Any kind of accusation made public is a tricky beast.
There are 3 possibilities for the accusation:
1. The accusation is correct in it's entirety and should be taken at face value
2. The basis of the accusation is correct, but additional information casts it in a different light.
3. The accusation is false.
If you discuss it, publicly stating that option 1 is true is the only strategy that will keep your reputation intact. Anything else makes you look like a douche.
And 4. we do not and cannot really know whether the accusation is fully or even partially accurate, and therefore should keep all our mouths closed about it and let the legal system handle it.
It should be worth noting here that the accused have every bit the opportunity to deny the claims. If a woman—any woman—were to absolutely falsely accuse some guy of having raped her in a very public manner (with or without having gone to the police beforehand), by what logic would the guy, who knows he didn’t rape her, not deny the accusations? He could deny them in equally public fashion and/or go to the police himself.
The thing is: women know that making such an accusation in public will get them harassed for it, whether it's true or not. But it's really only worth the immense vitriol that they will have to endure when their accusations are true.
Additionally, women also don't have some kind of weird "inherent motive" to do this to men, but countless of reasons not to.
Stepping to the police is always the right first move. Publicly outing rapists is a brave (as it is dangerous) additional step to take which, among other good things, will alert other women about the rapist.
Anyone who argues that it is unfair should shut the hell up and first think about how fair it was to the woman that she got raped in the first place. Hint: she didn't deserve what happened to her. The guy who did the raping? Totally does.
1. Yes, there are always possible motives. However, unless you have some data showing there are more false reports of rape than truthful ones, or even that the disparity between the two isn't a night-or-day difference, that's not something we ought to consider each and every case of doing.
2. Correct; my response was more about the general discussion taking place here than the specific OA one. That said, while not speculating on Tammy Camp ever having been raped, these three men who have banned her from three different conferences just for refusing to sleep with them sure are doing their best to interfere with her career.
You're making assumptions again I think. She didn't say there were 3 different conferences and 3 different men. Merely, that something "similar" has happened 3 times in the last year. Technically, it could all involve the same conference and same person. And it might not have even been a tech conference or industry related at all, who knows. Maybe, but not specified.
Assumptions are what put innocent people on death row. And what drive people to break out the pitchforks and torches. They're not a mark of modern civilization. I hope. :)
I'll agree that there was some level of assumption involved, but it's pretty clear this was not "the same conference and same person" given that that doesn't make logical sense.
How could she have been banned three times from the same conference, and why on Earth would she have written this post the way she did if it had been the same person three times in a row?
There are 3 possibilities for the accusation: 1. The accusation is correct in it's entirety and should be taken at face value 2. The basis of the accusation is correct, but additional information casts it in a different light. 3. The accusation is false.
If you discuss it, publicly stating that option 1 is true is the only strategy that will keep your reputation intact. Anything else makes you look like a douche.