Also: ‘Shut Up, Because Rape’

Posted on | December 23, 2014 | 47 Comments

You may wonder why feminists never stop writing about rape.
The answer is simple: Minus rape, feminism stands exposed as a trivial lists of complaints — women not “empowered” enough in TV shows, Liz Lemon selling out the sisterhood on 30 Rock, Negative Body Image You Guys in the media, etc.
Minus rape, feminism is rather too obviously a list of trivial complaints by comfortable yet hysterical semi-affluent white women.

That quote is so good, I’m tempted to let it stand without further comment, but having spent the past six months up to my neck in radical feminism, naturally I must add more. To understand what is happening — what is driving the feminist “rape culture” mania — we must go back to the “SlutWalk” movement. That started in Toronto in February 2011, when two police officers were giving a presentation on crime prevention at York University. During that presentation, one of the officers, Constable Michael Sanguinetti, made this remark: “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Sanguinetti later apologized for that remark, but by then Toronto’s feminists had already organized the first SlutWalk, a protest that was quickly replicated across the United States, and which has since become an annual event in many cities. The ostensible message of these protests — although the message sometimes gets obscured — is that “no means no,” and that a woman’s behavior (how she dresses, how much she drinks) should never be interpreted to mean she is “asking for it.”

No educated person needs to be told this.

This is what offends conservatives about feminism’s “rape culture” discourse, really. We are educated people — intelligent, civilized, literate, humane — and we therefore resent the implication that, without feminists to tutor us, we’d all be brutally savaging women like the Red Army on its march toward Berlin in 1945. Or like Bill Cosby.

Feminism’s intellectual hegemony within academia, however, protects its young disciples from encountering informed criticism of their belief system, and one of feminism’s core beliefs is that the world is in desperate need of feminist enlightenment. The cult of “consciousness raising” (an idea borrowed from Communist Party doctrine, thanks to “Red Diaper babies” Anne Forer and Kathie Amatniek) means that every college sophomore who has taken a couple of Women’s Studies classes believes she possesses a moral and intellectual superiority that qualifies her to tutor us about how women are oppressed by the patriarchy.

This attitude of arrogant condescension, this presumption that feminists possess a sort of gnosis that endows them with superior insight, is what makes them so obnoxious when communicating in their accustomed modes — the Lecture, the Screed and the Rant.

One notices that feminists seldom debate or engage in dialogue with their critics. We may take this as evidence that feminist rhetoric and ideology cannot withstand careful scrutiny. On Nov. 18 (coincidentally, the day before Rolling Stone published its botched UVA rape story) a rare exception to this rule occurred when libertarian Wendy McElroy and feminist Jessica Valenti appeared in a forum at Brown University to debate the question, “How Should Colleges Handle Sexual Assault?”

Unfortunately (but predictably) that event was preceded by angry protests from feminists at Brown University who seem to have the idea that disagreeing with feminism is a hate crime:

President Christina Paxson sent out a community-wide email Friday publicizing her personal disagreement with McElroy’s widely reported assertion that rape culture does not exist in the United States and cannot be used to explain individual incidents of sexual assault. . . .
Some students protested the event or attended alternatives, such as a University-organized presentation by Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Lindsay Orchowski, titled “Research on Rape Culture.”

A quick glance at Professor Orchowski’s faculty page reveals that she received her Ph.D. in 2009 and is a legitimate expert:

