While the men’s rights movement may be a running joke in some progressive circles, Emily Matchar takes it seriously, particularly when it comes to rape:
Take the issue of false rape accusations, which gets endless play on MRM [men’s rights movement] websites and YouTube channels. Women falsely accuse men of rape for “lots of reasons,” Karen Straughan, a 43-year old Canadian mother-of-three who has become a major figure in the MRM, told me when we spoke on the phone. Straughan mentions the case of Praise Martin-Oguike, a Temple University football player falsely accused of rape last year by a woman who was apparently angry that he wouldn’t have a relationship with her. There is also the Hofstra University student who falsely accused five men of rape in 2009, allegedly to keep her boyfriend from finding out she’d cheated on him. (The Hofstra case has become a touchstone in the MRM community, viewed as proof that a woman will ruin five men’s lives to cover her tracks if she needs to.)
The most reliable statistics available place the number of false rape reports at between 2 and 8 percent of all rape reports. Yet most people, both in and out of the MRM community, believe these numbers to be much higher. One survey found that both male and female college students believe that about 50 percent of rape allegations are false.
So while the substance of the MRM’s claims are false (false reports of rape take place much less frequently than they claim), they have identified a flashpoint issue that progressives disregard at their peril. False reporting of rape can be a life-destroying crime. It may not be especially common, but it is serious.
The Dish 