Last week, I published an op-ed in US News & World Report that touched on rape culture activism and sexual assault policies on campuses. My argument was simple: 1) the statistics used to bolster the claim that campus rape is an “epidemic” are untrustworthy; and 2) allowing these activists to have unchecked influence will further compromise the rights of the accused. As a graduate of Duke University, where several lacrosse players were falsely accused, I am keenly aware of what can go wrong when zealotry prevails.
The response from readers, including several scholars and researchers, was overwhelmingly positive. The notable exception was Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel. In an article entitled “‘Rape Culture’ is just Drunk College Sluts Lying, says Major Magazine,” she accused me of attacking rape victims. Never mind that I never implied that any victims of rape lied (with the exception of a case in North Dakota, in which I reported that the police determined an accuser had filed a false report) and said not a word about alcohol. As I read Ryan’s screed, it occurred to me that she might be talking about some other article. The fact that she referred to me by the wrong last name added to the confusion—an error they later fixed without any indication of a correction. Fervent Jezebel readers, many relying on Ryan’s caricature, proceeded to bombard me with insults, calling me a “rape-denying harpy,” “disgustingly anti-woman,” and a “small-town bigot”—among many other choice epithets.
There’s so much wrong with Ryan’s rant, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ll start with the research.
The “1 in 5 college women will be raped” claim has been repeated so many times, it has become a dogma to sexual assault activists. Activists cling to this statistic and build movements around it despite the fact that it has been discredited many times. As far back as the early 1990s, scholars and journalists showed that the advocacy research surrounding campus sexual assault was methodologically flawed. It is beyond the scope of my op-ed to delve into all of the flawed research, but for more in-depth explanation, see here, here, and here. (And if you are going to contest my analysis, please read these links.)
Because of the serious flaws in the advocacy research, Department of Justice estimates are the best and perhaps only reliable source for assessing the prevalence of sexual assault. Ryan criticizes my use of the “Violent Victimization of College Students” report because she says that most victims she knows don’t describe their attacks as “violent.” Apparently, she got confused by the report’s title and failed to actually look at it. The report in fact specifies that sexual assaults “may or may not involve force” (emphasis added). The BJS’s definition includes “attacks or attempted attacks generally involving unwanted sexual contact between victim and offender,” including “verbal threats.” As I explain, this comprehensive survey of sexual assault occurrences on college campuses (mandated by the Violence Against Women Act, no less) puts the rate at one victimization per forty women. That is still a tragedy to be sure, but it’s a far cry from the “1 in 5” mantra.
Ohio University, mentioned in my piece for its anti-rape culture movement, has 11,052 female students. If one in five of those students was a victim of rape at some point over the course of four years, that would mean that approximately 553 females are being raped each year on that campus alone. Yet the Ohio University Police Department reports that in 2012, there were only 7 reports of rape or other sex crimes. Of course, sexual assault is among the most underreported of crimes. It’s also possible, as activists allege, that universities underreport crime data. But these facts are unlikely to fully account for this massive discrepancy. As Canadian columnist Margaret Wente recently wrote in The Globe and Mail, “[S]uch an astronomical number of serious unreported sex crimes would require a near-universal conspiracy of silence.” AEI’s Christina Hoff Sommers has noted that if sexual assault advocacy statistics were true, the prevalence of sex crimes in the US would be comparable to that of the war-stricken Congo.
Of course, we must protect victims of sexual assault and confront cultural forces that contribute to its incidence. I never implied—nor do I believe—that sexual assault on college campuses is not a very serious problem. But victims of violence will be best served by good research and accurate statistics. It does no service to victims to promote inflated statistics and impulsively attack any person who presents contrary information as a “rape denier.” We owe it to victims to have sound and informed procedures for investigating cases of sexual misconduct on campuses. For that, sound research is essential.
Next, a word about the falsely accused. A common response from Ryan and Jezebel’s disciples has been that the number of men falsely accused of sexual assault is minuscule in comparison to the number of assaults that go unpunished. They interpret any defense of the rights of the accused as victim-blaming.