Orchowski, L.M., Untied, A.S. & Gidycz, C.A. (2013). Social reactions to disclosure of sexual victimization and adjustment among survivors of sexual assault. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28 (10), 2005-2023.
Shronbrun, Y.C., Orchowski, L.M & Spillane, N. (2013). Intimate partner violence and use of alcohol and drug treatment services among a national sample. Addictive Disorders & Their Treatment, 12(2), 58-66.
Orchowski, L.M., Mastroleo, N.R., & Borsari, B. (2012). Correlates of alcohol-related regretted sex among college students. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 26, 782-790.
Orchowski, L. M., United, A.S., Gidycz, C. A. (2012). Reducing risk for sexual victimization: An analysis of the perceived socio-emotional consequences of self-protective behaviors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27 (9), 1733-1752.
Orchowski, L.M., Creech, S., Reddi, M., Capezza, N., & Ratcliff, T. (2012). College women’s perceived risk to experience sexual victimization: A prospective analysis. Violence and Victims, 27 (2), 194-214.
Orchowski, L.M. & Gidycz, C.A. (2012). To whom do college women confide following sexual assault? A prospective study of predictors of sexual assault disclosure and social reactions. Violence Against Women, 18 (3), 264-288.
Orchowski, L.M. & Johnston, J. (2012). Efficacy of group treatments for alcohol use disorders. Current Drug Abuse Reviews, 5 (2), 148-157.
Orchowski, L.M., & Barnett, N.P. (2012). Alcohol related sexual consequences during the transition from high school to college. Addictive Behaviors, 37 (3), 256-263.
Gidycz, C.A., Orchowski, L.M., & Berkowitz, A. (2011). An evaluation of a social norms and bystander intervention to prevent sexual aggression among college men. Violence Against Women, 17 (6), 720-742.
Orchowski, L.M., Castelino, P., Ng, H.M., Cosio, D. & Heaton, J.A. (2011). Design and implementation of a Counselor-in-Residence program. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 25, 1-18.
Gidycz, C.A., Warkentin, J.B. Orchowski, L.M., & Edwards, K. (2011). College men’s perceived likelihood to perpetrate sexual aggression. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 20, 1-20.
Orchowski, L.M. Meyer, D.H, & Gidycz, C.A. (2009). College women’s likelihood to report unwanted sexual victimization to campus agencies: Trends and correlates. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 18 (8), 839-858.
Orchowski, L.M., Uhlin, B., Probst, D.R., Edwards, K., & Anderson, T.M. (2009). An assimilation analysis of clinician-assisted emotional disclosure therapy with survivors of intimate partner sexual assault. Psychotherapy Research, 19(3), 293-311.
Gidycz, C.A., Orchowski, L.M., King, C. & Rich, C. (2008). Sexual victimization and health-risk behaviors: A prospective analysis of college women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 23(6), 744-763.
Orchowski, L.M., Gidycz, C.A., & Raffle, H. (2008). Evaluation of a sexual assault risk reduction and self-defense program: A prospective analysis of a revised protocol. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32(2), 204-218.
Gidycz, C.A., Warkentin, J.B., Orchowski, L.M. (2007). Predictors of perpetration of physical, verbal and sexual violence: A prospective analysis of college men. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 8(2), 79-94.
Gidycz, C.A., Rich, C.L., Orchowski, L.M., King, C. Miller, A. (2006). The evaluation of a sexual assault self-defense and risk-reduction program for college women: A prospective study. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30(2), 173-186.

Stipulating her expertise on sexual assault among college students, what does Professor Orchowski have to teach us about “rape culture”?

Lecturing to about 70 community members Tuesday afternoon, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Lindsay Orchowski discussed the prevalence of a rape culture perpetuated by popular media. Jokes, graphic images and advertisements all “make (sexual assault) seem normal,” she said. “People believe rape is inevitable.” . . .
Research on assault characteristics has revealed that about half of reported incidents involve alcohol, Orchowski said. Many sexual assault perpetrators are repeat offenders — though perpetrators comprise a “heterogeneous group,” they are often angry, “hypermasculine” and see acquiring sexual partners “as a game,” she said, adding research also shows that victims often know their offenders, and victims tell others about assaults about half of the time.
Orchowski said only about 20 percent of sexual assault victims correctly labeled their assaults as “rape,” often reporting them as results of miscommunication or bad dates.
Only about 1 percent of assaults are reported to the police, which means researchers may be working with statistics that do not accurately reflect the prevalence of assault, she said. . . .
“Rape myths,” such as blaming alcohol or the victim for assaults, often contribute to perpetrators not considering themselves to be rapists, Orchowski said. “There is a misperception that false accusation is common,” she added. Across studies, only 5 to 7 percent of accusations are false, Orchowski said.

