The Daily Mail and its constant ‘cry rape’ stories

Alison Clarke is making a plea to the Daily Mail to stop featuring stories about false rape claims.

So, this is a plea to the Mail. Yes, we know that women make up stories about sexual assault. But – and please note this – they are very few and far between.

The fact is that at least 50,000 women are raped every year in the UK, but only a tiny percentage result in convictions of the rapist.

She’s not the only one. A while back I wrote about the way that papers like the Mail report rape cases – nearly every time it will be case where ‘an innocent man’s life has been ruined’ or ‘a woman made sickening claims in a revenge attack on her ex’ or some such tale.
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Girls need real role models

Last year I read a piece by Polly Toynbee about ‘girlification’ and its part in the backlash against feminism. By ‘girlification’ she means the relentless way young girls are targeted from the minute they’re born with pink toys, pink clothes, pink accessories, princesses, Barbies, Bratz, makeup and heels. The way they’re encouraged to judge each other on the way their look and how much they weigh and pick at ‘flaws’ in their own appearances from a progressively younger age.

As I don’t have children of my own I don’t get year-round exposure to this sort of thing but you can’t fail to miss it at Christmas, when the television is filled with adverts for the year’s ‘must-have’ toys and gadgets. Boys get to be superheroes, pirates and soldiers, work with their hands and go on adventures. Girls get to be princesses and learn to be ‘just like mum’ by playing with toy kitchens and home appliances.
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