This question came to my mind today, in light of many, many things: the dismissal of rape charges against the Duke lacrosse team and a friend’s reaction to that, as well as Dora’s third post on Women and Violence at Shrub dot com.
It is, indeed, an insidious process that leads to victim-blaming and excusing the accused, regardless of what the evidence may say. As much as we’d like to think we have a fair justice system, the fact of the matter is that someone who makes an accusation of rape is disbelieved, belittled, and is regarded as being of questionable character, while someone who is accused of rape is rigorously defended, and the media is said to be unfair to the accused, and not the accuser.