You can read the rest of that, but perhaps you already see how Professor Orchowski’s data contradict her own rhetoric. If (a) half of reported sexual assaults involve alcohol, and (b) many assaults are perpetrated by repeat offenders, it logically follows that the prevalence of rape on campus can be reduced by (c) measures targeted at reducing underage alcohol use — because a substantial majority of college students are under age 21 — and (d) the criminal prosecution of rapists, because it is likely that the unprosecuted rapist will repeat his crimes.

This is exactly what conservatives keep saying: Sexual assault on college campuses — while not the “epidemic” feminists claim — is more common than it would be if administrators were willing to get serious about stopping the binge drinking and promiscuous “hookup culture” that provide the context within which these incidents typically occur. Most importantly, there must be an end to the common practice of university administrators treating rape as a violation of campus disciplinary procedures rather than prosecuting rape as a felony.

(Notice how she says “only 5 to 7 percent of accusations are false”? As though a 1-in-14 chance of an innocent man being falsely accused of rape were a trivial possibility we can safely ignore?)

Yet we see that Professor Orchowski, while ignoring the implications of her own research data in terms of actually preventing rape on campus, ventures into the mystic realm of feminist gnosis. How is it that “popular media” foster “rape culture”? Assuming that all students are exposed to these jokes and images, why is it that most males do not become rapists and most females do not become rape victims? Maybe this was explained by Professor Orchowski during her lecture and the Brown Daily Herald reporter omitted the explanation. Also, it would have been nice if someone would have asked Professor Orchowski to explain this:

“Orchowski said only about 20 percent of
sexual assault victims correctly labeled
their assaults as ‘rape,’ often reporting them
as results of miscommunication or bad dates.”

Having re-read that sentence several times, I can scarcely believe that a Ph.D. would actually contend that 80 percent of rape victims don’t even realize that they have been raped. In other words, the expert is substituting her definition of “rape” for the victim’s description of her own experience. Without knowledge of the specific circumstance of any particular incident, it’s impossible to know why Professor Orchowski would justify this definitional substitution.

What this appears to show, however, is how feminists are using this “rape culture” discourse as a way to re-define rape, to create an elastic definition of “sexual assault” that could include any form of male sexual behavior to which any female objects. This project should frighten everyone who cares about the rule of law, as it betrays a reckless disregard for truth as well as a contempt for due process rights that has fostered a climate of anti-male witch-hunting on campus. Ultimately, as I perceived when I covered the 2013 D.C. “SlutWalk” protest, this is about silencing feminism’s critics: “Shut up, because rape.”

Feminists have spent more than four decades acquiring power — institutional authority — within elite culture and have become arrogantly contemptuous of opposition to their anti-male/anti-heterosexual ideology. We are not ignorant of their rhetorical methods.

“From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. . . .
“Women are trained to be rape victims. To simply learn the word ‘rape’ is to take instruction in the power relationship between males and females. . . .
“Red Riding Hood is a parable of rape. There are frightening male figures abroad in the woods . . . and females are helpless before them. . . .
“There is good reason for men to hold tenaciously to the notion that ‘All women want to be raped.’ Because rape is an act that men do in the name of their masculinity, it is in their interest to believe that women also want rape done, in the name of femininity. . . . This belief is more than arrogant insensitivity; it is a belief in the supreme rightness of male power.”
— Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (1975)

Does anyone really believe this? Does Professor Orchowski believe it?

If we don’t believe this — if we doubt that rape is a sort of collective terrorism practiced on behalf of all men against all women, as an expression of “the supreme rightness of male power” — are we permitted to express our disagreement? No, we are not — not on any university campus in America in the 21st century.

Susan Brownmiller’s claims about rape have been accepted as gospel among feminists for the past four decades, and it is now impossible for anyone to contest her claims without being accused of misogyny and branded a “rape apologist.” The excerpts of Against Our Will quoted above were actually quoted from The Essential Feminist Reader, edited by Professor Estelle B. Freedman. (“She has taught at Stanford University since 1976 and is a co-founder of the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.”) Professor Freedman’s anthology is often assigned as a principal textbook or supplementary text in introductory Women’s Studies courses, so that Brownmiller’s rape doctrine can be said to enjoy the status of Official Feminist Truth, and feminists are fanatically committed to the defense of this ideology.

