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 admitting this is embarrassing, I felt a shiver of fear. In an instant, my mind went through a nightmare scenario: what if she is failing and is planning on using the threat of an accusation of sexual harassment to get a passing grade? Quieting this irrational worry, I casually said “Oh, you can leave the door open.” She sat down and we talked about her paper. In a bit of reflection, I realized that this was a reversal: it is usually the woman who feels the shiver of fear when a man is closing the office door.
To head off any criticisms about inconsistency, I’ve always had a literal open-door policy for all students. This originated in 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 cases indicate, her fear was not unfounded. Now that I have my own office, I always keep the door open. As such, it was ironic that I would be one scared by the closing of my office door by a woman.
Like everyone else, I have fears. An important question about a fear is whether it is rational. To illustrate, I will use my fear of heights. Part of this fear is rational: I suffered a full quadriceps tear when a ladder went out from under me. So, being wary about ladders, roofs and the edges of tall things like mountains is sensible. However, my fear also extends to flying. This fear, I know, is irrational. While accidents do occur, being inside a commercial airliner is one of the safest places a normal person can be. I have never been in airplane 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 change how I feel. I deal with it using Aristotle’s method: I make myself face my fear over and over until I can function normally—despite being terrified. Because of my 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 with any fear, an important question is whether the fear of a false accusation is rational. Is it like the sensible fear that leads me to be careful on roofs or is it like the irrational fear of flying that causes me needless discomfort? 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 from a poor diet and lack of exercise but are afraid of shark attacks. But poor health habits are much more likely to kill a person than a shark attack. Sorting out the rationality of fear is a matter of statistics, although the specific context does matter. For example, if I jump into shark infested water while covered in blood, my odds of being attacked would be higher than usual. As another example, a person surrounded by women who are scheming, unethical liars would have greater odds of being falsely accused of assault.
While it is challenging to have 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) are much higher than the number of false accusations. The best evidence suggests that only 35% of sexual assaults are reported. As such, an assault is unlikely to be reported and the odds of a false accusation are extremely low.
But one might insist that false accusations do happen. This is true, but the data shows 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 is not well supported. This is not to say that this is impossible, just that it is extremely unlikely. 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 disproportional to the likelihood of a crash. 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 black people (and other minorities). Many of those who are 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 that aspect of the legal system. This is an inconsistent view: if false accusations leading to harm are awful and something to worry about, then the false accusations against minorities should be seen this way. One might suspect that the worry does not stem from a passion for justice, but fear of accountability.