posting your personal account of someone's crimes against you in a blog is not a fair or reasonable way to deal with what is clearly a very serious matter. it sounds like what happened was awful and these types of incidents are common in many predominantly male professions, e.g. law, finance.
i was recently seriously harassed and more-or-less sexually assaulted by an acquaintance's wife at a wedding in a swimming pool. as a man, i doubt that any police department would take me seriously if i wanted to press charges. this does not mean that i am going to take to the internet and post my account of it. nobody wins by doing this.
this trend of women posting their account of a sexual assault online is alarming because of what hawkharris describes: it could be false and then is plastered all over the net, irrevocably damaging the reputation of the accused.
> this trend of women posting their account of a sexual assault online is alarming because of what hawkharris describes: it could be false and then is plastered all over the net, irrevocably damaging the reputation of the accused.
Here is something I find curious: you are one of many commenters here literally ignoring the fact that Justine has witnesses to what happened and bringing up the hypothetical, irrelevant possibility that such an accusation could be made falsely. What gives?
Both of the witnesses' testimonies seem to be subjective: "It was getting creepy, but Justine didn't move, or slap him. She was laughing..."[1]; "The executive's posture and actions aggressive; "no" was not a possibility."[2]
Their stories also don't corroborate: "Fast forward to (from what I remember), around 1am. "[1]; "It was slightly before midnight..."[2]
I think it is good that there are witnesses but it is not as simple as saying that because there are, Justine's version of events is correct. We don't know exactly what they saw and heard, how much of their versions are based on actual events or the aftermath or their relationships with the involved. That is why it is still important to maintain innocence of the accused until proven guilty.
"Here is something I find curious: you are one of many commenters here...bringing up the hypothetical, irrelevant possibility that such an accusation could be made falsely"
It certainly isn't irrelevant to the accused. His reputation and in fact his entire life is at stake. A few blog posts do not constitute proof.
Testimony from a witness is always subjective, and this isn't a criminal trial.
Given the amount of alcohol consumed I expect that the more detailed an account one demanded of Justine or some of the others, the less accurate it would be. That doesn't lead to some kind of Rashomon outcome where we'll never know the nature of what happened. That 1am / midnight shit... really?
"Testimony from a witness is always subjective..."
I guess what i am trying to say is that they are drawing conclusions of what they saw, not just stating the facts of what they saw.
"...this isn't a criminal trial"
This is my point, we have no right to judge his guilt or innocence without a proper investigation and a trial based on this investigation.
"That 1am / midnight shit... really?"
I think it just shows that witnesses aren't necessarily a reliable form of evidence.
My point is that presumed innocence until proven otherwise is important. These kind of blog posts can help create awareness and allow us to discuss such situations but with regards to the actual event, we should refrain from judgment, as difficult as that is, because anything could have happened or not happened. Trial by social media is not okay.
> we have no right to judge his guilt or innocence
We have no real standing to judge, no need to judge, but I have the right to do whatever I want, thank you. :)
> because anything could have happened or not happened
This is a little silly if read literally. I think you can tease out a couple of things that very certainly happened by reading the three available accounts.
> Trial by social media is not okay.
So much could be said about that topic. It's fairly horrifying in some instances. On the other hand, if this was cathartic or necessary for this woman, good for her.
Some people live their lives online, others don't.
I won't comment on how much benefit of the doubt he deserves, but whether he defends himself on the internet or not should be totally irrelevant to that decision. 99.9% of us are by-standers who have no right to demand any justifications from any participants.
"Women who are assaulted should keep quiet about it because I can't tell if they're lying or not." Is that about right?
Instead of saying she shouldn't post because "it could be false," how about you recognize that she knows whether it's true or not? For God's sake, the fact that some people are liars does not mean that truth-tellers should keep their mouths shut.