There is a good reason, you see, why Wendy McElroy’s appearance on the Brown University campus inspired the university’s president to issue a “community-wide email . . . publicizing her personal disagreement” with McElroy. Universities in 21st-century America are committed to upholding feminist ideology, which is defended by such totalitarian tactics as demonizing critics, disrupting lectures or, most commonly, by preventing critics of feminism from speaking anywhere on campus. You may wonder, exactly what is Wendy McElroy’s thoughtcrime?

McElroy used personal experience to lay the groundwork for an argument that places more emphasis on individual, rather than cultural, explanations of rape.
“I was raped and brutally so . . . I did not blame society. I did not blame the culture. I blamed the man who raped me,” McElroy said. . . .
McElroy said rape culture exists in places like parts of Afghanistan where “women are married against their will” and “murdered for men’s honor” but not in North America, where “rape is a crime that’s severely punished.”
What’s more, those who politicize rape and assert the existence of rape culture imply that all men are guilty or that the accused do not deserve due process, McElroy said.
It is unacceptable that men can now be disciplined for rape through college hearings based on a preponderance of evidence rather than the traditional criminal justice standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. “Let’s not build justice for women on injustice for men,” McElroy said, closing her talk.

Obviously, no elite university can permit its students to be exposed to dangerous ideas like individual responsibility.

Feminists don’t want “equality.” They want uncontested power.

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism, Sex Trouble

Comments

47 Responses to “Also: ‘Shut Up, Because Rape’”

dicentra
December 23rd, 2014 @ 6:51 pm

“Rape culture” causes rapes, but mobs calling for dead cops had nothing to do with the murders of Ramos and Liu.

Got it.
gastorgrab
December 23rd, 2014 @ 7:18 pm

“There is good reason for men to hold tenaciously to the notion that ‘All women want to be raped.’ Because rape is….”

—-

Have you noticed that in one breath feminists will claim that they don’t understand the thinking of males, and in the next they’ll tell you exactly what they believe men are thinking?

So which is it?
arcadius
December 23rd, 2014 @ 7:21 pm

“Lalalala can’t hear you shut up misogynist”
gastorgrab
December 23rd, 2014 @ 7:22 pm

All liberal women don’t want to be raped, but they all want the people around them to think they are victims …… of something ……. anything.

‘Victimhood’ is a Progressive status achievement. To be a real victim is to exist at the highest level of Liberal insight. It allows one to speak with the highest ‘moral authority’ on a social subject.

It’s a form of Munchhausen syndrome.
Fail Burton
December 23rd, 2014 @ 7:22 pm

Probably the greatest gift of McCain on this issue is in explaining how the sociopathic and phobic origins of gender feminism have come to be sieved and dumbed down by modern pop culture feminists so the hatred of it is intact but the why of it is not.

Radical gender feminism has been so seamlessly blended with and mainstreamed into modern political thought that many well-meaning so-called “allies” are completely unaware of the origins of the very ideology they promote. To the merely politically correct, privilege and gender-fluidity issues are not seen as coming from their true source such as feminists like Audre Lorde, Kate Millett, Judith Butler, Charlotte Bunch, or Simone de Beauvoir. Instead they go from gender feminist origins through a less threatening lazy sieve of a “feminist and anti-racism activist” like Peggy McIntosh, hazily and falsely seen as emerging from the civil and equal rights women’s movement and from simple observation.

From there, Beauvoir to McIntosh continues on to something like “On Racism and White Privilege” at a Southern Poverty Law Center “Teaching Tolerance” project site. There, the very similar and close to plagiarized wording from Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (1988) is used but uncredited, and McIntosh’s name nowhere to be found, so that even the tamer end of the gender feminist origins of white privilege disappear. That is the very definition of mainstreaming, and in this case mainstreaming hate speech, ironically at an organization dedicated to opposing hate speech. The text of this post (excerpted from a book) is spread all over the internet.

Of course this is not true in core feminist academics, but one cannot sell that to the general public. The Anita Sarkeesian you see on the Colbert Show is not the one advocating Butlerian terms on her Twitter feed like “performed” when it comes to gender and “toxic masculinity.”
robertstacymccain
December 23rd, 2014 @ 7:30 pm

This is a tactic called “attributing motive,” which is a type of psychological projection.

