack.com/p/radical-feminism-back-on-brand

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I think the world needs to see the psychological effects these movements have on their female adherents. It's so destructive to one's world view and psyche - let alone the rest of society and relationships.

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Because I know what I’ve read, and this is something I’ve seen a fair few references to. It would be very odd if it just so happened that the outliers all fell my way....

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Tah very much; this was super. Evidence and data succinctly summed. What's not to like? Tah Helen for putting this up. "Evo Psych" and "Gender Studies" don't even get to triage; together in the same person? Not on your Nellie. Ever. This is about the only way this would have gotten my attention. On reading the about page with its' mentions of Atheist+ (Possible typo; is Atheism+ and the crazies of FtB meant?) and GamerGate I must have switched off at least a couple of times in the past; to my evident loss. My attention is definitely gotten now though; my apologies! Thanks to you both again.

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Are you talking about Paula's "about" page, because there's no Atheism + on my "about" page. Sorry, somewhat confused, but glad you liked the piece.

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Yes, Paula's "about" page. I've been swimming the same waters for at least fifteen years.

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Right, okay, gotcha.

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Would you like to explain that one? Because I am really rather bemused that this should even be contentious.

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Right this seems to the part of the chat that happened while I was unable to get into Substack (or even see any comments, other than email notifications that comments had happened).

As a result, everything seems to be rather out-of-order and fouled up. Sorry about that, everyone.

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And I think this is in the wrong place too - definitely struggling with replies, sorry! It was intended to be a reply to a bizarre comment about holocaust denial.

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The /s after that comment/question is short for "sarc" as in "sarcastic" or "sarcasm". It's internet-speak from the early-to-mid 90s, when people of Steven's & my vintage first dial-up-modemed our way onto the Internet.

However, it's also clear that many people's comments are simply in the wrong place, thanks to Substack having a cow for half the afternoon. Maybe they will spontaneously rearrange themselves overnight (UK time). One can but hope.

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Ah, thank you!

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The OP is entitled "The Unethics of Denial". I don't have any truck with deliberately dense Whataboutist and Sealions. You are in denial of the evidence and data, which you don't address, chuck, prefering already debunked anecdote to the data and evidence of actual formal enquiry using the standard tools of critical thinking.

You are one of the misandrists tools the OP is critiquing. You are only making yourself look daft, pet. Give over.

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That's a hugely patronising response.

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I suppose this is a problem with crime stats in general. Reported vs convicted does seem somewhat overly broad as that doesn't establish that a crime has even taken place (a real problem with rape vs say murder, assault, or theft) , but charged vs convicted obviously narrows things down quite a bit to cases where a plea is possible or the state thinks there is enough of a chance of conviction.

I agree it's odd that people promote the Reported vs Convicted stat when that's not the norm in criminology and scares women away from reporting, but unless there is a large portion of reports which are not crimes, I don't think it's unreasonable to use this metric and I would actually prefer it.

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The issue of whether a crime has been committed is a question with assault and theft too!

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The problem isn't the state, cps or police thinking there isn't enough evidence. The problem is the complainant dropping the charge. The police and cps explicitly report this in the End to End Rape Report.

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I'm not familiar with that report (any of this at all, I just commented on an interesting article, ty for that) but looked it up, and wow around 50% appear to be dropped due to uncooperative complainant. That really is a lot for of people who have already gone to the effort of contacting the police.

I'm not sure how these numbers gel with the Sept 2022 CPS report which has very different ratios, but I think covers only cases which made it so far along the process and "witness issues" in that document represent "withdrawls" after a certain phase.

It's crazy how much of a story these docs can tell.

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Good article. You mentioned that career feminists juke the stats and that causes harm to female rape victims. But you fail to mention how carceral feminism also hurts men, by unethically pushing for higher conviction rates they are actually pushing to put more innocent men in prison.

I think it's worth mentioning even though many carceral feminists will see this as a benefit, since according to their doctrine, all men are oppressors and benefit from "rape culture" therefore no man is truly innocent.

Not all feminists believe that but many do. Especially career feminists in positions of power.

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I can't include everything in one essay. Criticising people for what they *haven't* done is a favourite strategy of feminists. Mras would do better by not adopting such strategies

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Many feminists *have* pushed continuously for more men in prison for longer based on less evidence.

As you pointed out they stretch statistics to make their arguments. It seems they want a higher conviction rate based on their manipulative use of statistics. I merely pointed out that, while you correctly pointed out that female rape victims may be harmed by this, you neglected to mention another demographic likely to suffer- innocent men.

If we are (apparently) giving unsolicited advice to each other, I would offer you this small wisdom, learn to accept feedback gracefully.

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Apr 22, 2023Edited
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I'm anti any toxic ideology

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As are we all.

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