Woman rapes 14 year old boy, escapes conviction, bemoans she'll be seen as a sex offender anyway

[Metaphor]

There are some feminists who believe women don't belong in prison--for anything. They'd certainly disagree with you.

Some people are dumb. Your quip is kind of irrelevant here, don't you think?

Is it? If some people believe women don't belong in prison--for anything--wouldn't that help explain the outcome in this case, as well as the general attitudes toward female criminality (which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything") and especially sexual crime perpetrated by females.

 

[laughing dog]

There are some feminists who believe women don't belong in prison--for anything. They'd certainly disagree with you.

Some people are dumb. Your quip is kind of irrelevant here, don't you think?

Is it? If some people believe women don't belong in prison--for anything--wouldn't that help explain the outcome in this case, as well as the general attitudes toward female criminality (which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything") and especially sexual crime perpetrated by females.

Not unless you could show the jury held those views.

 

[Metaphor]

I think his rounding is a bit "over-rounded". But it is true that 98% of sexual crimes are committed by men.

But how do we know that's true, either? Feminists tell us over and over that the number of prosecutions for rape each year of course do not reflect the number of rapes that actually occur, the latter being a much higher number.

Indeed, in the very case we are talking about, I, and most of the respondents on this board, believe this woman committed a sexual crime and got away with it.

This indicates that female perpetration of sexual crimes is far higher than commonly assumed, and certainly much higher than Bagaric's ridiculous 0% nonsense.

Regarding the rest... women are less likely to be repeat offenders, which contributes in part to the lower percentage of incarcerated people being women. I think it's also likely to be skewed by different sentencing lengths for different types of crimes, and since the types of crimes aren't evenly distributed between male and female offenders, I wouldn't expect the total current proportion of prisoners to be the same as the offense rates.

Of course that all contributes, but there are different sentencing lengths within a type of offense, too. In fact, the male-female sentencing gap is larger than the black-white one.

 

[TomC]

Is it? If some people believe women don't belong in prison--for anything--wouldn't that help explain the outcome in this case, as well as the general attitudes toward female criminality (which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything") and especially sexual crime perpetrated by females.

Not unless you could show the jury held those views.

I'm not a mindreader.
But a 30something sexed a 14 y/o. The sentence was a couple years of social awkwardness.

I cannot believe that, had the genders been reversed, a guy could get off with "Well, she looked 16."
Where I live that doesn't happen.

I'm not British, so I don't claim to understand British culture or sexual mores. And I'm a prude, with a very judgemental attitude towards irresponsible sex. But this looks really wrong to me. There's a reason for clear bright lines when it comes to statutes of age of consent.
Tom

 

[ruby sparks]

....which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything".

I'll need a citation for that now. Numbers too, if you have them. 'A few' isn't going to cut it if you insist on repeatedly generalising it to just 'feminists'.

And no, saying some others also generalise (eg about 'men') is not going to help you, not if you want to criticise them for it.

 

[Metaphor]

Is it? If some people believe women don't belong in prison--for anything--wouldn't that help explain the outcome in this case, as well as the general attitudes toward female criminality (which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything") and especially sexual crime perpetrated by females.

Not unless you could show the jury held those views.

I'm not a mindreader.
But a 30something sexed a 14 y/o. The sentence was a couple years of social awkwardness.

I cannot believe that, had the genders been reversed, a guy could get off with "Well, she looked 16."
Where I live that doesn't happen.

I'm not British, so I don't claim to understand British culture or sexual mores. And I'm a prude, with a very judgemental attitude towards irresponsible sex. But this looks really wrong to me. There's a reason for clear bright lines when it comes to statutes of age of consent.
Tom

The perpetrator was also attractive, in an British MILF skank kind of way. I suspect if instead the perpetrator had been less aesthetically pleasing, the jury might have taken a bit longer to deliberate.

 

[Metaphor]

....which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything".

I'll need a citation for that now. Numbers too, if you have them. 'A few' isn't going to cut it if you insist on repeatedly generalising it to just 'feminists'.

And no, saying some others also generalise (eg about 'men') is not going to help you, not if you want to criticise them for it.