Contrary to Ryan’s characterization, I did not say or imply that “across the country, poor men are being kicked out of college in droves.” What I actually said is that campus tribunals fail to provide the procedural safeguards necessary to protect students from false accusations. Though Ryan seems not to care, research shows that false accusations may be more common than gender activists realize. In an excellent review of the literature, Rachael Larimore and Yale Law School’s Emily Bazelon explain that the research surrounding false accusations varies widely in its estimates, but most credible studies converge around a rate of 8% to 10% for false reports of rape. False accusations may or may not be rampant, but they are certainly not trivial. And if we continue to promote policies aimed solely at protecting the rights of the accuser without protections for the accused, wrongful convictions will become much more likely.
The activists’ lack of concern for those falsely accused is troubling. Discussions surrounding sexual assault policies should not be based on a numbers game of false accusations vs. unreported victimizations. We should be focused on ensuring justice and basic fairness for all students. Sexual assault activists may not like it, but our country upholds the presumption of innocence as one of the central tenets of the justice system. To say that young men accused of sexual assault should be guaranteed due process by no means implicates victims.
It’s not easy for campus judiciaries to find the correct balance between protecting the rights of the accused and cultivating a safe environment for victims of sexual assault. There needs to be more civil discussion on how to fix the way universities respond to cases of sexual misconduct, and it needs to be informed by a commitment to protecting the rights of both parties.
Unfortunately, hardline gender activists have created a hostile environment for reasoned discussion. They prefer to shout “victim blamer!” and “rape apologist!” whenever they encounter a perspective that does not further their victim agenda. Many social scientists hesitate to broach the topic at all because of the moral fervor and stridency of the activists. But the fervor and stridency are getting in the way of reason and compassion—for both victims and the accused. That has to change.
I urge everyone to read my analysis with an open mind and explore some of the hyperlinks backing up my claims. If you can find any part where I say or even imply that sexual assault is ever in a girl’s “jungle-juice addled slutty imagination,” then Jezebel: you win.
A question the Ohio University statistics. I see where the 553 per year number comes from (1/4th of the 1 in 5 number), but since there’s a new class coming in every year for four years with the same probability, should it not be multiplied by 4 as well? So shouldn’t the number be the 2,210 per year (4 times the 1/4th of the 1 in 5 number)?
I’m definitely not a statistician, but it just looks like the number given is for only one of the four classes.
Thanks for the great explanation of your reasoning, makes sense.
As I posted, I saw my error – the 11,052 has all four classes in it and as some leave/graduate, a new class comes in.
So, never mind. As I said, I’m no statistician.
Thanks again.
I really admire this response. The facts are never respected in this country anymore. It is a problem from the very top. Our leaders so distort the reality of their arguments for political gain we find ourselves governed by unrealistic rules that are going to have adverse consequences for generations to come. It has to stop. We need more Kitchens.
It’s clear that telling the truth has become illegal in feminist america: MANHOOD101. COM
Caroline, you write that the “Violent Victimization of College Students” report “puts the rate at one victimization per forty women.” In Table 2, page 3 of the report, it says that the average annual rates per 1,000 female college students, ages 18-24, is 6 rapes/sexual assaults. I’m confused by this, though, because 6 per 1,000 does not equal 1 per 40–what am I missing?
Besides this question, though, have you read the research reports of the studies that you are writing off as flawed? Consider page 13-14 of the National College Women Sexual Victimization (NCWSV) study, the origin of the 1 in 5 statistic, which explicitly discusses the differences in methodology between the NCWSV and the NCVS (the source of data for the report you cite):
“How do the rape estimates from these two studies compare? It should be noted that studies that use behaviorally specific screen questions generally find higher levels of sexual victimization than those reported by NCVS. Most important, this finding has occurred in recent research using a national-level sample and behaviorally specific questions.
