Bericht über Gruppenvergewaltigung bricht zusammen – Feministinnen: "Ihr seid trotzdem Schweine!"

Wie das männerpolitische Blog Achdomina berichtet, fällt ein vom Magazin "Rolling Stone" ausgelöster internationaler Medienfuror über eine angebliche Gruppenvergewaltigung auf dem Campus der University of Virginia in sich zusammen. Der Rolling Stone gibt inzwischen zu, die Vorwürfe fahrlässig übernommen zu haben, und bittet um Verzeihung:

Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie's story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In the months Erdely spent reporting the story, Jackie neither said nor did anything that made Erdely, or Rolling Stone's editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie's credibility. Her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie's account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn't confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence.

In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.

Vor dieser Klarstellung waren jene, die die Geschichte über die Vergewaltigung anzweifelten, bezichtigt worden, das angebliche Opfer durch den Schmutz zu ziehen:

So, the story should be rejected because they didn’t contact the rapist for his take on the story? (...) Can we call this anything but typical victim smearing? How dare the New York Times thoughtlessly promote this unethical critique of Rolling Stones reporting and this rape victim. This isn’t based on independent investigation, sourcing or facts, but on the feeling of one reporter, the reliable victim-bashing of a right-wing ideologue, and a misplaced argument about the value of obtaining "balance" by talking to an alleged rapist who (if he was smart) would undoubtedly be completely unhelpful or silent. (...) It strikes me as ironic, that this type of casual smearing of victims is the exact problem that allows serial rapists to thrive.

Vermutlich weil der Vorwurf nicht scharf genug war, dass Menschen, die sich hier Zweifel erlaubten, Serienvergewaltiger unterstützten, griff man im feministischen Lager noch eine Nummer höher – zur Holocaust-Leugnung. Das linke Blog The Daily Beast berichtet darüber:

That word "denialism" is particularly profane, with its unsubtle invocation of the Holocaust. And it doesn’t take long for subtlety to be ditched in favor of the blunt instrument of Reductio ad Hitlerum.

Feminist writer Amanda Marcotte tweeted that "it’s really time for people to understand that rape denialism is like Holocaust denialism: a broad refusal to face reality." It’s unclear what constitutes denialism (are Hanna Rosin and Erik Wemple the Ernst Zündel and David Irving of rape culture?), and if a natural skepticism of a story that should raise eyebrows automatically casts one in the league of drooling fascists.

Zeitungen wie die renommierte Washington Post halten auch nach der Erklärung des Rolling Stone an ihrer Form der Berichterstattung fest. Die aus Sicht der Washington Post mutmaßlichen Täter werden weiter namentlich benannt, das angebliche Opfer nicht.

Twitter Aktivistinnen reagieren auf die Selbstkritik des Rolling Stone mit Spekulationen, die Universität, wo sich der Vorfall abspielte, habe die Zeitschrift unter Druck gesetzt oder aber der Rolling Stone habe sich mit der Rape Culture verbrüdert. Ob sich die Gruppenvergewaltigung zugetragen habe oder nicht sei ohnehin egal – Hauptsache sei, dass die Berichterstattung weiter Aufmerksamkeit auf dieses Thema gelenkt habe.

In einem der feministischen Tweets heißt es:

"Ich kann es nicht mit mehr Nachdruck betonen: Auch wenn Jackies Geschichte teilweise oder vollkommen erlogen war, gibt das noch lange niemandem die Rechtfertigung, sie nicht zu glauben."

Die Women for Men hingegen nehmen die Entschuldigung des Rolling Stone nicht an:

This is a vicious example of feminist bias, in which the media are quick to assume that if a woman says she’s raped, then it must be so. Dear Mr. Dana: Apology not accepted. If the unidentified UVA student were a young man claiming he’d been stalked by an ex-girlfriend, you would never would have run the story without tracking down the girlfriend.

This war on men must stop.