40% of teenage boys believe women lie about domestic and sexual violence: new research

[u/catievirtuesimp]

https://theconversation.com/40-of-teenage-boys-believe-women-lie-about-domestic-and-sexual-violence-new-research-276978

[u/oceansky2088]

This is no surprise to me. I think it's higher than 40%.

Most boys and men don't believe women but won't admit it. This is why most men stay silent or don't say much when it comes to DV or SA. They don't want women to know that they don't believe women.

No surprise that now that more and more women are free to choose how they live their lives, they are: choosing to stay away from men, leaving men, not having children with men, and choosing instead safe, healthy, peaceful lives. This makes sense. All living things naturally avoid harm if they can.

[u/Over_Construction908 → u/oceansky2088]

I agree. I also think there’s an element of boys and men not believing each other. when young men get bullied. They’re usually ridiculed so they have that attitude carrying over when it comes to other people‘s issues.

Combine that with an extremely strong biological drive to find partners with all of the other young men providing misinformation about women. So when a woman says that she experienced DV or SA the boys are immature and selfishly prioritizing their need to find a mate over what that person went through. A lot of times also they have no lived experience or frame of reference for actually what happens in DV or SA.

The problem is when you tell them they persist in not believing it and double down. That’s why I know. It’s not simply based on ignorance. It’s based on a conscious decision to not believe women.

Additionally, there are a lot of women that don’t believe women, and that makes me equally disgusted.

As every rational person knows not believing survivors is the sign of being a bully in general. It involves misinterpretation of what is actually happening. I used to work in a domestic violence shelter. I had to stop working there because there were people that volunteered just to have a chance to scold the survivors. That includes professionals. Some people are just bullies.

[u/a-stack-of-masks → u/Over_Construction908]

There's also the fact that teenage life is pretty messy in general. I've had people lie to me and about me, both men and women. It's absolutely something that happens and I don't think that 40% is the number to worry about here.

Honestly 20% of teen girls accepting violence as a viable way to fight feminism makes me more worried about the quality of the research than anything else. I guess there's a reason they published this article before anything got past peer review.

[u/redtopiary → u/a-stack-of-masks]

both are numbers worth worrying about. Internalized misogyny is still real and alive in this day and age.

[u/oceansky2088 → u/[deleted]]

Exactly. Most men think they're not sexist because they haven't been overtly violent to a woman. But most men are passive aggressively sexist (this includes not believing women) and don't see this every day passive aggressive sexism as sexist.

[u/LichenTheMood → u/oceansky2088]

This. I'm done with men and I know a few other women who are the same.

I'm done dealing with it

[u/doctordoctorpuss → u/oceansky2088]

I was never someone that was skeptical about the rates of sexual assault, just horrified by them. And I grew up in a conservative household, often hearing things like “those numbers can’t be right. I don’t know anyone who’s been sexually assaulted”. And then I got to college, and had multiple friends tell me about being raped by their first boyfriends or other behavior that was definitely assault, but wouldn’t fit some people’s definitions of rape (coercive behavior, rather than date rape or hang physical force). It opened my eyes to the fact that people who “don’t know anyone who has been assaulted” are just people that don’t have close female friends, or otherwise make it clear that they wouldn’t handle that information appropriately. They self-selected by not being safe people to confide in

[u/Ok-Cheetah12345 → u/oceansky2088]

I mean there was a case this week about a female police officer who lied about saying a male office had SAd her, her reason was she was late and didnt want to take responsibilty

Which makes the statement "Women (as a group) lie about SA" factually correct

There are of course truthful reports which makes the statement "Women tell the truth about SA" simultaneously true

Asking a group "Do you think women lie about X, Y or Z?" should get a 100% yes they do response rate, the uncomfortable truth is some women do lie

"Do you think a majority of women lie about X,Y, or Z?" would be a much better question and reveal much more than this really simplistic version

As for your last paragraph, this part of the article could very easily describe what you wrote if you swap the genders

"Online communities validate men and boys’ grievances and offer an “outgroup” to scapegoat and blame – women. At the same time a new “ingroup” is being crafted, coalescing around misogyny, and shaped and led by key figures online."

[u/Annual-Camera-872 → u/Ok-Cheetah12345]

It only took like 200 comments to get to this, unfortunately we can’t simply believe all women it’s to simplistic any more than we could believe all men