Posted on 04/11/2016 10:09:56 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
Are American college campuses “rape cultures?” Are they dangerous places where sexual assaults against women are happening at an alarming rate?
According to many gender activists, academics and politicians, the answer is yes. Here’s what the Vice-President of the United States, Joe Biden, said in 2014.
“We know the numbers: one in five of every one of those young women who is dropped off for that first day of school, before they finish school, will be assaulted, will be assaulted in her college years.”
Let’s take a closer look at the Vice President’s claim.
Rape is a horrific crime, and rapists are rightfully despised. We have strict laws against sexual assault that everyone wants to see enforced. But, while rape is certainly a very serious problem, there is simply no evidence of a national campus rape epidemic, and there’s certainly no evidence that sexual violence is a “cultural norm” in 21st century America. In fact, rates of rape in the US are very low and they’ve been declining for decades. Why would it be any different on a college campus? Where, then, does the 1 in 5 rate that Vice President Biden cites come from?
Well, it turns out it comes from a study conducted over the Internet at two large universities, one in the Midwest and one in the South. The survey was anonymous, no one’s claims were verified and terms were not clearly defined. In round numbers a total of 5,000 women participated. Based on their responses, the authors, not the participants, determined that 1,000 had been victims of some type of “non-consensual or unwanted sexual contact.”
And voila! From one vaguely worded, unscientific survey we suddenly arrive at “a rape culture on college campuses.” Tellingly, the study authors have since explicitly stated that it is “inappropriate” to use their survey to make that claim.
Much more comprehensive data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimates that about 1 in 52.6 college women will be victims of rape or sexual assault over the course of four years. That’s far too many, but it’s a long way from 1 in 5.
The same BJS data also reveal that women in college are safer from rape than college-aged women who are not enrolled in college.
But the truth doesn’t serve the purposes of feminist activists or vote-seeking politicians. Lies work much better. And the 1 in 5 claim is tantamount to a lie. Here are just a few examples of what this lie has wrought.
At Scripps College, Pulitzer-Prize winning commentator George Will was disinvited from giving a speech. The reason? He had dared to question the “rape culture” mantra in a column he wrote.
At the all-women Wellesley College, students demanded that the administration remove a campus sculpture of a sleepwalking man wearing only underpants. Why? Well, because the image of a nearly naked male could "trigger" memories of sexual assault for victims.
According to Harvard Law professor, Jeannie Suk, students now ask teachers not to include questions about rape law on exams for fear that such disturbing questions might cause them to perform less well.
And at Brown University, students were so traumatized by a debate on the subject of campus sexual assault that activists organized a “safe room” equipped with coloring books, Play-Doh, calming music, and a video of frolicking puppies.
No less absurd are the attempts by colleges and legislators to cure this non-existent plague. In California and New York, students now have to live by so-called “Affirmative Consent” laws. The California law says that affirmative consent by all parties must be “ongoing throughout a sexual activity,” while the New York law says that “silence or lack of resistance, in and of itself, does not demonstrate consent.”
Confused? Pity the poor college students who have to figure this out. If it wasn't so serious, it would be laughable. But it's not funny to a growing number of young men who find themselves accused of sexual assault, publicly shamed and then brought before campus judicial panels that are guided by rape-culture theory. In such proceedings, due process is an afterthought: it's guilty because accused.
But here’s the best way to prove that the 1 in 5 number is phony. Ask yourself this question: would you send your daughter to a place for four years where there was a twenty percent chance she would be raped or sexually assaulted?
Of course not.
Good rarely, if ever, comes from lies. The one in five “rape culture” lie is no exception.
I’m Caroline Kitchens of the American Enterprise Institute for Prager University.
In a world where they use Tinder to hook-up with a new man every night, I would NEVER want to have to sit on a jury and make that call.
Well, their bank accounts are certainly raped by the tuition charges.
Consenting during the entire process? How about wait for sex until after marriage and we wouldn’t have this “problem” in the first place?
I’m not sure this is true, but if Bernie gets his way, my guess is that number will rise.
This one was always pretty transparent. Change the definition of the basic terms and any claim is possible. Is rape "non-consensual or unwanted sexual contact"? Why, yes. Is all "non-consensual or unwanted sexual contact" rape? Of course not. If you happen to hear two people around the corner telling an off-color joke, you might stretch the definition of "non-consensual sexual contact" that far, blurring the distinction between hearing and sexual contact, but you can't blur it far enough to turn it into rape.
The fact is that nobody bothered to test this inflammatory rhetoric against real-world experience. It doesn't have to be - it's the seriousness of the accusation, dotcha know, not the evidence.
Time to segregate by gender. Course given the reaction to NC what will we do with the trannies?
Their virgin minds are raped by lewd and lascivious, liberal professors.
No.
I thought about that number. Let’s say that there are 55,000 students at Ohio State University and that half are women (27,500). If 20% are raped then that means more than 5,500 women get raped at Ohio State University. Even if one a small percentage were reported to the police, there would be so many rapes happening every week that everyone would know rape victims. Women would cease going to the university in a matter of weeks. Seriously, if it got out that several hundred women were raped over several months at a university, how many women would enroll in that university?
The 1 out of 5 number is IMPOSSIBLE. Every university would close in a matter of weeks.
That’s what I’m thinking. Maybe there is a purpose for marriage.
One in five has certainly had ‘buyers remorse’!
Come to think of it, more than one in five male college students has had similar ‘buyer’s remorse’.
The “1 in 5” comes from the same people who invent fake hate crimes.
The answer is “yes,” if rape is defined as saying, “Good morning” to an unknown female, holding open a door for one, or commenting on her hair. And it is. So, yeah, pretty much.
Shouldn't the question be:
While in college, does one out of five women get drunk and pass out while in the company of strangers?
Depends on how you define “Rape”...
If Rape is consensual sex that was done while inebriated at a college party, and someone asking you to go out, then yes, 1 in 5.
If Rape is sex that is forced on another person with physical force..
Then it is a HELL OF A LOT lower than 1 in 5, maybe 1 in 100 or LESS in the western world, don;t worry it will get to 1 in 5 if we keep importing Mudslimes from the middle east, see Cologne Germany for an example.
The solution is simple, if impossible - college guys should no longer date college girls. They should go elsewhere, outside of the college, to find girls.
The college girls would then stop this crap cold in a week.
Nope.
But, 1 in 5 women I have been with raped me...
Some were Coyote Ugly.
Still, I have one good arm, which is why they call me lefty...
So how do they determine the difference between regretful sex and actual rape?
Hypothetically, I know a guy who was pledging a fraternity. At a rush party the fraternity’s president’s girlfriend got mad at said president and took said pledge back to her dorm room and had repeated revenge sex with him. Clueless pledge did not know her relationship to the president.
Upon waking up the next morning, more or less sober, she was highly ashamed of herself and vented her anger at the poor pledge. Amid hurtling projectiles, the hypothetical pledge ran for his life. Back at the assumed safety of the fraternity house, he discovered he was in deep crap for going off with the president’s girlfriend.
It all eventually worked itself out, but should such an event happen today, the hypothetical pledge would probably be facing rape charges.
or
or maybe they're using the number from all schools collectively
Like the "women only get paid 77% of men" myth the "one out of five females are raped on campus" is a huge lie. The rad-fems are incapable of telling the truth about anything.
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.