BREAKING: Antonio Brown Accused of 3 Different Rapes/Sexaul Assaults in Federal Lawsuit

Madmarsha said

I like to know "for sure"; but, trouble is, that rarely can be the case. So all ANY of us have is our opinion. Fact is, to just "believe women", you have to believe that all women CAN be believed. I'm a woman. I can't do that anymore than I can automatically believe that ALL men are bad.

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Have you not just unintentionally summed up the entire problem with this issue, and with social media and the internet more generally? On what basis can anybody arrive at an informed opinion on the information that is presently available?

Nobody knows any of the detail of the claim. It’s just pure speculation at this point shaped by people’s subjective biases and prejudices. It would be like if you posted that you inexplicably woke up with a sore knee, and I responded, “Well, I had a sore knee once and it was diagnosed as arthritic so you must have arthritis as well”. I don’t know what activity you have undertaken. I don’t know your medical history. I don’t have the benefit of examining it. In fact, I’m not a doctor and do not have the benefit of years of training and experience to make an accurate diagnosis even if I did have more information available to me.

And the overall problem is, all of these criticisms of the complainant are necessarily very damaging. I mean, a poster above (I forgot who and I don't intend to revisit it) labelled the complainant a "gold digging wh*re", which makes me sick to my stomach.

You might not realise it, but this all ties into the culture I spoke to above about victims of sexual assault not having the confidence to report it – (a) because of the terrible stigma and scrutiny that they are subjected to and (b) because they have no confidence in the system to help them.