How come sexual assault accusations even without evidence lead to trouble?

[Deleted]

It's out of control. Even guys that made a move and got rejected now gets accused of sexual assault and may lose their job. This is gonna lead to nowhere good.

People can't be replacing the law. Consequences are the result of a trial if there even was a crime. Madness.

[Alydael]

Lets say someone doesn't like you at work, and his/hers agenda was to get you sacked. He/she makes up a story regarding sexual accusations and the boss fires you for something you didn't do. Is this a high a possibility of the outcome, when such thing happens even without evidence?

Although some of this is probably happening, I think most of the time it happens like this:

Accuser steps forward.

The board of company that the accused works at calls the accused into a meeting.

They ask the accused if it really happened or what actually happened.

They fire or retain the accused based on their answers in that meeting.

[Miyagie]

Why going the hardway ? Just get on the goodside with the boss and tell him every little misstake he makes.
If the higher-ups want you fired you get fired.

[judgementofantonidas]

Lets say someone doesn't like you at work, and his/hers agenda was to get you sacked. He/she makes up a story regarding sexual accusations and the boss fires you for something you didn't do. Is this a high a possibility of the outcome, when such thing happens even without evidence?

Once you are accused, even if you are found not guilty, the onus of having been accused can remain for a very long time.

If three teenage girls colude to get an unfavorite teacher in trouble and claim they were sexually assaulted, regardless of the outcome that teacher will be done so long as they never redact their accusation.

[HumbleDuck]

It usually doesn't, if it did you can sue them for a pretty hefty amount.

[Yvaelle]

If I live my life not doing wrong things like sexually harassing colleagues, it's not good enough that my character MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be questioned. If I didn't do anything wrong, my character should not be questioned at all. FULL STOP. If the only reason people would even doubt Bob's character is completely due to Sharon's dishonest claim, then Bob has a pretty fucking good reason to be pissed off about it.

That's true of all accusations though, not specific to workplace sexual accusations of any kind at all. It's just how the human mind has and probably always will work.
It's even true of the un-accused, unintended implications of how we portray ourselves.

For example, your portrait picture is Rainbow Dash. Some may take that to mean you find the show MLP:FIM to be a wholesome, educational, well-written show - which is universally funny and entertaining to all age groups and genders: as I do. People may see that portrait and assume by implication that you admire Rainbow Dash as a character, perhaps for her honesty, her drive, her competitive spirit, her fierce commitment to her friends, family, and beliefs, and her humor.

Or, they could see an MLP portrait and question whether you are into Clop (NSFW; google at your own peril). Without any accusation of such, without any intended implication from you, without any hint to that being the case (apart from the portrait) - the unintended effect of using an MLP character as a portrait online will make people question your reason for doing so.

That would be true if you used a woman in a Niqab as portrait too - maybe it's your friend dressed up for lulz, maybe you dislike the Niqab and feel you are drawing attention to it by using it, maybe you feel some affinity to the masked motif that it symbolizes, maybe it's a loved one who is actually a moderate muslim who happened to be wearing a Niqab at the time, or maybe you just choose to wear it because you feel comfortable in it. But what your intention was in choosing that portrait is almost irrelevant to how it is likely to be perceived - that you support a radical version of Islam which covers 99% of a womans body to hide them and any of their individuality from public sight: something antithetical to Western individualism.

The reality is that a persons character is constantly questioned without evidence, we are not simply the sum of the evidence presented for and against us - the world is too incomplete to approach it that way - so people have to rely on their senses and assumptions and stereotypes and implications (intended or otherwise) and accusations (true or false): to fill in all the gaps.

All we can expect anyone to do is be conscientious that our assumptions, our stereotypes, our accusations, our implications, our senses - are all sometimes incorrect. Bob has a right to be pissed off if the accusation is false, absolutely - but it doesn't mean the world should stop questioning both the accused and the accuser when a disputed claim is made.

[cparle87]

When you have a dozen women accusing the guy of the same thing it gives credence to what they are saying.

Or they smell blood in the water and want in on a big payout.

[belfpala]

but it doesn't mean the world should stop questioning both the accused and the accuser when a disputed claim is made.

Add that the accused we're reading about are mostly public or semi-public figures who rely on the public's perception of them for their job.

