It is a whole topic fraught with difficulties and unfortunately sometimes hijacked by the unscrupulous.
sexual harassment (related to the recent C4 undercover program)
- Thread starter dowie
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It is a whole topic fraught with difficulties and unfortunately sometimes hijacked by the unscrupulous.
Man of Honour
The same prejudice and discrimination has always been treated differently when targeted differently. Which targets are deemed acceptable and which are deemed unacceptable changes over time, but that's just fashion in prejudice. For example, in feudal times a serf would be expected to move aside for a noble. Nobody ever tries to integrate the double standards because it's impossible and there's no point in doing so. People are either in favour of the double standards or opposed to them.
Another aspect of the current fashion is that it conditions women to be scared because women being scared is politically useful for feminists and other "progressives". That's also been part of the propaganda of irrational prejudice for ages - making the target group identity a thing to be feared helps promote division and anger and "justifies" discrimination. See, for example, medieval anti-jewish propaganda.
The next step would usually be some form of apartheid, but that's much harder to implement by sex.
Man of Honour
If I accuse you of stealing my car, should you be convicted immediately, no investigation, no trial, not even any check to see if my car has been stolen at all?
If your answer is no, you're not "believing the victim".
Not sure I said any of the first things. If I call and say you've stolen my car though, I don't expect to be told 'err sorry Mr dLockers we won't take this seriously until you really convince us you are telling the truth'.
Soldato
I think what he's saying is that the allegation should be believed that it may have happened and a thorough investigation must be carried out as opposed to the initial stance of it definitely didn't happen.
Only an investigation can reveal the likelihood that it did/didn't happen and proceed from there.
Also bear in mind - just because an allegation goes to court does not mean it's true. Not every accused in court is guilty.
Man of Honour
Those things are what "believing the victim" is. If you start by assuming who the victim is and that everything they say must be the truth, you've already decided that the accused is guilty and you've ruled out the possibility of any investigation. That's the whole point of it. You won't do any investigation other than as a pretence, a front for pretending that any sort of justice procedure has been followed. It's not just a kangaroo court - it's a kangaroo everything.
Reality contains a lot of ground between the two extremes. Although the position you outline above isn't as extreme as "believe the victim" because it at least allows for the possibility of an investigation.
Soldato
The legal process for any crime doesn't care about belief, nor should it. All allegations should be investigated with an open mind. In some cases allegations can de disproved and the matter does not reach court. When there is doubt cases are built to support or refute the allegations. When people talk about "believing the victim" I imagine they are saying that cultural or organisational preconceptions should not shape the position before and during the investigation... i.e. ensure the open mind. A good example would be India which has two big issues with sexual crime: culturally, there is a strongly-embedded "boys will be boys" attitude, and the caste system immediately changes the credibility of accusers.
Man of Honour
I imagine they mean what they're saying - presumption of guilt based on assigned group identity. The opposite of an open mind and a fair process.
You seem to be acting like a victim?
Man of Honour
Therefore by your own argument you must accept everything I say as the truth without question. You're not allowed to even hint at anything else.
What is your argument? Don't believe anyone?
Not sure what else i can do as I don't have friends like, unless I roam the streets in vigilante mode like Batman.
Although it's vital to have an awareness of the issue and of course report men who activity try to sexually harass or assault women. I already see online feminists jumping on this branding all men with the same brush saying we all need to solve the problem, and the usual suspects online self-flagellating saying we need to do more.
It's the same myopic view that racists and bigots are accused of if they try to brand a religion as the problem because of a few terrorist attacks or brand a race an issue because of crime stats.
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I remember me and my mates meeting a group of girls on a night out in Ibiza, we had been chatting for a little while when one of the girls who was paraletic drunk came over to me and said that my mate had just taken her down an alleyway and raped her and gave various details. It was a load of nonsense of course. We had just met these girls and my mate had been standing with us the whole time. I went to one of the girls friends and told her what she's been saying to me and her reply was 'oh don't worry she does this all the time '.
This always stuck in my memory as being terrifying how easily something like this could cause massive consequences to someone if one of these 'always believe the woman' people had heard what was being said!
This always stuck in my memory as being terrifying how easily something like this could cause massive consequences to someone if one of these 'always believe the woman' people had heard what was being said!
God, i wish i knew why everyone just don't understands this, yes it would be lovely in a Star Trek Utopia that no one will ever have to worry about being a victim of crime, but we don't live in a fantasy world.
It's not that hard mate. Take seriously? YES!!. Investigate? ABSOLUTELY!! Believe? What a moment to see what the evidence is first!
See?
How do you investigate things like a man making extremely creepy, sexual comments to a woman? Sometimes there just isn't recorded evidence that something has happened.
They have already answered that. You don't believe them. Simples
So with zero evidence you'd just go ahead and believe the party making the claim? You do understand how dangerous that is right?
You do understand you've just swapped the word "believe" for the phrase "take seriously", right?
We are saying the same thing. It is just you guys have reserved the word believe to mean something entirely else, ex:
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