Slate writers Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore take on the subject of false rape accusations, coming on the retractions of an 18-year-old Hofstra student, who recanted her story that five men had tried to rape her recently.

Men’s activists argue that false claims of rape are as serious as the crime itself, and feminists like myself argue that the percentage of false claims — while horrible for the men falsely accused are small — in light of total rape statistics.

Fairly, if we believe that 1 in 10 rape accusations are either totally false or involve consensual and not forced sex, then 20,000 false accusations out of 200,000 American rape cases last year is not a small number of men’s lives severely interrupted.

The Slate article Why it’s so hard to quantify false rape charges is well-balanced, reviewing many reports on this topic.

In no way do we minimize or dismiss the topic of false rape in America, or rape generally in America here at A of C. As a victim myself of sexual violence, I’m nothing but supportive of the agony mostly women experience at the hands of rapists.

US Secretary of State presides over UN resolution for ‘rape envoy’ However, our primary focus in on international crimes of rape committed against women, versus a significant decline in rape in America in the last 40 years. America’s National Bureau of Crime statistics estimates a 53% drop in sexual assault/rape statistics between 1999 and 2008.

In Africa, the Middle East, India, and presumably South America and Mexico, although I don’t have the stats to prove it this moment, rape against women is a horrific fact of daily life. For this reason we are more interested in Secretary Hillary Clinton’s leadership on a special envoy to focus on the rape of women and children in war, than in false rape accusations against men. Anne

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