For example, a woman gets a promotion at work and a disgruntled co-worker, who thinks this is unfair, tells people that the woman was promoted because she’s having sex with the boss.

In other words, if something happens we don’t like, we may wish to blame it on a malign motive, which makes it seem that we are victims of bad people when (as the case may be) it’s just bad luck or, perhaps, our own fault.

The idea that rape happens because men, generally, want rape to happen, because the prevalence of rape helps maintain “male supremacy,” is exactly this kind of rationalization. By exaggerating the malice of males, the feminist makes herself seem more heroic.
Fail Burton
December 23rd, 2014 @ 7:32 pm

Anita Sarkeesian claims showing women in Daisy Dukes and tank tops in video games turns us into raping juvenile delinquents because of unhealthy role models. For some reason that mechanism stalls when it comes to direct hate speech, racial smears and sexual scapegoating by Sarkeesian herself.

Sarkeesian is a one-woman Keefauver Committee with her own version of Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent. Sarkeesian’s version of the Comics Code Authority is for white straight men to stop acting like white straight men and all will be well. One can easily imagine that means no Playboy, and basically gutting pop culture entertainment as we know it, including all art and literature.

The idea these vile people will stop at video-gaming and science fiction is absurd. They propose a blanketing totalitarian society based on their sad phobias of men.
gastorgrab
December 23rd, 2014 @ 7:35 pm

Argumentum ad hominem. (shoot the messenger)
Fail Burton
December 23rd, 2014 @ 8:19 pm

Here is the other shoe:

“The world is full of examples of radical departures from numerical homogeneity in representation that clearly have nothing at all to do with discrimination: Jews around the world are over-represented among those admitted into universities relative to their numbers in the general population even in countries that have official policies of discriminating against Jews. Asian Americans are also over-represented among U.S. college students but not because these colleges discriminate against non-Asians. American blacks are not prominent in sports because of anti-white discrimination.

“The fallaciousness of the idea that discrimination is proven by deviation from numerical homogeneity in representation cannot be over-emphasized. It crops up in almost every debate about ethnic or gender discrimination. When feminists, media commentators, and even many academics wish to prove that discrimination exists, their proof usually consists of presenting numbers that show departure from homogeneity. Such figures are selected when they serve the agenda of the commentator or advocate.” – Steven Plaut
Kirby McCain
December 23rd, 2014 @ 8:32 pm

All of that and Miriam Weeks aka Belle Knox is a feminist hero.
Jim R
December 23rd, 2014 @ 9:17 pm

The doublethink involved in all of this is staggering. As others have pointed out, women flock to universities despite the alleged fact that they’ve got an excellent chance of being raped there. Most of them want boyfriends and – eventually – husbands, which means dating potential (if not outright likely) rapists. They want to work at all the same jobs as men even though this means daily contact with men who apparently are constantly on the lookout for their chance to violate them. Presumably, they manage to have friendships with men even though they know that those men are slavering to drag them into a dark alley and satisfy their irresistable urges to rape.

When I think of it, women must be idiots for not clamoring to bring back convents where they can have some hope of safety from brutish men.

But…

Being a woman DOES have its… hazards. There are plenty of jerks in the world who don’t think twice about openly leering at a woman, catcalling, and pawing. A woman may well not be able to have a quiet drink or go dancing without being the object of (ahem) unwanted attention. And, let’s face it: we men are generally bigger and stronger than they are, so they are (to put it bluntly) at our mercy*. I understand why it can be easy for a woman to buy into some parts of the feminists’ hogwash. But to buy it hook, line and sinker requires a degree of credulity that should be enough to keep them locked away for their own good, lest somebody sell them a bridge in Brooklyn (at least!).