[cparle87]

But that's illegal so unlikely to happen often

But no DA will actually persue charges against women doing such things in fear of scaring off real rape victims who fear their rapists will get off and they'll be the ones in prison.

[Ghostpanther]

When you have a dozen women accusing the guy of the same thing it gives credence to what they are saying. .

I am sure they had plenty of witness who were willing to testify at the Salem Witch Trials.

[melodramocracy]

It isn't

There needs to be evidence people just like pretending otherwise

Do you consider someones word as evidence? That's all that's really needed.

Most jobs are at will, meaning you can be fired for no reason to begin with, and public scrutiny for a company that is deemed to 'protect' sexual predators is far more damaging than any litigation an employee might be able to muster for wrongful termination.

Thinking that men aren't subject to the whims of others in this scenario, or are protected by some legal burden of proof is delusional.

[spanishninja]

the total running count as given by Jezebel is 53 as of earlier today. that means statistically, using the 2-3% rate of false claims, at least one of the accused men is innocent.

[endersblade]

But that's illegal so unlikely to happen often

That depends on what part of it you're calling illegal.

In many states that have 'at will' hiring, they can fire you for any reason or no reason. So if a company is afraid of bad publicity because people are saying you're a rapist, pedo, etc, they can let you go, no questions asked, do not pass go.

[Ghostpanther]

That depends on what part of it you're calling illegal.

In many states that have 'at will' hiring, they can fire you for any reason or no reason. So if a company is afraid of bad publicity because people are saying you're a rapist, pedo, etc, they can let you go, no questions asked, do not pass go.

This is true. We had that when I was part of the hiring process where I worked before I retired. It was only good however for 6 months. To get rid of any worker who had been there for less than 6 months, we could fire them and not even have to state a reason.

[Sinyc]

Lets say someone doesn't like you at work, and his/hers agenda was to get you sacked. He/she makes up a story regarding sexual accusations and the boss fires you for something you didn't do. Is this a high a possibility of the outcome, when such thing happens even without evidence?

You don't want to be the person on the side of the accused for certain acts, unless you can 100% prove the claims are fake.

[sarahtasher]

You miserunderstood, the 2-3% is the amount of allegations PROVED to be false, meaning that the court has material evidence that the allegation has been engineered to harm.

The amount of unfoundedreported allegation of sexual assault (meaning without enough material evidence to prosecute / to convict) is 40.6%.
(Bureau of justice statistics : https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs14st.pdf

There is a difference betwen "proved to be false" and "cannot be proved to be true". False allegators exploit the sympathy that public express from victims. Activists use the misunderstanding of the public of the burden of proof to inflate numbers and claim that rape is rampant, and too often ignored while the reality is that the justice system is set up to handle those crimes just as (if not more) seriously as any other serious crime, the allegators just fall short when presenting evidence that consent was not given / the event actually even happened.

The result is that allegation of rape has now been weaponized because the public, companies and communities will engage the consequences of the conviction for simple allegations.

Not prosecutable does not mean ''fake''

[cparle87]

That depends on what part of it you're calling illegal.

In many states that have 'at will' hiring, they can fire you for any reason or no reason. So if a company is afraid of bad publicity because people are saying you're a rapist, pedo, etc, they can let you go, no questions asked, do not pass go.

This is how I lost my first job out of high school. I was closing one night with only one female coworkers with me a bit before midnight. Next morning I come in for work, my boss is there saying he got a complaint. That I did something to make my coworker "uncomfortable". I was asked to write a report of what I'd done that last night to send to corporate, and to go home until we got an answer. Two days later boss calls saying don't come in any more and my last check was in the mail. The end. I'd been there over a year and a half with no problems until then.

[sarahtasher]

Or they smell blood in the water and want in on a big payout.

The joy of the US ''justice'' system. But I suppose that this means people lung cancer to prosecute the poor innocent tobacco companies...

[pateuvasiliu]

How come so many cases of sexual assault and harrassment never lead to trouble for those who commit them and the victims have to deal with the consequences for the rest of their lives? How about all the lives destroyed by a rape that was never prosecuted?

Protecting the innocent is far more important than punishing the guilty.

If even 1 innocent is sentenced for something they didn't do, the justice system failed. You can take precautions against sexual abuse in most cases, you can't do shit when you are falsely accused/convicted.

[TriggeredKid]

Did your dad never tell you about power of the pussy?