I don't know about you but I'm a believer in innocent until proven guilty. In fact, I really don't care about the gender of the actors in this story at all. Every story has three sides, my side, your side and the facts. Right now, we have a blog post that describe a retroactive account of what happened to the author a long time ago and all the misfortunes of their life since then, attributed to that one incident long ago. This is hardly a balanced account. We don't have the side of the counter-party to this incident nor do we have eye witness accounts of what happened. So insofar as you, I and the rest of the Internet are concerned, none of us have any business passing judgement on the author, the counter-party or those present at the incident. As such I'd say, that the author shouldn't post this publicly, unless they are open to and comfortable with the idea that the counter-party and all others involved may now post additional details about what happened that evening in an effort to help us, the audience, ascertain the facts. That is hardly the path towards psychological healing.
I for one am pretty certain that there are elements of truthiness and untruthiness in the original posting. I'd expect similar elements of truthiness and untruthiness in a rebuttal by the counter-party as well. Both were drinking and both will be advocates of their recollection of what happened. Such is the nature of points of view and interpretation of past events
> the fact that some people are liars does not mean that truth-tellers should keep their mouths shut.
He's not saying that. He's lamenting the fact that in the mind of those like him that have been abused, the idea of posting stuff to a blog rather than going through official channels to get results is disturbing.
If anything, he's saying "truth-tellers" shouldn't have to resort to feelings as if blogs are their only realistic option. That if that does become the accepted venue, everyone suffers.
>how about you recognize that she knows whether it's true or not
In this case, yes, sounds very clear. But there are cases where it's not clear. The waters get so muddy that there are rapists that don't even know they've raped anyone. And lack of clarity only serves to compound the other problems.
Basically I'm trying to say that it's not as simple as truth vs. lies in many cases.
Posting the truth is never problematic. If what she wrote is indeed true then I cannot for the life of me see why writing that is in any way wrong.
If you want to say what she did is problematic then you have to argue that she is lying. Plain and simple. Do you do that?
It is obviously not an option to demand of victims to shut up about what happened to them. But that is in essence what you are demanding. Sure, if what she is telling is not the truth it’s quite obvious and kind of self-evident that she shouldn’t have posted it but if she is indeed a victim you would apparently tell her exactly the same. That seems quite insane to me.
> If you want to say what she did is problematic then you have to argue that she is lying. Plain and simple. Do you do that?
Can we stop having these black or white discussions?
After more then half a year, there is no such thing as the truth. Even if the whole thing was on tape we cannot piece together what was going on in their heads at the time.
It seems that every time some case of harassment hits the news people partaking in the discussion are either branded as blaming the victim or branded as destroying someone's life by defaming the accused. Can't we find some middle ground?
As dissatisfying as it may be, by the very nature of the topic there will never be the one truth to the story, but at least as many views as people were there during the event. We need to find a way to accept this ambiguity lest we will never stop shouting at each other.
So, you are saying she is supposed to shut up or what? Or what is the point you are trying to make? You want to muffle her voice? That’s your point, right?
Please calm down. Neither have I said that, nor do I believe it.
For unrelated reasons - namely that I don't believe naming and shaming is a working justice system and that it diverts from the underlying social issues - I would prefer to leave names out of such blog entries.
But the reason for my post is that I found the quoted passage to be one of the many oversimplifications that crop up again and again in these discussions.
[Edit: Rewording and fixing stupid grammar mistakes]
Naming and shaming? What the hell are you on about? You want victims of crime to shut up. That’s what this boils down to. Plain and simple. Very black and white.
I'm sorry, but do you actually read what I am writing?
"For unrelated reasons [...] I would prefer to leave names out of such blog entries"
First of all, I did not say anything about shutting up in that sentence. Second, even if you interpret "leaving out names" as "shutting up" I wrote "prefer" and not "must" or "have to".
> posting your personal account of someone's crimes against you in a blog is not a fair or reasonable way to deal with what is clearly a very serious matter.
Publishing the truth is always fair and appropriate.
i was recently seriously harassed and more-or-less sexually assaulted by an acquaintance's wife at a wedding in a swimming pool. as a man, i doubt that any police department would take me seriously if i wanted to press charges. this does not mean that i am going to take to the internet and post my account of it. nobody wins by doing this.
this trend of women posting their account of a sexual assault online is alarming because of what hawkharris describes: it could be false and then is plastered all over the net, irrevocably damaging the reputation of the accused.