Looking at exhibit 4, it is clear that estimates from the comparison study [using NCVS-type methodology] for completed rape, attempted rape, and threats of rape are considerably lower than the respective estimates from the main study [the NCWSV]. The percentage of the sample that reported experiencing a completed rape in the comparison study was 11 times smaller than the percentage of victims in the main component (0.16 percent compared with 1.7 percent). The attempted rape estimate from the comparison component was six times smaller than the attempted rape estimate (0.18 percent compared with 1.1 percent) from NCWSV. A similar pattern was evident for threats of rape; the estimate based on the comparison component was four times smaller than the NCWSV estimate (0.07 percent compared with 0.3 percent).
What accounts for these differences? Given the similarities between the two studies, it would appear that the differences most likely stem from the wide range of behaviorally specific screen questions used in the NCWSV study. Compared with the NCVS screen questions employed in the comparison component, the use of graphically worded screen questions in NCWSV likely prompted more women who had experienced a sexual victimization to report this fact to the interviewer. Their responses in the incident report determined whether those answering ‘yes’ to a rape screen question were subsequently classified as rape victims. Even so, it appears that behaviorally specific screen questions are more successful in prompting women who have in fact been sexually victimized to answer in such a way that they are then ‘skipped into’ the incident report by interviewers.”
Why would you consider this flawed methodology, Caroline?
Oops, and by writing “Consider page 13-14 of the National College Women Sexual Victimization (NCWSV) study,” I meant: “Consider page 13-14 of the National College Women Sexual Victimization (NCWSV) study report (https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf).”
6 rapes per 1000 people per year (1:167) equals one out of 40 students assaulted during a 4-year stay at the university.
As for the questions, without looking at them, I think one can only conclude that one set of questions is more likely to draw a positive response, not necessarily a more accurate response.
Excellent response (if only because it makes several points I have been saying for years that I think don’t get enough attention.)
Re: “And if we continue to promote policies aimed solely at protecting the rights of the accuser without protections for the accused, wrongful convictions will become much more likely.”
I think this even has real statistical theory behind it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors#False_positive_and_false_negative_rates
Try to reduce false negatives (rapes that are not reported) and if you don’t pay attention the false positives (false accusations) will necessarily increase.
(Check with a statistician before using this, but I think that’s a fairly accurate depiction.)
I also agree entirely with Wente and Sommers, and there are some very easy google proofs available to anyone with a local university near them.
Calculate the expected number of female rapes depending on the size of the university. Google the local papers for rape reports in the past year.
Explain any discrepancies without concluding that campus newspapers and the local newspapers are engaged in a massive cover up of rape stories. Or, explain how rape stories would not sell newspapers, or internet ads.
“We should be focused on ensuring justice and basic fairness for all students. Sexual assault activists may not like it, but our country upholds the presumption of innocence as one of the central tenets of the justice system. ”
It’s always shocking to me how often feminists and social justice warriors are eager to toss out the bill of rights or modify the various amendments.
For a wonderful essay read Alexander Volokh’s n guilty men.
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/guilty.htm
Thank you so very much Ms. Kitchens for exposing those feminist groups for what they are. Unfortunately they are not the only group to portray those that show concern for the accused and expose the truth about bogus stats as women-hating rape supporters. Also, our cowardly leaders in the White House and our lawmakers tow the line for these feminist idealogues that spew garbage stats at every turn. They will repeat their propaganda every chance they get to garner the women’s vote. Unfortunately too many buy into this garbage. As an activist for boys and men I can assure you that this attack on you is commonplace dare you refute feminist dogma. Having advocated for the truth in stats and for concern over false allegations of rape and abuse for the last couple of years, the only concern shown by groups like Jezebel are that others might start realizing their 1 in 5 meme is highly bloated. Yes, we must show concern for true victims of assault, however to ignore those falsely accused and to resort to fear mongering and generalizing all men as rapists or potential rapists has to stop and I am glad to see someone have the guts in the media to expose the truth. If you run for president, based on what I’ve heard so far, you’ll have my vote to become the first woman to be elected.
