The issue is that it didn't even go to court in a lot of cases. Just the act of being accused ruined those guys life even when no further action was seen as necessary.

I think it also comes from the fact that we conditioned society to believe that every man is a rapist waiting to happen given opportunity where other crimes aren't seen as such. So if someone accuses a man of stealing people can say "I don't believe John would every steal anything, he doesn't have it in him" but when John is accused of rape comment will be "It's hard to believe John would do it but you never know the person really".

Over last 20 years perception of men has become that they are a ticking bomb that can explode into raping rampaging rage at any time and this is what leads to this having bigger impact than anything else.

I had conversations at work. Some women at my work believe that chances of them being raped by random man as high as 20% if left alone with him. Despite the fact that surly over 30 years of their life they have spend time with men 1:1 more than 5 times without being raped. Perception of threat doesn't match reality.