Let’s start with a look at Fran O’Sullivan’s muddled contribution to the Strauss-Kahn affair. What appeared to be her main argument was a valid one but came out only in her closing paragraphs: Strauss-Kahn, one of the most influential people in world finances, had been calling to replace the US dollar as the world currency standard. That threatened many forces in the US and elsewhere and gave them huge motive to set up Ms Diallo to entrap him and then to make false allegations of sexual abuse. But before O’Sullivan allowed herself to utter such sensible considerations, she first felt it necessary to spout out irrational feminist ideas, perhaps to avoid being seen as betraying feminist ideology. She quoted and supported Mario Almonte’s claim that dismissing these charges implied it’s illegal to rape honest women but it’s okay to rape a woman who has credibility issues. This claim of course totally ignores the possibility that rape allegations might be false. But it is also invalid; nobody anywhere implied that it’s ok to rape any woman. When allegations are made someone has to decide whether they meet the criteria to be accepted as true. In the absence of good corroborating evidence, people will find it difficult to get others to believe them when they have previously been found falsely to allege gang rape by soldiers, to lie in an attempt to obtain asylum, to defraud on taxes and through welfare cheating, and to have laundered large amounts of money through bank accounts. Yes, sad but true, someone like that will need to provide fairly solid evidence to have any claim they make believed.

O’Sullivan then continues the same irrational line by asking if the dropped charges meant that only a person of blameless personal excellence can call rape against a very powerful person. Truth is Fran, any woman can call rape against any man and her allegations, even in the absence of any shred of corroborating evidence, will be taken seriously and can be sufficient to have a man charged, imprisoned on remand, found guilty at trial and sentenced to longer imprisonment than if he had murdered someone. Few other alleged crimes could ever get past deposition hearings simply on the basis of uncorroborated allegations, but sexual allegations are a special exception.

Then O’Sullivan further embellished the NZ legend of Louise Nicholas by claiming that a policeman did all he could to obstruct the course of justice at her two first trials. I don’t think that’s correct. A policeman certainly did not proceed initially on the basis of Nicholas’ allegations, but I don’t think anyone was found to have obstructed justice during her trials. She was unable to convince several juries beyond reasonable doubt that a particular policeman had offended sexually against her, because there was equally good evidence she had participated willingly in the sexual activities concerned.

And the solution to the credibility problem bemoaned by O’Sullivan, Almonte and others skilled in the art of feminist ‘reasoning’? Obviously that we should all believe anything any woman says regardless of her history of untrustworthiness. Yes, the feminists would like that. Men are alreay sitting ducks for unscrupulous women in this regard, as Strauss-Kahn was for Ms Diallo. Although charges were dropped, he has already been punished big time. It is likely she will have a nice, fat wad of money placed in her secret bank account somewhere, but even if that isn’t so, royalties from interviews by women’s magazines and other media were probably well in her sights when she realized she was to clean the room of this very famous man who already had a reputation for being pushy in his extramarital sexual exploits. Now if only our laws were fair towards women and simply accepted their word in all cases, then Strauss-Kahn would get what he, like all men, deserves. Come to think of it, why not simply dispose of all that unnecessary, expensive Court inconvenience and simply put men in prison for many years simply and immediately on any woman’s command?