Well, let’s see. We have reliable statistics that when you include males who are incarcerated, over 300K men are victims of sexual assault every year in the US alone-a number that may be even higher given the societal attidue which, among other things, has been reliably reported in a Candaian study to result in the immediate (and without investigation) dismissal of 2/3 of all complaints of sexual assault made by males against females.
We have RELIABLE numbers from the DOJ shoing more men are sexually assaulted anually in the US than women.
Feminists such as those at Jezebel are silent on this issue, choosing, instead, to rely on numbers which are demonstrably false in a program to do nothing more than declare all men predators based solely on who they are, rather than on what they do (much like right wing zealots decare all gay men predators based on who they are, no what they do).
In my bood, I see two logical conclusions from this evidence:
1. Feminist zealots are behaving toward men in generaly the same way those they label “hate groups” behave toward gays. Doesn’t that make these feminists a hate group?
2. We clearly DO have a problem with rape culture in the USA. The problem is that raping men and boys is acceptable behavior in our culture-and by using false statistics in an attempt to bury this FACT, the feminist zealots, like those at Jezebel, are, in fact, proving they support rape culture-as long as men are victims. For further information on THIS little game, I refer you to feminists in India, who have successfully re-defined rape to exclude male victims entirely.
So-if rape cutlure is, as it appears, a clutre based on feminist zealots lying while allowing massive numbers of men to be raped, then who, exactly, should we all be protesting?
Much as I have no use for the campus feminists, it was (now older) so-called second wave feminists who did the hard work to remove gender designation language from sex crime laws — in complete opposition to the activism of the hate crime advocates, who were busy shoveling identity politics elsewhere in the criminal code.
Female on male rape is not the issue here, as it is an exceedingly rare phenomenon. Addressing male-on-male rape is a primary reason the feminists did this. And you can thank the gay lobby for pushing back against efforts to enforce the law in these cases, not the feminist activists.
Show me one case of feminists pushing back against addressing male-on-male rape. Also, you don’t seem to know the first thing about statistics on this crime.
Facts matter. So does legislative history and movement history.
The legal definition of rape literally excludes women by stating ‘rape’ is a penitrat/ing/ act. So women who rape men with foreign objects are included as rapists BUT women who force men to be penetrat/ed/ are classified as having committed ‘unwanted sexual contact’. Seriously look it up, it’s sickening.. Think about the charges female teachers get for molesting and raping minors is ‘unwanted sexual contact with a minor’!
Sexual abuse by females:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10911
Barbara Kay on Sexual Abuse By Females: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/always+gentler/5535693/story.
html
Sexual Abuse of Juvenile Inmates by Female Staff
http://www.project-nia.org
“Female on male rape is not the issue here, as it is an exceedingly rare phenomenon.”
Can you please tell me how many there need to be before they can be treated as real victims?
Good article, the problem with feminists is that they don’t care if they are wrong they stick their fingers in their ears screaming. It’s sadly the mentality you have to deal with when trying to engage with them.
Unfortunately, some mentally unstable women do use accusations of rape to get attention. Too often, the falsely accused are young black men. One has only to look at the Scottsboro Boys to see what some women are capable of. The beloved To Kill A Mockingbird gave a glimpse into the psyche of such situations.
As women, we must admit that there are females we know who are capable of this. Girls who are not quite right and desperate for attention. We also have fathers, brothers, sons, guy friends, husbands who we would never want falsely accused. Being honest will prevent any real victim from being marginalized. Everyone deserves the presumption of innocence.
Let us encourage women to immediately contact authorities to preserve evidence. Tell women to have a buddy system and an agreement to watch out for eachother. set up cellphone panic buttons. The same way your wouldn’t let a drunk friend drive, don’t leave your drunk friend alone. She will thank you tomorrow. You may save her from possible horrors.
WHY WOMEN LIE ABOUT RAPE
The National Organization for Women , radical feminists, and Women’s Studies departments, often deny that women make false accusations about rape by asking the naïve, simplistic, and self-serving question:
“Why would a woman lie?” It turns out that there are plenty of reasons women lie about rape, either deliberately or out of desperation.