Feminists do not actually say the literal words "women have no agency..."

They merely betray their reasoning when, like in Bagaric's article, they frame women's criminality always as a response to the unfortunate circumstances pressed on them by a misogynist world.

 

[ruby sparks]

....which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything".

I'll need a citation for that now. Numbers too, if you have them. 'A few' isn't going to cut it if you insist on repeatedly generalising it to just 'feminists'.

And no, saying some others also generalise (eg about 'men') is not going to help you, not if you want to criticise them for it.

Feminists do not actually say the literal words "women have no agency..."

They merely betray their reasoning when, like in Bagaric's article, they frame women's criminality always as a response to the unfortunate circumstances pressed on them by a misogynist world.

I see. No citation this time. Not even one feminist. I would have accepted one, with the caveat I mentioned about you repeatedly generalising too much, while complaining at times about others doing it.

 

[Metaphor]

Feminists do not actually say the literal words "women have no agency..."

They merely betray their reasoning when, like in Bagaric's article, they frame women's criminality always as a response to the unfortunate circumstances pressed on them by a misogynist world.

I see. No citation this time.

Yes. You'll have to accept that this is my lived experience of feminist attitudes.

 

[ruby sparks]

Feminists do not actually say the literal words "women have no agency..."

They merely betray their reasoning when, like in Bagaric's article, they frame women's criminality always as a response to the unfortunate circumstances pressed on them by a misogynist world.

I see. No citation this time.

Yes. You'll have to accept that this is my lived experience of feminist attitudes.

Right. And the rest of us have never encountered feminism. Or you have special insights.

At least consider cutting down on the generalising a bit. You often use the general term for views that are expressed by very few, if any feminists. Some criticisms can possibly be made of all feminism, I agree, but you cite quite extreme examples while using the general descriptor. And you complain about others generalising when talking about men, for example.

 

[Emily Lake]

Only in the fever-dreams of feminists do people actually say 'boys will be boys' to excuse shitty behaviour.

People say 'boys will be boys' when male toddlers have torn and soiled their clothes from the kind of rough and tumble play more typical of boys. People say 'boys will be boys' when a teenage boy comes home from school and eats 1,000 calories before dinner. And in feminist la-la land only, people excuse gang-rape by shrugging and saying 'well, boys will be boys'.

You're right in terms of the extreme behaviors. But I also think you're missing an element of the reinforcement and conditioning that occurs.

Yes, "rough and tumble" boys come home covered in mud and their parents say "boys will be boys" and they shrug it off, and even sometimes even laud those little boys for being so active. They soiled clothing of boys is accepted, and their behavior is reinforced. Girls, on the other hand, get scolded for messing up their "pretty" clothing, and get criticized for being rambunctious - they're told they need to calm down and behave themselves, don't be so disruptive, why can't they be "good little girls"?

When a teenaged boy comes home and eats 1,000 calories before dinner, they get "boys will be boys" and must be coming up on a growth spurt, or they're just so active and athletic! It's endearing and it's reinforced by social stereotypes. Teenaged girls, on the other hand, get looked at askance with warning that they're going to get fat if they keep eating like, they shouldn't be a glutton, and don't spoil their appetite.

And sure, only the most extreme feminists think that gang-rape by young men gets dismissed as "goys will be boys". On the other hand, it's not the feminists making the argument that "she shouldn't have dressed like that" or "she was a tease" or "she wanted it she just had regrets later and is an evil conniving bitch".

 

[Emily Lake]

I haven't said that prejudiced feelings are morally wrong or unreasonable. I don't think any feelings are morally wrong, nor is it unreasonable to notice patterns and associations. I have prejudiced feelings all the time. If I'm walking alone at night, I'm going to be less anxious if the group of people up ahead is three elderly women rather than three men in their late teens or early 20s.

Why are you less anxious of old women than of young men?

Do you think this is an irrational and bigoted response?

I am less afraid of old women than young men because old women are less likely to attack me in the first place, and because if they did I am far more confident of my ability to overpower them. (I might change my mind if the old women were obviously on drugs--people do fucking violent, crazy, unexpected shit when they are high on certain drugs and they might be armed).

