I’m not gonna argue against this. At all. This is not a post to argue that that’s an incorrect statement.
But one thing I just wanna point out, is how (as far as what I often see, at least), it feels like when people make the argument that you can’t just blindly trust victims, they argue “People are innocent until proven guilty,” but usually they mean men, and often they’re very quick to point out, “She’s probably lying. Do you know how many women lie about this?”
And I think that if we’re going along the lines of “people are innocent until proven guilty,” that shouldn’t just go for the perpetrator.
If you believe that, you should believe it for the victim too. Why is the man always “innocent, innocent, innocent, innocent, until we have irrefutable proof!” And yet the woman is presumed guilty of lying?
If you’re fixated on people’s innocence until guilt is proven, why can’t – for the moment – you just be unsure? (At best, we believe victims.) At the very least, we remain unsure or unable to make an opinion.
But it’s totally wrong to take a side that you’re “not taking a side” while also taking the side that the woman is lying. (Psssst… That’s taking a side.)
p.s. There are male victims of sexual assault, and it’s obviously just as horrific. From where I’m standing, this feels like to some extent to be a gender issue with how society views women. But potentially, it could just be a sexual assault survivor (of any gender) issue.
Either way, even if we’re gonna stay as “neutral” as we can (which I already find a sort of hard idea when it comes to assaults (and the statistics back up that not many people lie about being assaulted, so a false narrative that’s been woven into our culture for some reason… so I don’t think ‘neutral’ is usually a great place to be))… But even if we’re gonna be “neutral” (assuming a neutral stance even can exist, when usually it means on the side of the abuser or oppressor or person in power…) But anyway! Assuming neutral! Can we at the very least not have the assumption that victim is lying? That if the accused is presumed innocent, the victim sure as goodness should be too?
[This post is from the series on sexual assault.]