A U.S. Air Force study, “The False Rape Allegation in the Military Community.(Forensic Science Digest.Vol II, No.4, Dec. 1985) investigated 556 cases of alleged rape, and found a 60% rate of false accusations. As part of the study, women who were found to have made false accusations were asked “WHY?”
Motivations given by the women who acknowledged they had made false accusations:
REASON PERCENT
Spite or revenge 20
To compensate for feelings of guilt or shame 20
Thought she might be pregnant 13
To conceal an affair 12
To test husbands’ love 9
Mental/emotional disorder 9
To avoid personal responsibility 4
Failure to pay, or extortion 4
Thought she might have caught VD 3
Other 6
TOTAL 100%
The study found that most false accusations are “instrumental” – they served a purpose. If the purpose isn’t avoiding guilt, or getting revenge, it might serve a more focused purpose, for example, telling her parents; “I didn’t just go out and get pregnant, I was raped.” Or, telling her husband, “I didn’t have an affair, it wasn’t my fault, I was raped.”
An unrelated Washington Post article, “Unfounded Rape Reports Baffle Investigators” (6/27/1992) also found a wide range of motivations to falsely accuse men of rape. Anger toward boyfriends was common. One woman had her boyfriend spend 13 months in jail before she acknowledged that she had lied. One woman accused her newspaper delivery man of raping her at gunpoint because she needed an excuse to be late to work.
Neither woman was prosecuted or even reprimanded for lying to the police and attempting to have a man frivolously imprisoned. In another case, police say the young woman who admitted to falsifying two rape reports only wanted a day off from work.
All rape accusations need to be considered seriously, as, no doubt, rape does occur. But a balance needs to be maintained between the claims of the accuser against the all-too-often legitimate denial of the accused.
Women who are found to have made a false sexual assault complaint should be punished with lengthy prison sentences. Perhaps that will make other women think twice before making false complaints.
I have also read studies where the false allegation rate approaches 50%, these studies have solid analytical methods (unlike much of the woozling found on internet newspapers) and are very disturbing.
BBR,
Several such studies are presented further along in this site.
BBR, Note the numbers of false accusers who have recanted their accusations. The figures come nearer to 60%, and that is only counting those who recanted. The obvious question is, “How many more false accusations were NOT recanted?”
Note also the very trivial REASONS women gave for making a false accusation.
Yes, it’s a beloved book, etc. And as a woman unfortunate enough to be inter-racially raped while white and forced to endure repugnant racism directed at me as a result of the crime, let me suggest that people like you, who live with your heads in a novel set eighty years ago, have been exercising your ugly, ignorant, hate-filled, fantasy life in our direction quite long enough.
Just for the record, virtually all claims of rape that fit the category you describe are intraracial, and minority females are substantially statistically over-represented as complainants.
Also, repugnant as lynching was, many lynchings of both black and white men were the consequence of unambiguously real crimes, and in many other cases, there is evidence of real rape that would certainly be understood as such today. Neither fiction writers, moviemakers, or historians have the integrity to admit this today, but the contemporary records are quite clear, including those by anti-lynching activists. So now we routinely lynch the memory of blameless victims of rape with little thought to the truth, justice, or the impact of such ugly ideas on contemporary victims by thoughtless people today.
Think about that next time you cuddle up with TKAM.
Your excellent comment anywhere else would have been bombarded by ‘victim-shamer’ and ‘rape-appologist’ comments on many female websites like jezzebel. I wholehearted agree that women have the power to protect themselves and sayings like ‘only men can stop rape’ and painfully wrong statistics meant to scare women only rob women of the freedom to have full agency over their lives. Ironically the opposite of the mission of the original feminists. I mean, how can you live anything close to a full life if you believe in Schrodinger’s Rapist?
The only way to stop all this hate and Rape nonsense is to segregate Male students from the Females . Its obvious that Feminism is Metastasised like cancer in America . Its dividing people . Why Radical Feminism is so vicious and hateful in Anglo Saxon country’s ? Why ?
The reason the zealots at Jezebel scream is because they are filled with rage at most middle class White men.
