It wouldn't be unreasonable, for starters, to focus on the median study which finds that 11% of allegations are false. If true, most women tell the truth, but there are enough liars to show that the maxim to "believe every woman" is simply evil. (Sorry about crooked columns!)
Table 1. A Selection of Findings on the Prevalence of False Rape Allegations
Source False Reporting Rate
Number %
Theilade and Thomsen (1986) 1 out of 56 1.5%
4 out of 39 10%
New York Rape Squad (1974) N/A 2%
Hursch and Selkin (1974) 10 out of 545 2%
Kelly et al. (2005) 67 out of 2,643 3%
22%
Geis (1978) N/A 3–31%
Smith (1989) 17 out of 447 3.8 %
U.S. Department of Justice (1997) N/A 8%
Clark and Lewis (1977) 12 out of 116 10.3%
Harris and Grace (1999) 53 out of 483 10.9%
123 out of 483 25%
Lea et al. (2003) 42 out of 379 11%
HMCPSI/HMIC (2002) 164 out of 1,379 11.8%
McCahill et al. (1979) 218 out of 1,198 18.2%
Philadelphia police study (1968) 74 out of 370 20%
Chambers and Millar (1983) 44 out of 196 22.4%
Grace et al. (1992) 80 out of 335 24%
Jordan (2004) 68 out of 164 41%
62 out of 164 38%
Kanin (1994) 45 out of 109 41%
Gregory and Lees (1996) 49 out of 109 45%
Maclean (1979) 16 out of 34 47%
Stewart (1981) 16 out of 18 90%
The best solution to the "he said she said" conundrum surrounding "rape" is a statutory definition that is operational:
ReplyDeleteThe County Recorder shall keep Sexual Consent Certificates, effective on the date filed by any women, having reached The Age of Consent. Sexual Consent Certificates shall be made available as Public Record. A Sexual Consent Certificate shall be rendered ineffective on the date revoked by the woman, with the County Recorder. No act of procreation between the woman and any man identified in an in-effect Sexual Consent Certificate filed by the woman, shall be rape. Conversely, any act of procreation between a woman and any man not identified in an in-effect Sexual Acceptance Certificate filed by the woman, shall be rape if the woman brings formal accusation within 3 months of the act.
This reduces the "he said she said" nonsense to only one justiciable question: Did the act of procreation occur within the 3 month statutory limitation?
Yes, this will severely limit the kinds of sexual interactions now so common between the sexes. However, by placing the onus on men to ensure that the woman has brought her hind-brain and fore-brain into consilience, and removing from the evolutionary stream those men who routinely do not, profound social and eugenic benefits would obtain. Likewise, women will be well advised to consider most-carefully the kind of men they consent.
You're assuming that these studies treat "false" as equivalent to "not true." I read one study with a 10ish% figure, and it turns out that to get that small a number, they had to come up with a bunch of non-false categories (including one for no available data, which was counted in the denominator). Also, they decided that the accuser recanting was not sufficient for calling an accusation false. However, recanting would cause the police to stop the investigating. Thus, if a woman said that she had been lying, that means her accusation is "not false". Make sense?
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