The Northern Star today has an article about a man who is being tried on “five counts of having sex with a minor; and seven counts of indecent assault”. The woman laying the complaints was 15 when she was first impregnated by the man, her much older brother-in-law.
The headline and lede of the article?
Doctor alleges pregnant girl lied
A woman who accuses her brother-in-law of sexually assaulting her when she was a girl had first lied to a doctor by telling her she became pregnant to a schoolboy at a drunken party.
For serious, people.
In other news, a judge in Ohio, USA has ordered four teenage rape victims to take polygraph tests.
Categories: gender & feminism, law & order, violence
Friday Hoyden: Gillian Triggs 
DUFC #69 
Advising women to prevent their own rapes is not brave or edgy or helpful 
Hoyden About Town 
Oh, so the good doctor’s allegations are FACT, are they?
Hmm, shouldn’t the paper be worried about the legality of positing an allegation as fact (as they claim whenever they call rape “sex” or put it in scare-quotes)
Shouldn’t “lies” be constantly prefaced with “alleged” the way “rape” always is?
They ought to, yes.
I’m willing to believe she ‘lied’ to her doctor. It’s entirely plausible because she would no doubt have been extremely scared to tell the truth. Obviously abuse victims sometimes do lie, to save themselves. It is so offensive to print that as if it somehow implicates her in her own abuse, or lessens the veracity of her claims. I wonder how the doctor alleging this actually feels about the situation? It’s implied that there is some sort of accusatory, adversarial thing going on but that may not be the case at all.
Your last sentence did make me note that the doctor’s testimony – in whatever spirit it’s being offered – does count against any claim the brother-in-law might have made that she did become pregnant at that party.
GROWL.
Plus what Spilt Milk said.
Oh, FFS.
Ever-Loving Maude, I hate Rape Culture. It is beyond disingenuous to claim that the way MSM frames reporting on these stories doesn’t have a deleterious effect on the way people view rape, but that’s exactly what these assholes do when confronted with their slime.
But! But! But! … The headline is not what the story is about! It is about the trial of a man for raping a 15 year old girl. As AL said (can I call you AL?) it is beyond disingenuous to frame stories in this way — it is a deliberate attempt to detract from the public perception of the girl involved, and of all victims generally.