What is the cause of this rage?
Simple. The ordinary middle class White guy is not dominant and sexy enough. After all, rape stats among the Black underclass in the urban core are appalling. And the majority of rapes in college environments are far more likely to involve Black athletes with minimal ability to do much of anything in college besides dunk a basketball or run with a football than achieve in the classroom. While White athletes ARE involved in rapes, I can think of the case in the University of Montana last year, the overwhelming majority are Black athletes from the ghetto. Examples would be the three football playing midshipmen at the Naval Academy accused of raping a female student there. All Black. [And carefully hushed up by the media because it reflects badly on Black people in general and Black athletes in particular.]
Jezebels are angry fundamentally at the lack of sexy dominance by White men. Hence … feminism. A scream of primal rage by women denied the most important, and only thing in their lives. Sex.
Women don’t forgive anything in men who are not sexy, and forgive anything in men who are. And no, the Jezebelers are not interested in logic, reason, or anything like that. Most women are not — they are continually enraged by the lack of sexy men around them and don’t live lives focused on reason and logic. Rather, raw emotion. Imagine if 95% of all women were grossly obese. And you had to look at them ALL DAY LONG. That’s what Jezebelers are experiencing, flipped around. Non-dominant men around women are akin to really fat women for men.
Its not as if Jezebelers are angry at Fifty Shades of Grey, which glamorizes sexual abuse and exploitation and yes, coerced sex which amounts to rape. Nope. Because the guy is “sexy” which means dominant and commanding.
I have no clue how people can be so unimaginably bad at writing off obviously unrealistic statstics as false. 1/4 women on campuses being raped is such an absurd statement that no one — not even the mentally crippled — could believe in it.
With that 8-10% false accusation stat, those are the accusations found to be false. There’s still a huge gap between that and all the accusations that never resulted in a conviction, where we can’t say for sure they were true or false accusations. So the number is almost definitely higher, but how much higher? Needs more research!
I have always wondered why the feminists keep repeating that “rape is underreported”.
What difference would that make when a jury is listening to the arguments in a particular rape trial, or deliberating on the verdict?
Do the feminists want those jurors to somehow factor the alleged underreporting in their final decision? Like, are they supposed to throw more weight on the “guilty” side, in order to somehow compensate for all those rapes that never got reported.
So that even if they guy was probably innocent, they should be more inclined to convict him anyway?
Is that what the feminists mean to imply, in some mysterious way?
The reason why feminists keep repeating that “rape is under-reported”, is because it is. They fail to report men who are raped in prison, or men who are raped by extortive means. They also fail to report the 46% of LESBIAN relationships which evidence incidents of forced sexual activity and violence. Now, you might ask, why would they ignore that much violence against women? Because domestic violence and rape comprise an industry which is, at the same time, lucrative and political, but only when a common perpetrator/enemy can be named. MALES!
Thanks. I will add these reasons to the list (which I started above).
The research I had found that shows the 1 in 5 figure actually states that “UP TO” 1 in 5 college AGE women will experience some form of sexual assault or some sort of pressure to have sex. This is obviously not the same as being actually raped, but they obviously mischaracterize this in dramatic fashion to try to bully anyone who doesn’t agree with everything they say.
Thanks for holding your ground.
This whole rape hysteria and false accusation epidemic now that there’s no due process is the worst thing for real rape victims.
It takes away police resources from the real victims, discredit them, making it much harder to get justice and help them heal.
If we used the same method of determining the rate of “sexual assault” for women but applied it to men, nearly 100% of men would be considered having been sexually assaulted:
kicks to the groin, kancho, weggies, wet willy, purple nurple, and so on, all qualify as sexual assaults.
You’re wrong about these cases being adjudicated through the real court system. They are not, nor do the campus activists want them to be so. They want kangaroo courts on campuses with themselves in charge.
Different things. Many real rape victims still experience neglect in real courts, especially child victims. Please separate the two: don’t blame us for what the campus feminists are doing.
Abortion statistics are uniformly bullshit, too. Coincidence?
