Posted on 03/04/2015 4:50:35 AM PST by Kaslin
A new documentary calls colleges like Harvard and Notre Dame "The Hunting Ground," where rapists prey on women. A bipartisan group of senators demand new rules to "curb campus sexual assaults."
Apparently, new laws are needed because at colleges, sexual assault is "epidemic." Rape is so common that there is a "rape culture."
I hear that a lot.
It is utter exaggeration. Fortunately, AEI scholar Christina Hoff Sommers is around to reveal the truth.
"This idea of a rape culture was built on false statistics and twisted theories about toxic masculinity," she says.
No one denies that some men, especially when drunk, get violent and abusive. I saw nasty behavior when I was in college, and I assume there are places worse than Princeton.
Sommers says, "I always make clear, rape is a very serious problem, (but) if you look at the best data ... it is not an epidemic. And we do not have a rape culture."
The difference is not just numbers, she says. "Rape culture means everything in society is reinforcing (rape) and making it seem a legitimate thing to do. Of course that's not true."
The media love crisis, and hyping sexual assault is a good way to get attention.
Recently, a Rolling Stone article said that men routinely assault women at the University of Virginia. It told a frightening story, based on one witness, of gang rape in a frat house that left the victim's friends completely uninterested, since assault is so routine.
The article got lots of attention. Then completely fell apart.
"It proved to be a sort of gothic fantasy, a male-demonizing fantasy," says Sommers. "It was absurd."
In much American media, a rape story is "too good to check." The Rolling Stone author admits she wanted to believe. She barely fact-checked the claims made by her source. Her source's story fit the reporter's own "rape culture" narrative. She interviewed students at many campuses, waiting for the rape story she wanted to hear.
The Rolling Stone story sounded extraordinary from the beginning. "But for several days, people in the media just believed it, and publicized it, and anguished over it," says Sommers. To doubt was taboo. "The hysteria around campus assault, the false information has been building for so long," warns Sommers, "people are willing to believe anything."
President Obama added to the misinformation by pandering to the feminist victim lobby, creating a "sex abuse task force" and repeating a widely quoted -- yet obviously absurd -- rape statistic: "It is estimated that one in five women on college campuses has been sexually assaulted during their time there. One in five!"
Yes, Mr. President, we hear that a lot.
But it's a lie.
At allegedly horrible University of Virginia, where Rolling Stone said assault was routine, 46 sexual offenses were reported per thousand students. That's 46 too many, but for "one in five" to be true, it would have to be 200.
Admittedly, many victims of assault fear going public, so the UVA number may be higher than 46. Nevertheless, one in five just isn't plausible.
"The figure is closer to one in 50," says Sommers of colleges overall.
Sexual assault is serious stuff. Activists trivialize it by asking survey questions like "Did you ever receive unwanted sexual contact while drunk?" and counting "yes" answers as assaults. "The CDC did a study," recounts Sommers. "They called it sexual violence if you said yes (to the question) 'Has anyone ever pressured you to have sex by telling you tales, or making you feel guilty?' That counted as violence."
It's not nice to pressure someone. But people do that. That's different from violence, isn't it? If we forget the difference between violent and non-violent conduct, no one is safe. If we pretend everyone is guilty instead of a few real criminals, rapists win. No longer are they a dangerous group of very bad people, they're just -- men.
That's no victory for women. Or anyone.
At a certain private school, which shall go unnamed, there is pressure on the girls thusly: If you are invited to go to a school dance by a boy who attends the school you HAVE to say yes. A couple of others and I said, the hell. Where would you draw that line? If the jerk wants to kiss you, you have to? Because he goes to your school? Bullcrap. If he wants to paw you, etc. And here is how it is implemented, if a girl does turn a guy down for a dance, the girl is shunned for not doing it the (name of school) way. Not universally shunned, but by enough idiot students that don’t get it. Teachers (a coach) in the know has taken up for one particular shunee and encouraged the girls to support the shunee.
Lesson: all you who are supportive about getting your kids into non-public schools, there are still undercurrents of wrong you have to watch for. There is no haven. It is a tightrope anywhere you go.
They are still on this “college rape” theme?
How do we manage to let them get away with this?
Ping for later reading.
Brick and mortar universities are dinosaurs.
How many of us have visited a campus in recent years? I have. When 14 of 15 students are female there is at least one problem. No doubt this draws Peres like flies to The Klown.
where on earth is there a school that has a rule that you “have to go to a dance if a boy asks you”
That right there is ridiculous enough to doubt the credibility of the rest of the story.
Having been a teenage boy I can guarantee there is NO PLACE where a girl in the USA would not laugh in the face of someone asking her to a dance and insisting she had to go with him because it was a rule.
I would have used that line if it worked
And college rapes being closer to 1 in 50? more likely 1 in 500 OR 1 in 5000. I doubt there are 2 rapes each year on every campus.
Pervs. Not Peres. Damn IPad.
Imagine my incredulity when faced with it.
Raping culture?
Go to any Muslim country or black run South Africa you liberal not.
To clarify, it is something the students came up with and are enforcing, it is not a published rule of the administration.
In your scenario, wouldn't "going to the dance" be the place where the line would be drawn?
Yes, but I am an adult, not a 15 year old who might extrapolate.......
Well, one solution would be for the Ivys to go back to the way they were before the 1970s: there were virtually no reported rapes on campuses before that time...
If rape is such a danger on college campi, then why do liberals feel it is mandatory for every little skull full of mush to go there?
Why would I send a teenage child off to a place where it’s nearly guaranteed that she is going to get raped? And pay handsomely for the privilege to do so?
If rapists were pilloried in the town common, rapes would drop a lot.
Professional feminists are mostly dykes who think all heterosexual sex is rape.
But we got to have gender neutral bathrooms and islamofascists parading little girls under a veil...
Liberals have their preacher heads up their a$$e$
Feminists are the “angry sex” addicts
“If you are invited to go to a school dance by a boy who attends the school you HAVE to say yes. “
==
I don’t believe that.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.