Shortly after the #metoo movement began gaining nationwide attention, a female student arrived at my office and started to close the door as she introduced herself. While it is embarrassing to admit this, I felt a sudden spike of fear. In an instant, my mind went through a nightmare scenario: what if she is failing the class and is planning to use an accusation of sexual harassment to try to scare me into passing her? Struggling to remain calm, I casually said “Oh, you can leave the door open.” She stopped closing it, sat down and we talked through the paper she was working on. I recall thinking at the time that my moment of fear was something women felt quite often when a man closed an office door behind them. Being a philosopher, my job is to rationally analyze things. So, naturally, I thought a great deal about the situation and want to share these considerations.
To head off any criticisms about inconsistency, I have always had an open-door policy for all my students. The cause of this dates to my grad school days when a female friend told me that when a male professor closes his office door on her, she feels trapped and vulnerable. As various famous cases indicate, her fear was not unfounded. As such, when I finally had my own office, I made sure to always keep the door open. To be consistent, I did the same for all students. As such, it was rather ironic that I would be one scared by the mere closing of my office door by a woman.
Like everyone else, I have various fears. A rather important question about a fear is whether it is rational or not. To illustrate, I will use my biggest fear, the fear of heights. Part of this fear is quite rational: I suffered a full quadriceps tear when a ladder went out from under me. As such, being wary about being on ladder, roofs and the edges of tall things like mountains is sensible. However, my fear also extends to flying: I am terrified by the though of flying. This fear, I know, is utterly irrational. Being inside a commercial airliner is one of the safest places a normal person can be; yet I have a deep fear of flying. I have never been in a crash or mishap, so there is not even an instigating incident to explain this fear.
While I have been told and have told myself that flying is nothing to fear, this does not work. Statistics and proof do not move the emotions. So, I deal with the fear using Aristotle’s method: I have made myself face my fear over and over until I can function perfectly normally—despite being utterly terrified. Because of my own crazy fear of flying, I do not dismiss other peoples’ fears, even when they might seem unfounded or even silly. As such, when men claim to be terrified of false accusations of sexual assault I do not dismiss this fear. This is, I am obligated to say, a fear I have felt as well.
As with any fear, a rather important question is whether the fear of a false accusation is a rational one or not. That is, is it like the sensible fear that leads me to be careful on ladders and roofs or is it like the irrational fear of flying that causes me needless suffering? As with any fear, this cannot be judged by the strength of the feeling—this gives no indication of the likelihood of a bad thing happening. To illustrate, most people are not terrified of the health complications of not exercising and not eating properly but are afraid of being attacked by a shark. But, poor health habits are vastly more likely to kill a person than a shark attack. Sorting out the rationality of the fear is a matter of statistics, unless a person has relevant data for their specific situation. For example, if I jump into shark infested waters with bleeding cuts, then my odds of being attacked by a shark are rather different than the general statistical data. As another example, a person who happens to associate with women who are scheming, unethical liars would have greater odds of being falsely accused of assault.
While, as discussed in the previous essay, it is challenging to have extremely accurate data about false accusations, the best available data shows that between 2% and 10% of accusations are shown to be false. The FBI claims that 8% of rape accusations are found to be false. In contrast, unreported cases of assault (which, one must admit, are hard to quantify precisely) are much higher than the number of false accusations. The best evidence suggests that only 35% of sexual assaults are reported. As such, a man who assaults is statistically unlikely to be reported and the odds of a false accusation are extremely low.
But, one might point out, false accusations do happen. This is true, but the data shows that the typical false allegation is made by a teenage girl trying to get out of trouble. So, the notion that women use false accusations to destroy men does not have much of a foundation. This is not to say that such a scenario is impossible: it could happen. Going back to my fear of flying, the fear is not irrational because a crash could never happen. Rather, it is irrational because the fear is far out of proportion to the likelihood of the crash happening. So, the terror we men feel about being falsely accused of sexual assault is like my fear of flying: it is not a fear of the impossible, but a fear of the extremely unlikely.
There are, however, people who do have a reasonable fear of being wrongfully accused and convicted. These are, of course, black people (and other minorities). Many of those who are very vocal about their fear of men being falsely accused of sexual assault have little or no concern about the wrongful accusation and conviction of minorities and express faith in the system in this regard. This is, of course, an inconsistent view: if false accusations leading to harm are truly awful and something to worry about, then the false accusation of minorities should also be regarded this way. One might suspect that the worry does not stem from a passion for justice, but fear of accountability. Then again, it might also be a clever political use of scare tactics.
Note that the 2-10% false accusation statistic is those accusations in which is was provably false, such as the accuser admitting she lied. Some studies have showed higher rates. This is a difficult crime in which to prove a false report. Many rape accusations fall into the category of uncorroborated.
As to the fear that mean have of false accusations and whether it is reasonable, risk assessments do not only consider the likelihood of a bad thing happening, but how devastating that bad thing could be. Since such an accusation can essentially ruin a person’s life, it has a lot of weight in the consideration. Just as having a potentially deadly car accident probably won’t happen, we wear seat belts because a high speed collision will end us.
Same for US national security. There has never been an EMP attack on the US by a foreign power. However, some experts agree say that a single “super-EMP” weapon using a mere 10kt warhead, detonated above the US would destroy the entire power grid and result in 90% death rates. Thus, even though it’s never happened, the sheer destructive potential and the ease in which it could be carried out make it a serious concern.
I should also speak to the ease of deployment factor. When a person or enemy can do something that is devastating to us but of little cost to themselves or beneficial to them regardless of their ultimate success, this is heavily weighed in a risk assessment.
