People are quick to throw around guilt, once that's in the room your reputation will be sullied forever as everybody still has this nagging "Well, he could still have done it" thought.
Case in point: The German teacher Horst Arnold. In 2001 a female coworker accused him of having raped her during a break at school. He denied the charges and in 2002 he was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
He served his time and, due to a series of random events, in 2008 it came to light that the female coworker, who got him into jail, has a rather long history of lying and misrepresenting facts.
In 2011 he was declared innocent, but he was denied rehabilitation into his job as a teacher and any monetary compensation for the time spent in jail. He fought for this until 2012, when he was found dead on the street due to cardiac arrest.
I don't think it's cultural. Most men have an innate desire to protect women, and treat them with special favor. This was the historical way women were protected before they had voting rights. Now, they have both political power, and men still tend to give them the special favor they had before. So it leads to an imbalance in society
I would guess this is confounded by the difficulty of committing suicide in prison? (Attempts might be less confounded, but still somewhat.)
I'd actually tend to "yes", but it's probably impossible to answer. People react very different, and the prevalence of suicide is actually higher among rape victims than for people sentenced to long prison sentences.
But the real problem is: The penalty in your comparison would be for rape, whereas the accusation was just a failed attempt. Yes, that is usually harmful as well, but it's no longer comparable.