Re: Frequent false reports: where's the evidence? (was: Re: Rape Education Story #60

Daran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...

> No it wasn't.  It was to produce a feminist who said "Women never lie about
> rape".  The two sentences are not equivalent.  The former makes a universal
> claim.  The latter makes a general claim and is far more nuanced.

That's debatable. My claim is that the two sentences:
 "Women never lie about rape." AND
 "Women don't lie about rape." say exactly and precisely the same
thing.

You're trying to sneak in a weasely point about usage, and there's no
final authority on usage.

If I say to my friend: "Care for  a cigarette?"
And he says, "No, I don't smoke."
I don't take that to be a general, nuanced claim.
I don't say: "Oh, you *do* smoke sometimes, then."
I assume that he means exactly what he says, and that it's his
responsibility to qualify it if he doesn't want me to misunderstand.

So sometimes people use it in a nuanced way, and sometimes they don't.
 It's a weasely dual-purpose slogan, with built-in deniability. If you
want to take it to mean "Women don't lie" like "I don't smoke", by all
means do so. But if you're going to tag us on it, well, then we'll do
the switcheroo.

At the very least, I would say that the slogan does not make a good
faith effort to convey its real meaning. You're saying that it means
something more than it actually, on the face of  it, says.

But you seem intent on defending it . Would you endorse the
unqualified statement "Women don't lie about rape" as an accurate
characterization of your personal beliefs. Would you use it as a sig?
After all, isn't your claim that the qualification is clear and
already built in?

> > And you produced a feminist who said precisely that. In fact, as you point
> > out, that statement is standard boilerplate from rape crisis center
> > websites all over the net.
> 
> It is, but 'women never lie about rape' isn't.
> 
> On the other hand, 'women never lie about rape' is standard boilerplate from
> antifeminist websites all over the net.
> 
> > Now, the fact that they go on in the very next sentence to contradict
> > themselves doesn't mean they didn't say it. They did say it. They could
> > have said something reasonably truthful, like: "Women rarely lie about
> > rape," but they didn't. So why is that, do you suppose? My theory: "Women
> > never lie about rape" is the statement they are trying to sell, and the
> > qualification is the "fine print". YMMV
> 
> The qualification is the fine print, certainly.  But they don't say 'women
> never lie about rape', they say 'women don't lie about rape' which is
> consistent with that other fine print.  It's a bit absurd to argue that they
> are 'trying to sell'. some other statement inconsistent with it.

What's absurd? That's advertising  101:

50% OFF!!!*
*On selected items
REGROW YOUR HAIR IN WEEKS!!!*
*Or your money back
WOMEN DON'T LIE ABOUT RAPE!!!*
*Well, actually they do sometimes.

> 
> (These remarks should not be construed as a general defense of the
> consistency of such sites in general, or this one in particular.)
> 
> > Nevertheless, the challenge was met. If a person is contradicting
> > themselves and saying A and not A, we cannot let them off the hook for
> > saying A. They are saying it, and they are saying it for a reason.
> 
> So give me an example of *anyone* (you don't have to prove them a feminist)
> saying 'women never lie about rape' (that exact phrase, no variants
> permitted),

Dang, playing with you is like playing with my sister. She always gets
to make up the rules. :P

> who is not 1) attributing the POV to someone else, and 2)
> complaining about it.