I am struggling to understand why you think I would have called it 'irrational'.

The response is prejudiced, but I would not say 'bigoted'. It's prejudiced because I'm pre-judging a group of people based on the characteristics of some of them, or applying an average when of course there exists individual differences in all groups.

Possibly the problem is that 'prejudiced' has a very unsavoury connotation? Yet it's the only term that fits in this situation.

Women are not somehow wrong to have personal prejudices that make them afraid of men. In fact, I completely understand it. But it's wrong to discriminate against men and form policy on this prejudice. I also find it morally dubious to expect the men who don't pose a risk to alter their behaviour to suit the prejudices of women (or anyone).

Sorry Met, it sometimes gets tough to follow you on this. Your style of writing suggests that you find it somehow wrong or unacceptable for women to acknowledge that men represent a threat (which we don't really have the physical ability to overpower).

In terms of discriminating against men and forming policy on that prejudice... how do you feel about unisex bathrooms, unisex high-school showers, and unisex prisons? Do you think it's wrong for women to want policies that segregate those areas on the basis of sex, due to the completely understandable risk that men represent?

I think there's a distinction between policies that discriminate on a reasonable and rational basis, and policies that discriminate on irrational bases. Disallowing perfectly able-bodied people to use the disabled parking spot is a perfectly reasonable discrimination. Allowing medical patients to specify the sex of their doctor for intimate procedures is a rational policy.

 

[Emily Lake]

There are some feminists who believe women don't belong in prison--for anything. They'd certainly disagree with you.

Some people are dumb. Your quip is kind of irrelevant here, don't you think?

Is it? If some people believe women don't belong in prison--for anything--wouldn't that help explain the outcome in this case, as well as the general attitudes toward female criminality (which according to feminists is "women have no agency whatsoever and cannot be held morally responsible for anything") and especially sexual crime perpetrated by females.

No, I don't think it explains anything in this case. Your caricature of general feminist views regarding agency and responsibility are just that - caricatures. But it is absolutely a result of deeply-ingrained gender bias that I believe resulted in the outcome of this case. Unfortunately, that's a bias held by both men and women.

 

[Emily Lake]

I think his rounding is a bit "over-rounded". But it is true that 98% of sexual crimes are committed by men.

But how do we know that's true, either? Feminists tell us over and over that the number of prosecutions for rape each year of course do not reflect the number of rapes that actually occur, the latter being a much higher number.

There've been a few very large studies over the past few years, asking on the topic. They're not looking at reported incidents or charged incidents, they're looking at experienced incidents.

Indeed, in the very case we are talking about, I, and most of the respondents on this board, believe this woman committed a sexual crime and got away with it.

I agree, if you hadn't noticed.

Of course that all contributes, but there are different sentencing lengths within a type of offense, too. In fact, the male-female sentencing gap is larger than the black-white one.

Yes, that is also true. The justice system is very far from blind, and it frequently treats male offenders more harshly than female offenders.

It is true that women and men commit different types of crimes in highly different proportions, and to very different severities. It is also true that for any given crime, all else being equal, women tend to get lighter sentences.

 

[Emily Lake]

Feminists do not actually say the literal words "women have no agency..."

They merely betray their reasoning when, like in Bagaric's article, they frame women's criminality always as a response to the unfortunate circumstances pressed on them by a misogynist world.

I see. No citation this time. Not even one feminist. I would have accepted one, with the caveat I mentioned about you repeatedly generalising too much, while complaining at times about others doing it.

He provided a reference earlier. The article did note that the vast majority of female prisoners were physically and/or sexually abused as children, and that the majority of their offenses are minor crimes or are drug & alcohol related.

The article does not bother to look at how many male prisoners were abused as children. I would suspect a great lot of them.

 

[Emily Lake]

Feminists do not actually say the literal words "women have no agency..."

They merely betray their reasoning when, like in Bagaric's article, they frame women's criminality always as a response to the unfortunate circumstances pressed on them by a misogynist world.

I see. No citation this time.

Yes. You'll have to accept that this is my lived experience of feminist attitudes.

