Women's Issues

Most reputable bars do have a rule that if you're stupidly drunk they won't sell you any more drinks.

Well the not sleazy ones at least.

Well, I don't really like the "Don't be that girl" campaign for much the same reason I don't like the one it's based on. The messages in it are, on their own, fair, but the overall message implies that women as a group lie, cheat, and twist the law to suit themselves. It's true for some women, but hardly everyone.

As for consent and drinking, I believe the law where I live basically draw the line where you're unable to understand or realise what you're agreeing to, and passive resistance (not doing anything) still counts as resistance. While I'm not sure what the exact interpretation the courts use, I think that's relatively fair. I could add that the law is also more inclusive than most other laws about what acts count as rape.

Wait, wait.

How the hell is "Just because you can't remember it doesn't mean it was rape" 'fair'?

Tell me. What is that campaign honestly trying to persuade women to do?

edited 15th Mar '14 11:04:46 PM by KingZeal

Which poster are you referring to, specifically? The one that mentioned rape was about regret. The one that mentioned forgetting was about it not necessarily being a guy who drugged you. I've not see a full collection of all posters, but I've seen a few of them.

edited 15th Mar '14 11:13:20 PM by AnotherDuck

You didn't discriminate. You said the "messageS" are fair. Plural. Collectively.

So what about the messageS do you think is "fair"?

edited 15th Mar '14 11:40:58 PM by KingZeal

I also said "on their own."

Which message was "Just because you can't remember it doesn't mean it was rape"?

"On their own" meaning what? You didn't discriminate which you found fair and which you didn't. You said messages, plural, were fair "on their own" which can imply that all or most are fair individually but problematic together.

Seriously. Just explain your statement. What do you find "fair"? What fair thing are women being convinced to do?

edited 15th Mar '14 11:59:43 PM by KingZeal

Well, technically only the ones I did read, as I can't judge the ones I didn't.

But if I remember, one was that if it's just that you regret it, it's not rape. If it's just that, it's not forced, and it is consented. I don't see the implication that if it isn't consented, it's still not rape. I think that one was tagged with lying when reporting to the police being a crime. Which is factually true.

Another was about not remembering what happened the night before, and that isn't on its own indicative of being drugged by some guy. In my experience, when people don't remember what happened, they most of the time inflicted it on themselves, whether male or female. It doesn't deny that it still could be a guy who drugged you.

Probably the most touchy in my opinion is the one about women drinking not being responsible for themselves, since "drinking" is a rather ambiguous statement. It doesn't specify if it means any at all, or completely plastered. But that's basically how it's treated — if women drink, they're not responsible for their actions. Since sex was mentioned, I'd assume that doesn't include drunk driving. The implication is that men are still responsible for their actions even when they drink. Phrased like that, it's a valid Double Standard, one I mentioned a while back. It's kind of weird, though, since it doesn't really relate to the campaign tag line. It's a general statement about how things are perceived, and not about how individuals act. If the assumptions I made aren't true, then I probably think it's terrible.

Don't remember any other posters.

But how can it be rape if both parties are drunk? That doesn't make much sense to me. :/ (not saying you can't rape someone while being drunk, but...)

I mean, it's pretty normal to have sex while drunk, for both men and women. A lot of times, it's actually preplanned, so...

edited 16th Mar '14 12:49:15 AM by CassidyTheDevil

Duck, your answer doesn't really address the question I asked: What are women supposed to take away from this campaign?

Let me explain what I mean, and why I see some of your statements as flawed.

So let's use this same logic and apply it to a different crime:

"Just because the nice man in the van is offering you candy, doesn't mean he's a pedophile".

As you said, this is "factually true". As would be telling kids not to lie when reporting to the police. Sure, both are technically true statements. But the rub is, neither of them are useful mesages, at all.

While it's true that the worst-case scenario "might not" have happened, that doesn't such advice applicable to any given situation. It's like the "Moving Bush" problem: for a caveman, the fact that a moving bush COULD BE a hungry tiger overrides the fact that it probably isn't. The first possible outcome is a higher priority of immediate concern than the other.

Similarly, the same deal applies to this. The possibility that you weren't raped is overridden by the possibility that you were. With rape being far more underreported than overreparted, the real challenge is getting victims to come forward—stopping false testimony is also a noble goal, but at the moment, it's essentially rearranging furniture on the Titanic.

Further, the second statement overlooks yet another fact: that victim and witness testimony are both extremely faulty as it is. Most victims that report a crime do not get the details exactly right, or do not remember things exactly as they happened. So, going by the same logic that the campaign is making, it's equally valid to say, "Officers, just because she changes her story doesn't mean she's a malicious bitch", which would probably do a lot more to solve one of the problems I mentioned before (women not coming forward) and another problem as well (victim blaming).

I'd have to see the exact poster you're talking about, because your paraphrasing seems likely to be inaccurate based on your words here.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:47:00 AM by KingZeal

I did some Googling about the "Don't Be That Girl" campaign, and I found three posters.

This points out a double standard about how drinking is perceived. (If both are drunk, it's the man's fault.) I don't have a problem with this one.

This is addressing a woman accusing someone of rape when the sex was consensual. Sadly, this does happen, so I don't have a problem with this poster.

I'm surprised this poster isn't the one that caused all the controversy. The other posters at least are targeting bad behavior (false rape accusations), while this one just comes across as bashing the woman for being easy. It comes across as: "She's easy, so she's probably a filthy liar, too!" It's also the only one addressed to men, which makes the "don't be that girl" message confusing.

