If the past few months have taught us anything, it’s that we should always believe a woman when she makes a claim of sexual assault. Always.
Even when there’s no evidence. Even when the evidence is against her. The details don’t matter. Only the accusation matters. It serves as its own proof.
That’s why this story is so enraging. ArkansasMatters.com:
Police arrested 20-year-old Lindsey Sweetin Thursday for filing a false police report about a sexual assault she originally said happened in the Harmon Parking garage on the University of Arkansas campus…
When police interviewed Lindsey Sweetin, she told them when she was walking back to her car in the deck after class, a man she described as being between 50 and 60-years-old with gray hair approached her and asked if she had any jumper cables.
Sweetin told officers she told the man she couldn’t help, and at that point she said the man “grabbed her and put his hand up her shirt, and then pulled her towards him and put his other hand down her pants and touched her buttocks” and then the man “pushed her against the back of her car and put his hand down the front of her pants, touching her vagina.” Sweetin told officers she sprayed the man with pepper spray and got in her car and drove away.
This is a very serious accusation. So serious, in fact, that it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s true:
On March 11, Detective Josh Bowen interviewed Sweetin again at UAPD. Detective Bowen asked Sweetin if she was telling the truth about the incident, and Sweetin said no.
Okay, fine, so she can’t remember every single detail of her assault. Yeah, sure, the cops got the surveillance video from the parking garage at the time she claims the assault happened, and they talked to witnesses, and there’s no evidence it happened.
Does that mean it didn’t happen? Can you prove it didn’t happen? Can you prove that this gray-haired man is innocent, to the extent that any man can be considered innocent?
No. You cannot. And yet you refuse to believe her, because she’s a woman. Everybody knows her name, and not the real criminal’s name, because we live in a rape culture.
Way to go, patriarchy. Now, other victims of sexual assault — and Sweetin is a victim, no matter what you rape deniers say — will be afraid to step forward. All because of your precious “due process.”
Watch your backs, pigs. It’s time for some due goddess.