Toxic Femininity: Amber Heard and the Myth of "Rare" False Accusations

One person falsely accused is far too many.

In light of the verdict of the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard defamation trial, activists and the media have gone into damage control to steer the narrative into a unanimously negative one. They want us to believe that after six weeks of close analysis of the evidence, the jury has made the wrong determination, and secondly, that the far-reaching consequences of this verdict will discourage other women from coming forward about abuse. The big faux pas being committed by determining Depp’s innocence? It exposes the ugly truth that women sometimes lie about being victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse — and the media can’t have that.

MYTH: Only 2% of Rape Accusations Are False

For years, we’ve been hearing that false accusations are “incredibly rare” and “basically never happen”. Not only is this untrue, but it’s an intentional misrepresentation of the truth. You’ve likely seen articles, videos, and your feminist friend’s Instagram stories citing statistics (ooh, numbers, those must be legit!) like “only 2% of rape accusations are false” or “only 5% of allegations are false”. The study they are referencing is from a study titled "False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases" which stated they found 2 to 10% of rape accusations that were reported to the police to be false. The “to 10%” has, of course, mysteriously been left out of the discourse surrounding false accusations. What we’re constantly told is that false accusations are only 2% of total reports. However, by the accounts of the very study that they’re referencing, the data shows that the minimum amount of false accusations has been proven to a legal standard to be between 2 to 10%. This says nothing about the rest of the reports which are thrown out due to insufficient evidence, which studies show comprise about 50% of cases.

To come away with the conclusion, as feminists do, that a maximum of 2% of all rape allegations are false, they would need to assume that the rest of these reports are all true, which of course, there is no basis for. If anything, you would be more justified in assuming that they are false, considering that they did not have enough evidence to make a case. What we should do, when presented with a lack of evidence, is remain neutral, and admit that we are unable to make a determination with the limited information given. We have no right to assume that someone is lying or telling the truth without a substantial amount of evidence that can corroborate such a claim. This standard protects both the accused and the accuser.

Notice, too, that the study reported that 2 to 10% of the accusations that were reported to the police were false. This means we aren’t even taking into account any accusation which is made outside of the legal system. Amber Heard, for example, was found guilty of defamation because the jury determined she had falsely represented herself as a victim of domestic abuse. This was a civil case, as Heard never pressed criminal charges against Depp. You could imagine why someone who is making false accusations against someone wouldn’t want to do so within a system that involves investigation and potential legal consequences.

As a result, these statistics do not take into account the many instances of false accusations that are made against people publicly but not legally. Someone can destroy someone’s entire reputation and future by creating public smear campaigns against them while avoiding having to demonstrate the validity of these claims in a court of law. In the Depp v Heard case, everyone assumed that Depp was guilty for several years, without any discernible evidence to support this belief. In the context of Title IX policy on college campuses, accused students would be tried in kangaroo courts that were headed by Title IX advisors with conflicts of interest, denied their right to due process while their accuser did not have to face cross-examination or even prove that it happened beyond a reasonable doubt. This resulted in innocent people being expelled and their records being permanently tainted based on hearsay.

Just as genuine victims don’t want to be imprisoned for coming forward against their abuser (being falsely accused of making false accusations), so too should we be fearful of wrongfully punishing an innocent person. The truth is, we have no idea what the actual number of false allegations is, but we can safely say that we know the minimum amount, which ranges far above 2%. It’s only when we can demonstrate that a person has intentionally and or maliciously manipulated events to frame someone that we can be sure that an accusation was false. In the vast majority of cases, we can’t make a determination either way.

Hypocrisy, Manifest

The lack of concern for men who could face false accusations is glaringly absent in the same portion of the population who are rightfully concerned about the false imprisonment of black men; or, for that matter, falsely executing an innocent person, especially based on immutable characteristics. What about when a police officer unjustifiably shoots an unarmed person, claiming that they acted with aggression? You can probably see that at the heart of all these matters, is, crucially, the truth. It even matters to the very people who champion the 'believe all women' movement, albeit, in different ways. We all have our biases and can be swept up in harmful practices when we let our political ideology think for us.

Many with left-wing sympathies championed the passage of the CAREN Act (also referred to as the Karen Act) in San Francisco, which was passed to punish making racially-biased 911 calls in 2020. After a few viral videos of so-called “Karens” throwing public temper tantrums over arbitrary grievances with the receiver of the temper tantrum disproportionately appearing to be black, people were getting fed up with seeing privileged white women waste police resources and jeopardize the safety of innocent people over non-crimes. The public response to the passage of the CAREN Act was overwhelmingly positive.