=====

(*) You’d better believe that my daughter will learn to handle a gun when she’s old enough!
RS
December 23rd, 2014 @ 9:32 pm

Up vote for the Estes Keefauver reference alone.
RS
December 23rd, 2014 @ 9:51 pm

It is ironic that Feminism was in the vanguard of the Sexual Revolution. Contraception, legalized abortion and such were touted as ushering in an era of freedom where women could finally behave like men, i.e. behave as promiscuously as they wished with no consequences. Yet, having obtained that “freedom,” they now wish avoid the responsibility which goes along with it. They do this by claiming “weakness” in the face of all men, which gives them the easy out when they confront their own bad decisions.

(I’m not going to bother with the obligatory disclaimers about acknowledging rape exists, it’s a crime, should be prosecuted and punished, etc. Feminists don’t listen to those anyway or don’t believe them if they hear them.)
Evi L. Bloggerlady
December 23rd, 2014 @ 10:05 pm

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–DOTIzuWE–/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/scadigdhrp7bvgstgvdr.jpg
Evi L. Bloggerlady
December 23rd, 2014 @ 10:06 pm

http://thedailybanter.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-12-at-8.24.42-PM.png
Adobe_Walls
December 23rd, 2014 @ 10:31 pm

Kudos for the Berlin 1945 reference.
So is the newly discovered crime of ”Manspreading” part of rape culture?
Adobe_Walls
December 23rd, 2014 @ 10:36 pm

It’s a testament to feminists tenacity that they remain so high in the ”victim status” pecking order. A groups place on that hierarchy is usually directly proportional to their propensity for violence which is why Muslims have been at the top for so long.
Fail Burton
December 23rd, 2014 @ 10:38 pm

Wrong feminism.
Daniel Freeman
December 23rd, 2014 @ 10:45 pm

That kitten is clearly unaware of its cis-cat privilege. We need to hold a consciousness raising of the struggles of trans-cats, and how they compare and contrast with the struggles of trans-dogs, in the context of the historical power relations of cis-cats versus cis-dogs. Down with meowsogyny! Smash the puppyarchy!
concern00
December 23rd, 2014 @ 11:41 pm

I believe it’s a crime to yell “fire” in a crowded cinema, if there isn’t a fire. It should be a crime to yell “rape” on a crowded campus, when there isn’t any rape.
Fail Burton
December 24th, 2014 @ 12:22 am

Or “duck down and shout, ‘Hey! Balloons!’ when there are none about.” Gender feminists are “obsessively balloonic.”
K-Bob
December 24th, 2014 @ 4:13 am

Many of us who are not leftists spend a lot of energy trying to explain to our port side cousins that evil is real. That evil exists in all classes, groups, or orders of man, and that it exists in all of those subgroups regardless of socioeconomic status, level of position inside government or out, religious fervor, skin color, political party, or any other kind of identifying markers one may choose.

When we tell them this is so, and that laws must be in place to discourage acts of evil, they tell us we’re racist, “phobic,” or full of hate. When we try to press for standards and social mores for society at large, because we know that temptation they ratchet up the invective and claim we are not enlightened or evolved. That we’re not “progressive.”

On the other hand, when thuggish protesters cause major destruction, assault innocent bystanders, and engage in looting, the left claims it’s not evil or lawlessness that drives the perpetrators. No, it’s the fault of people classified as “white” for the accident of being born to a skin-color group in the majority. The say, “No, it’s not evil.” That it’s an “understandable” reaction to such class division, and you’re a hater for suggesting otherwise.

And yet, they simultaneously declare that something as insidious as a #RapeCulture totally permeates or even dominates the society.

<Foxwothy_Mode>If you can build a life based on cognitive dissonance, moral equivalence as a tool of reason, and a desire to punish others for their success… youuu might be a leftist.</Foxworthy_Mode>
TM
December 24th, 2014 @ 5:04 am

Agreed, but what’s missing here in this largely male centric discussion about the female perception of rape culture is the difference between how women and men think and interpret information. Women, while very capable of thinking rationally, do not seem to do so at the same rate or level as men, or at least in the way that we men understand rational thought to occur.

So, think about what an apparently mysoginistic statement that is – that women don’t think on the same rational plane as men. The mere suggestion that women don’t think rationally in the same as men is generally understood to be a criticism of women, an effort to characterize them as inferior to men. Yet, at the same time, women tend to embrace the notion of 2 different psychological frameworks whenever men can be discounted as vulgar and base.