Quite right. Sorting out false accusations faces many challenges. After all, as noted in the essay, a successful false accusation of assault will count in the statistics as an assault.
And, as you note, risk assessment is not just probability of the event, but the possible damage. So, fear of a low probability, high damage event can be rational.
And given this argument, let me remind people that there is a much smaller chance of an unarmed black man being killed by police than of a man being accused of rape. Yet Black Lives Matter is a brand upon which an entire political movement, indeed the Democrat party, is getting its energy.
Here’s Nancy Pelosi, a year prior to the Kavanaugh nomination, showing explicitly how false accusations are weaponized in politics. Literally giving away the playbook.
https://youtu.be/-qWSfLHND6Q
In fairness, it has been shown that the clip you link has been cut to leave out the context – obviously Pelosi is describing this tactic as being used by the Republicans against the Democrats.
Also in fairness, you did not claim that she was doing anything other than “showing explicitly how false accusations are weaponized in politics”.
In this day and age, we have to be crystal clear, don’t we? “See? Those conservatives just point to obviously false statements and innuendo! What a bunch of liars!”
It’s actually pretty humorous that Pelosi would make that kind of speech with the implication that the Democrats have clean hands – while it’s painfully obvious that they took a page out of the book they attribute to the Republicans.
If the Left accuses someone of something bad, it often means they’re doing it. This too, is classic political warfare. Yes, it has been cut. Can we find a Thomas or Kavanaugh equivalent from Republicans? Bill Clinton, who lost his law license and did commit perjury?
Surely she’s not saying that the Republicans do this and Dems don’t. She l
I’m struggling to find the same things from Republicans.
Few humans could survive this:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/a-former-obama-operative-built-a-new-anti-republican-attack-machine
Playing pretty fast and loose with the definition of “research”, I think. I always think of research as having no real objective other than the accumulation of knowledge, with the realization that it will take you where it takes you.
Not so much with this guy, though – and with the concept of “opposition research” used in politics across the board.
Kind of a sad read.
Mike, I don’t think you’ll find a lot of African-American men who think they have nothing to fear from white women falsely accusing them of rape.
Good point. They, along with Mexicans, should have a rational fear of being falsely accused by white men of being rapists of white women.
Interesting that you deny women moral agency. Do you think this helps women?
I think everyone is a little bit afraid of the police. I certainly am. Police officers sometimes use excessive force. Police officers can get nervous and make mistakes. Oftentimes the police are ignorant of the law.
I am afraid of hospitals, too. People go in for routine procedures and end up dying. Sometimes they operate on the wrong body part.
Flying, however, doesn’t bother me a bit.
I have many friends who are in law enforcement, so I’m generally not afraid of the police. But, you are right. And it is rational to have a little helpful fear when around armed people.
The fear of hospitals is quite rational; plenty of opportunities to pick up new infections.
Watch this: https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE
Mike, you also need to keep in mind that the chance of being falsely accused of something is far higher if you are rich or famous.
That is an excellent point; most of us are low value targets. On the other side of the coin, being rich means that one has the resources to fight such accusations. Is there any reliable data on the rate at which the rich or famous are subject to false accusations?
Criminologists dispute the FBI’s stats.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/7/false-sex-assault-reports-not-rare-reported-studie/
I don’t think that broad statistical evidence can apply here; when you are alone with a student in an office with the door closed, that is a situation that has its own set of circumstances that will skew the statistics substantially.
Insurance companies use statistics like this – for example, in the US there is a certain death rate applied to all citizens, but if you divide those citizens into groups that engage in risky behaviors and those who do not, you’ll see the statistics change dramatically.
Anyway, like you, I never meet with a student with the door closed – but I wouldn’t chalk that up to fear of any kind. It’s just exercising reasonable caution. Doctors exercise the same caution – they never go into an examining room alone with a patient unless there is a nurse or a PA present – regardless of the gender of the doctor or the patient.
That said, I do confess that I have had similar thoughts about self-preservation in today’s world, and that while I’m propping my office door open the risks do cross my mind.
Stock brokers love to use the line, “Past performance is not an indication of future result”, meaning that we can take all the statistics in the world to confirm our behavior, but anything can happen at any time. It’s quite possible that we are on the precipice of a surge in accusations like we’ve never seen before, based on all the attention things are getting. I, for one, would prefer to be left off that graph-of-the-future.
Definitions have become much more broad, also. Increasingly we see that “intent” on the part of the accused is far less meaningful than the “interpretation” of the accuser. A student may come up to me and ask what she might need to do to have her “C” turned into a “B”.
She might say to me, “I’d do anything to get that grade changed. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it!”
Is that a proposition? Is she offering me sexual favors? Is she being purposely enticing in order to entrap me?
Or I might say to her, “If you want me to change your grade, you are really going to have to go the extra mile”.
Am I seducing her? Am I suggesting that she might accomplish what she wants if she offers some kind of sexual favor? Or am I merely saying she needs to step up her efforts and do some extra credit work?
Of course, the next step for her might be Facebook or a Title IX accusation … “I know damn well what he meant – and he does too! He is such a weasel! What a LIAR! Who are your going to believe? and as we have seen, the effect of the claim in the hands of the public can be very dire indeed, with little or no corroboration. And there doesn’t even have to be a lie, or a malicious intent.
I am also in full agreement with Whitewolf – that if the risk is low but the effect is potentially devastating, that has to be a part of the risk assessment.
Incidentally, like you, I also suffered a quadriceps tendon tear. And I do not ever cut across the grassy areas between the parking lots anymore. Maybe it’s fear, but I call it “risk abatement”.
Mike, write a piece on the ethics of opposition research.
Added to the list.