I'll give this to you if you frame it as "radical feminist". It has certainly not been my experience, as both a woman and a feminist . I also am pretty damned sure that it's not an attitude that I've exhibited.

 

[Metaphor]

Right. And the rest of us have never encountered feminism. Or you have special insights.

You've encountered feminism, whether you know it or not, from the Duluth model of domestic violence intervention, feminist resistance to joint parenting models in divorce, to the man or woman so psychotically and effortlessly deranged they will wear a t-shirt saying "feminism: the radical notion that women are people". And if you do not see the routine distortions in thinking that feminists allow themselves, you might want to read more articles penned by feminists. (You don't have to though--it's mostly maddening, mind-rotting muck).

At least consider cutting down on the generalising a bit. You often use the general term for views that are expressed by very few, if any feminists.

Actually, "women as incapable of full agency" isn't a notion that only feminists subscribe to (and they'd never frame it that way). It's common enough an attitude. It's why women are less likely to be arrested, less likely to be charged, less likely to be convicted, more likely to escape prison altogether, and have lower incarceration lengths for similar crimes compared to men.

Some criticisms can possibly be made of all feminism, I agree, but you cite quite extreme examples while using the general descriptor. And you complain about others generalising when talking about men, for example.

Feminism is an ideology, not a demographic class.

 

[Jarhyn]

Personally I want, as a feminist, to eliminate the culturally driven ideas that men must be any particular thing. Men are treated some way preemptively because men are expected, preemptively, to behave in certain ways by other men or be considered "lesser" by those men. It isn't feminists driving this. The fact that Metaphor insists that they can tell that anyone has a penis and testicles in their pants by how they act and look pressages that fact.

At best I see such anti-feminists as angry because the feminists want to take away their excuse for being a shitty person: "it's because I am a man; boys will be boys amirite?"

If being a man is no longer sufficient excuse for being an asshole, what ever will they do?

Hm. To me, complaining about Feminism is as valid as any other valid complaint. It may be true that some do it for the reason you suggest, but 'there's always some', for almost any issue.

I agree with the first part of your post though, except I would as much include 'expected by women'. Mileage will vary, obviously.

And of course the same is true in reverse for women. They too are often 'expected' to be....certain things (by both men and by women). Less so than in the past in western societies of course. But to some extent gender roles can be quite resistant to change, for a variety of reasons.

I'll note that the expectations are generally something feminists fight against for either gender. I'll as readily object to someone telling a woman she needs to "act like a lady!" As much as I object to admonitions to "be more of a man".

The expectations on gender by various parties can all just go get fucked for all I care. Of course, anti-feminists often don't help. What do we have here but a person who decried feminism, who denies people can be transgender, who has a very specific idea of what it is to be a "man" or a "woman" and insisting people abide by those views?

Politesse gets it right insofar as that revealing such expectations as toxic and worthless will be a boon for everyone, on all sides.

Oh, and feelings can absolutely be morally wrong (though they cannot be ethically wrong). It is absolutely the case that when you have such an invasive, immoral thought, that you feel bad about it or chastise yourself, and reflect on how that thought is malformed or otherwise problematic. Then only after that, move on.

If you don't, you will only let yourself think that way more often.

 

[ruby sparks]

Feminists do not actually say the literal words "women have no agency..."

They merely betray their reasoning when, like in Bagaric's article, they frame women's criminality always as a response to the unfortunate circumstances pressed on them by a misogynist world.

I see. No citation this time. Not even one feminist. I would have accepted one, with the caveat I mentioned about you repeatedly generalising too much, while complaining at times about others doing it.

He provided a reference earlier. The article did note that the vast majority of female prisoners were physically and/or sexually abused as children, and that the majority of their offenses are minor crimes or are drug & alcohol related.

The article does not bother to look at how many male prisoners were abused as children. I would suspect a great lot of them.

Cool. But that isn't a citation for what he said.

Of course the picture is complicated. Of course there's often at least a grain of truth, and often more, in what he says. I think we can all agree on that. But that's generally true of any skewed perspective on human behaviours and affairs.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'll note that the expectations are generally something feminists fight against for either gender.

Careful. That seems tantamount to saying feminists are as much for and about both sexes!