As such, the theory of rape culture exists because women believe men are psychologically different than women, but whenever the proposition of the difference in rational thinking is promoted, it’s quickly discounted with the assertion that women and men engage information equally.

So, with that in mind, the point of this post in response to yours, is that addressing the perception of rape culture with data driven analysis is somewhat futile.
TM
December 24th, 2014 @ 5:14 am

The double standard for many of these protest movements is beyond breathtaking. They stereotype the police and the courts for acting on stereotypes without flinching under the reality that they themselves are promoting stereotypes to support their assertions.

And, obviously, the entire rape culture myth is promoted through gross stereotyping.

Put another way, the same social justice warriors who believe women should fear any man in a dark and deserted parking garage would also immediately call a man a racist for exhibiting an ounce of fear in the presence of black man in the same situation.
K-Bob
December 24th, 2014 @ 5:53 am

That’s it, exactly.

And the funny thing is, Ann Coulter (yeah, I know) pointed out years ago that the only philosophical “principle” held by any leftist is the principle to “not be a hypocrite.”
Jim R
December 24th, 2014 @ 5:53 am

Women, while very capable of thinking rationally, do not seem to do so at the same rate or level as men, or at least in the way that we men understand rational thought to occur.

This is often a problem between me and my wife! Just the other day, I tried over and over and over to explain to her… um… er… But I digress.

😉

While I certainly agree that women process information differently than men do and they certainly communicate differently*, I think that most women can approach the “rape culture” in a data-driven, analytical way. Indeed, I think that the fact that most of them go to college, work with men, date men, &c. is a good indicator that they have done so and reached the conclusion that “rape culture” is so much bunk**. It’s only lefty women (and their lapdog male comrades) who refuse to look facts in the face. In extreme cases such as the typical Angry Womens Studies professor, I’d say that it’s less refusal and more willfully cultivated inability: much like a klansman who’s spent his whole life hating blacks and thinking them inferior beings with congenital criminal tendencies so that he’s incapable of seeing them as “normal people”, so the uber feminist has spent so long spouting hateful fantasies of rape and male privilege and oppression that she can’t see men for what we actually are.

=====

(*) I don’t know how many times I’ve had to explain to my wife that, no matter how hard I try, I really can’t read her mind. It does no good…

(**) That being said, I’d say that women – for very understandable reasons – are much more aware of rape than are most men. For us, it’s generally something to be deplored and revenged; for them, it’s a horrifying possibility.
Jim R
December 24th, 2014 @ 5:57 am

the same social justice warriors who believe women should fear any man in a dark and deserted parking garage would also immediately call a man a racist for exhibiting an ounce of fear in the presence of black man in the same situation.

I need to write this one down. Well said!
ACE OF SPADES: Why Feminists Are Obsessed With Rape: You may wonder why feminists never stop wri… | CRAGIN MEDIA
December 24th, 2014 @ 8:57 am

[…] Related thoughts here. “One notices that feminists seldom debate or engage in dialogue with their critics. We may take […]
Matthew W
December 24th, 2014 @ 9:35 am

Don’t leave abortion out of it too.

Also, it’s too bad that the feminist movement and leaders of such can’t see how much better it would be for them (and the rest of us) if
they attacked the false narrative of the UVA rape lie as the rest of us
have. The fewer times that someone “cries wolf,” the more likely it is that the next “rape story” will be believable and the truth!!!
Brad R
December 24th, 2014 @ 10:33 am

FYI, video of Wendy McElroy’s presentation at Brown University can be seen on YouTube: http://youtu.be/zdlVcjYYCbs
theoldsargesays
December 24th, 2014 @ 10:45 am

You see! Good things do come about when people are able to engage in calm reasoned discussions (without any leftists around).
Micha Elyi
December 24th, 2014 @ 1:05 pm

It’s the same feminism, honey. The number one feminist dogma is “No Matter What We Always Side With The Female”. Feminism is another form of the Tyranny of Relativism. Female wants sex then feminists defend sex, no matter what. Female regrets sex then feminists attack sex, no matter what.