On the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign, I wish it had been gender neutral. It excludes male victims (both of female and male rapists) and also excludes female victims of female rapists. "If they are unconscious, it isn't sex. It's rape. Don't be that person." That message addresses everyone, rather than singling out only one possible group of perpetrators.

I don't think I've read that last one. I agree that it kind of doesn't make sense in the context of the campaign. I wouldn't quite make the same interpretation, though. I more get the implication I've stated before, that all women are filthy liars, and "easy" ones aren't exempt to that.

And I believe the lack of gender neutrality was what brought up the counter-campaign to begin with.

Sure they may be stating factually accurate points but it seems like a pretty stupid campaign. Not only is it likely to encourage real rapes to not be reported but it's also not aimed at stopping rape, it's aimed at stopping false accusations of rape.

Now if we can stop both than I'm all for it, but if we want to benefit men and protect their rights than I'd much rather we fight the idea that men can't be raped, rather than chase some boogeyman of evil scorned women making false accusations.

How common are false rape accusations anyway? Especially when compared to the rate of false accusation for other crimes?

O, and what might be the most needed of all "don't be that guy/girl" campaigns, "Just because you're dating doesn't mean they always want sex, if they say no than it's rape, even if they're you're partner" ( I don't like the even there but it's the best I've got).

Edit: Also I have to ask WTF does it say that the equivalent to a "tell men not to rape" campaign is a "tell women not to make false rape accusations" campaign? Those two aren't equivalent, why on earth are they being considered equivalents? A man raping a women is not the equivalent of a women falsely accusing a man of raping her, it's the equivalent of a women raping a man!

A campaign based on stopping false accusations is actually massively damaging to men's rights, why? Because it pretty much declared that the flip of a man raping a women is a women lying and saying a man raped her, which perpetuates the myth that men can't be raped.

edited 16th Mar '14 6:49:30 AM by Silasw

I think it'd work better if it were just formulated differently. Like, "Be a real man; real men don't rape." That, to me, neither implies that only men rape, nor that raping is something you need to be taught not to do if you're a reasonable person.

That last bit is another reason I don't like the campaign. Which is one reason I've interpreted it as more of a way to create debate, rather than to have the campaign stand for itself.

False rape accusations that actually make it into the legal system? Pretty rare; rare enough so that when one's exposed, it makes the news. (Certain organizations also count any accusation that's not prosecuted because of insufficient evidence, or the woman drops the charges for any reason, which is much more common.)

I've heard that the numbers for exposed ones are about 1%-2% (similar to other crimes), while if you include dropped ones it goes up to 10% or something. Don't quote me on those numbers, though, as media is notorious for misrepresenting numbers. I do find the latter number odd, as I'd think more cases than that were dropped for various reasons. (Edit:Okay, numbers don't seem to be far off.)

What I wonder about are how many make it through without being found out.

edited 16th Mar '14 7:20:15 AM by AnotherDuck

Actually, 'Don't Be That Guy' does address male-on-male rape. See the second poster in the Round 2 section here. The reason it's focused on targeting men is that women are the victims of 92% of sexual assaults in Canada, with reportage rates being identical for victims of both genders (a measly 8%, which has dropped by 36% since 1993 despite there being no change in the number of actual sexual assaults happening), whilst perpetrators appear to be 97% male.

The problem with the 'Don't Be That Girl' campaign is that the false rape accusation rate is very low - somewhere between 8% and 2%, with most estimates skewing it towards the lower end and a whole lot of reasons why even that might be over-egging it. Now recall the stats I just posted showing that 92% of sexual assaults go unreported. Starting to see the problem? Yeah. Telling men and women not to report sexual encounters they find dodgy won't help fix an excess of false accusations, it'll just intensify that culture of fear and shame around reporting your own sexual assault and make sure that an even tinier quantity of real victims take their attackers to court. And given the Edmonton MRAs' history of rape-apologism and links with Canada's notoriously sketchy pickup-artist community, I can't help but think that that may be exactly what they want.

edited 16th Mar '14 7:05:55 AM by Iaculus

The problem is that there are guys out there who think of themselves as reasonable but do need to be taught that what they're doing is rape. So you have to include the bit explaining how activities considered okay are actually rape.

By "reasonable person" I didn't mean a self-considered reasonable person. I meant a reasonable person as seen by society.

Well who defines that? Out of the four guys I know who participated in sexual assault/rape only one of them independently realised that what they did was wrong, the other three had to be told. And these aren't particularly bad/evil guys, they probably qualify as pretty normal teenage guys, and yet 3 of the four had no idea that what they did was wrong.

Again, though, we already know the 'Don't Be That Guy' campaign works. It cut rape stats by ten per cent in a city where they'd been rising for years. I'm starting to wonder if you just stick your fingers in your ears and go 'neener, neener, can't hear you' every time someone brings that up.

edited 16th Mar '14 7:41:12 AM by Iaculus

By who in society? If you look at prominent people, there's plenty that have pretty sick viewpoints about rape.

Any reduction in rape is wonderful. I'm extremely glad that the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign has been effective. But I think it could have been even more effective by being gender neutral.

That way it addresses all victims and perpetrators rather than just some. (Yes, female victims outnumber male victims, but male victims still exist.)

As I said, though, they did address male victims◊.

I'm glad that they included a poster addressing male victims of male rapists. However, that still leaves out female rapists and their male and female victims.

Although the attitude that "women can't rape" is unfortunately common, so I'm not surprised it wasn't addressed.

My overall feelings on the campaign is "it was good but it could have been better."

edited 16th Mar '14 11:04:52 AM by LadyMomus