Political Memes

"you'll ruin his life"

If the truth would ruin their life, then their decision already did. Your silence only harms their next victim.

"But you'll ruin..."

No the fuck you won't. They ruined it with their choices and actions. He'll face consequences for what he did, not for what someone else said.

Never mind that coming forward with allegations against powerful men ALSO ruins the victims life in highly patriarchal societies. Hell, half the time, the victims are ruined and the predators are celebrated for “beating the allegations.”

Like I need people to understand, NO ONE has ever become rich and famous by accusing a rich person of sexually assaulting them.

Ruined lifes are a valid point, but I care more about the lifes he ruined than his own.

That said, I think serving his time and proving he's no longer a threat to the public, he should be allowed to live a normal life again. Maybe with the exclusion of certain jobs like policeman, judge or I don't know, President, for example.

Disclaimer: Fuck victim blaming; rape victims have every right to report rapists and nobody has the right to tell them to do otherwise.

Gonna play devil's advocate for a second, but there's an argument that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, by which I mean that since society as a whole doesn't tend to believe in second chances, someone getting convicted for rape would (edit: have the chance to, I overstated my point here) make them unemployable way beyond the point most people would feel further punishment is reasonable (unless they're rich of course). Asking rape victims not to report their rapists is of course total bullshit—and it's even more bullshit that this rhetoric is much more socially accepted for rape and similar crimes than it is for, say, theft despite a conviction being similarly disastrous in both cases—but there's not nothing to the idea the sum total of consequences resulting from the reporting would exceed the level that's desirable even for such a heinous crime as rape, doubly so for America where the sex offender registry system has received criticism from organizations such as Human Rights Watch. All of which is to say: Part of it is definitely misogyny, but I do wonder if the "you'll ruin his life" argument would be less common if getting convicted for rape at 20 wasn't liable to make one homeless (or stuck in the prison-industrial complex) at 60. It would dovetail with the historical pattern (thinking of early modern England here, though that system was far, far crueler) where excessive punishment by the authorities makes it less likely for people to report crimes. Though even that assumes the punishment is excessive; it could definitely be argued that the rapist being homeless 40 years later is an appropriate punishment for the victim having PTSD 40 years later.

PS: To reiterate, fuck victim blaming; rape victims have every right to report rapists and nobody has the right to tell them to do otherwise.

If they change, really change, pay their dept so society and become a better person, they can still go on to those offices. But at least their behavior is on record and people can check IF they actually have become a better person.

If you don't report them, you don't trigger that mechanism, they don't change and we don't check as thoroughly. Report them. If it ruins their life, then it's because they remained a shitty person.