Don’t expect that moral consistency is a virtue among feminists. That’s man-think.
Art Deco
December 24th, 2014 @ 1:07 pm

What Joan Didion said 40 years ago still applies: ‘feminism’ feeds off a desire to evade adult responsibility. Aspects of adult responsibility include a full understanding of one’s own agency, an understanding of the relationship between acts and consequences, and a capacity for introspection (including understanding the sources of one’s aggression and discipline at controlling it), These women grow ever more disoriented because their cosseted by academic institutions and journalistic outlets rather than having reality reflected back at them.
Critical Eye
December 24th, 2014 @ 3:13 pm

only 5 to 7 percent of accusations are false, Orchowski said.

If you look at the studies, it’s more like “In 5 to 7 percent of the cases, the alleged victim admits the accusation was false”. In the vast majority of cases, we just don’t know if an assault (much less an activity that meets the legal definition of rape) occurred. About 7% of reported rapes result in convictions; imagine the uproar if it was reported that “93% of reported rapes are false accusations”!
neshobanakni
December 24th, 2014 @ 7:29 pm

How much has your readership dropped since you became obsessed with this boring topic?
K-Bob
December 24th, 2014 @ 10:03 pm

Looks like you increased in by one. Well done.
K-Bob
December 24th, 2014 @ 10:06 pm

That’s one reason why I’m comfortable caucusing with conservatives, even though I’m not one. Conservatives don’t try to cover up the mistakes made by fellow travelers. (If anything, they tend to be hard as nails about it.)
K-Bob
December 24th, 2014 @ 10:19 pm

Both!
K-Bob
December 24th, 2014 @ 10:40 pm

Oh, geez. Not gonna look it up.
get2djnow
December 25th, 2014 @ 2:00 am

I am a Conservative and I can tell you that’s one reason. I’ll hammer the heck out of a hypocritical Conservative more than a progtard, because I expect better of Conservatives, and usually (I not a big fan of superlatives.) Conservatives deliver.
neshobanakni
December 26th, 2014 @ 4:08 pm

Today’s post on the subject is a lot more interesting. I just found myself typing “THEO” in the address bar less often since I knew what the topic would be – things about people I had no interest in. But today it’s Gamergate and trannies! The fun is back.
K-Bob
December 26th, 2014 @ 6:58 pm

Stacy’s an old-school newspaper guy. You don’t get the Sunday Funnies every day.
neshobanakni
December 26th, 2014 @ 7:57 pm

I know – I’ve been reading him for years, even before the website (My uncle used to get the Washington Times). Just never really commented ’til I started using Chrome.
K-Bob
December 27th, 2014 @ 5:16 am

+1 for the “theo” comment, BTW. I never put this site in my bookmarks because that’s all I have to type to get here.
FMJRA 2.0: Day Late & A Root Boy Slim Short : The Other McCain
December 28th, 2014 @ 8:15 pm

[…] Also: ‘Shut Up, Because Rape’ Cragin Media Batshit Crazy News […]
Obviously, You Need More Feminist Lectures From Miriam Mogilevsky : The Other McCain
December 29th, 2014 @ 3:40 pm

[…] Last week I remarked: […]
Tantumblogo
December 29th, 2014 @ 10:04 pm

RS-

You surely deserve accolades for your continuing investigations into radical Marxist lesbianism. Thank you.

Have you considered the validity of this “only 5-7% of rape allegations are false” meme? It sounds highly specious to me. What does that claim mean? How can anyone possibly know, given the difficulty of proving a negative? Does it mean 95% of rape cases that go to trial result in a guilty verdict? It is just too convenient a claim and plays such a critical role in feminist claims regarding “rape culture” – if women make false accusations regarding rape a higher percentage of the time, then the advance of misanthropic standards of “rape” would pose an untenable situation and grave threat to tens of millions of men. As you note, even 5% (and I have seen a wide variation in such claims) is a nightmare for the men affected and the rule of law, but if the real figure is more like 40%, 60%…..who knows?……that would seem to be a very critical thing to know. It would obliterate the credibility of feminist claims, for one. As you have said so many of these cases come down to he said, she said, it seems highly implausible that the rate of false accusations could be so low.

Would appreciate any info your research could provide.