Is it me or has there been a tad bit more spotlight on false rape cases. The latest one on the radar was the one with Linsey Attridge. Here’s the background as taken from the article I want to discuss. This well written article was in the Daily Mail of all places
The 31 year-old from Aberdeen, Scotland, falsely accused two strangers of sexual assault in a twisted bid to trap her boyfriend into their ailing relationship.
The single mother-of-one claimed that two men broke into her home and committed the violent attack while her partner was away playing football.
She then punched herself in the face and ripped her clothes to make the story appear more credible, before spending three days trawling social networking site Facebook to find innocent users she could ‘identify’ as responsible
Did you read that last paragraph? Just like that scene from “Fight Club”. Anyways the authorities did their due diligence and found out that she was lying. All go to court and what does she get?
200 hours of unpaid community service
Does that seem fair to you? There are people in prison some even serving long sentences after being falsely accused. DNA exonerations, when in the news, don’t even cause us to bat an eyelid these days. While I don’t have any statistics, I’m sure a majority of the falsely accused, time-serving folks are men. Which brings us to the real question
Why in God’s name isn’t there any outrage against those that lie and falsely accuse?
There is plenty of outrage even protests against rape. And while it has often taken a “men shouldn’t rape women” angle it is supposed to be “rape shouldn’t happen to anyone PERIOD” (Yep that’s right. Rape is not gender biased). False rape accusations are just as serious. Lives are ruined, reputations tarnished with no chance of repair. So yes this is very very serious. And if there isn’t just as much outrage against false rape accusers, as there is against rapists then it isn’t right.
As Peter Lloyd puts it ever so brilliantly
Gender pay gap? Let’s sort the gender sentencing gap too.
Damn straight!
Mr. Faux Pas 