You shouldn’t be able to get away with racial profiling and making false accusations. At least, that’s what the sentiment was when it came to calling the police in those instances. When it comes to a touchy subject like sexual assault or abuse, however, people lose their ability to remain rational. The instinct to protect survivors is understandable. Certainly, no one wants a true victim of abuse or assault to be denied justice. What everyone is unbelievably unconcerned with, however, is the fact that innocent people do get burned. Even with the artificially deflated numbers of 2% that feminists like to cite as being no big deal — that’s still far too many people. How many are feminists comfortable with burning at the stake and chalking it up to collateral damage in the name of the greater good of believing women?

When it came to the reasoning for the passage of the CAREN Act, Shamann Walton, who introduced the legislation said “We don’t want what happened to Emmett Till in 1955, or the long history of false accusations of black men and boys in this country, due to weaponizing law enforcement, to threaten, terrorize, and sometimes even kill them, to ever happen again.” If you can’t remember what happened to Emmett Till, let me refresh your memory. Till, a 14-year-old black boy living in the American South in 1955 was accused of whistling at a white woman for which he faced a public lynching by a group of white men.

He was brutally beaten, shot in the face, and his dead body was thrown into a river, all based on a rumor that he whistled at a white woman. This horrific act of cruelty sparked national outrage and inspired many of the brave acts that pioneered the civil rights movement. Emmett Till’s murder was a result of racial animosity that had bubbled over in the segregated South and as a result of that racism and hatred, Till was just collateral damage to them. This is what happens when you let people go down for crimes they didn’t commit - when you allow a type of lynching to exist in the public sphere without knowing one way or the other, what actually happened and chalking up the consequences to being collateral damage.

The Societal Lack of Empathy for Men

We’re constantly inundated with messages about toxic masculinity and how we need to teach young boys, especially our sons, not to rape. However, when it comes to toxic femininity, it’s not only absent from the conversation, it’s outright heresy to suggest that women are capable of nefarious actions such as making false claims. We know a minority of men are predatory and commit heinous acts, but to say the same about women is almost prohibited. Women prey on men in a fundamentally different way than men prey on women. Men tend to use their biological advantages of strength, size, and testosterone to act aggressively; in the worst cases, committing acts of violence or sexual assault. We understand this to be a toxic expression of masculinity. However, women display toxic femininity by using their perceived delicate vulnerability as a weapon against wrongly accused men. By playing into stereotypes of women being the smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable sex, people instinctively feel a need to protect them. This enables a minority of predatory women to weaponize their femininity in toxic ways — namely, by making false accusations or even by committing violence against men because of the perceived lesser risk of serious harm that they can inflict. As a result, we as a society, find it difficult to empathize with men.

More broadly, men are not seen as victims, almost ever. There’s a reason why we say “save the women and children” and that’s because men are seen as disposable. We aren’t fighting for men who make up 77% of suicides and who make up 93% of the prison population. Men are significantly more likely to be victims of all violent crimes besides sexual crimes and they make up 80% of global homicide victims. They’re less likely to graduate from high school or obtain a college degree. Women overwhelmingly win custody over children and it’s only legal to genitally mutilate men after birth. Only men are required to sign up for the draft, they make up 92% of workplace fatalities, and they even die five years sooner than women. Men are more likely to suffer from substance abuse issues, whether it be drugs or alcohol.

Why would we help them when we’re constantly being told that they don’t need help? They’re the ominous force behind every facet of society that’s holding women back if you subscribe to feminist social theories like the existence of patriarchy in the United States. Frankly, no one cares that they’re getting left behind, falsely accused, or even falsely imprisoned. Likewise, they have no empathy for Johnny Depp.

Final Thoughts

If we’re going to teach young boys not to rape or hit women because they should respect them, then we ought to teach women not to make false allegations because they should have respect for the truth. The fact that this is a controversial statement is all you need to know about the state of our public discourse right now. Promoting myths like the notion that false accusations barely exist has far-reaching consequences, including for police and social workers who are trained to respond to serious allegations.

These myths can pressure the legal system into accepting lower standards of proof for convictions, leading to legally sanctioned modern-day witch trials. A false accusation does not disappear after it’s uttered — it follows someone for the rest of their lives and continues to inflict harm each day that they are reminded they have been accused. Johnny Depp will never escape the allegations that follow him, even after being vindicated in court. This happening to even one person is far too many and that is the weight of consideration that false allegations ought to be dealt with.