New Hampshire Governor John Lynch was quoted as saying that, “it’s time for everyone to realize they should support victims of sexual assault, and hold their abusers accountable.” Grace Mattern, NH Sexual Assault Coalition executive director echoes the Governor by saying that “Victims are never to blame”. Maybe! It all depends on whether the accusers are really victims. You see, what this feminist governor and his feminazi pals in the domestic violence industry don’t want us to know, is that a large percentage of sexual assault reports are patently false.
Begin with Jane Roe, of the Roe v.Wade case. Roe eventually admitted that she lied about being raped for the simple reason that, as a feminist, she wanted to make a stronger case for women’s right to an
abortion.
Cathleen Webb lied about being raped out of fear of what her parents would say if she became pregnant. The falsely accused man, Gary Dotson, spent six years (of a 50 year sentence) in prison in spite of her admission that she had lied about being raped. Prosecutors refused to believe she was telling the truth about having lied.
In an investigation of 556 rape cases, reported in Forensic Science Digest, Vol.11, no.4, Dec. 1985, it was found through DNA testing that 33% of the accusations were false. Another 27% in the same study were shown to be false when the women involved admitted lying, or were shown to be lying by lie detector tests. That’s a total of 60% false accusations.
Even the liberal Washington Post reported it’s own study, in June, 1992, wherein 30% of allegations of rape were proven false.
A study by Hugo Adam and Micheael Radelet, reported in Stanford Law Review, 11/87, found 350 cases where DNA proved the accusation false. Sadly, 23 of the men falsely accused had already been executed, and eight more had died in prison. Quite a high price to pay for promoting the false notion that women don’t lie about sexual assault.
Internationally acclaimed attorney, Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz published an article in the Boston Herald (8/6/94) in which he discussed a nine year study by a Purdue Univ. (female)
Sociologist, reported in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, conducted in a large metropolitan area, including two large universities, in which the data showed that 40% of the sexual assault allegations were false. The
only definition of “false” was the admission by the supposed “victim” that she had lied. Another study reported in Dershowitz’s article was done by New York City sex crimes prosecutor, Linda Fairstein in 1987.
Fairstein found that, of 4000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan, “about HALF simply did not happen!” To paraphrase the Jerry Lee Lewis song, there’s “A whole lot of lying going on!”
It’s pretty sad that most of the domestic violence claims put forward by the feminists are provably false. And obtaining a restraining order against a man based on false charges is bad enough. But to insist that a woman who cries “rape!” is never lying, and sentencing a man to a lengthy prison term, and maybe the death penalty, is inexcusable. Governor Lynch should be ashamed of himself for shilling for the feminists in promoting this anti-male scheme. And an anti-male scheme it is, when LESBIAN relationships show almost TWICE the rate of violence and forced sexual activity as heterosexual relationships, and THAT fact is never mentioned by the sexual assault coalition profiteers. More the shame that our tax dollars are funding this unjustified war against men.
You’re wildly misrepresenting both the findings and terms of this study. Did you really read the report? Hell the truth, now, because few have. Here is a thorough debunking of it, and I don’t see what your doing to be any different from the campus feminists you’re so angry about. I challenge you to respond to this article, point by point, if you’re going to make false claims like this. http://www.ncdsv.org/images/OCADVSA_RapeAndFalseReports_2010.pdf
You’re wildly misrepresenting both the findings and terms of this study. Did you really read the report? Tell the truth, now, because few have. Here is a thorough debunking of it, and I don’t see what your doing to be any different from the campus feminists you’re so angry about. I challenge you to respond to this article, point by point, if you’re going to make false claims like this. http://www.ncdsv.org/images/OCADVSA_RapeAndFalseReports_2010.pdf
I too was a victim of an unfair Jezbel attack. They did issue a clarification eventually.
There was not one study, there were numerous studies. By a variety of researchers. And they all came to the same conclusion. A majority of rape accusations against males were proven false by the recantation of the accuser. The rebuttal posted by Tina Trent came from Matt Atkinson, who represents a feminazi domestic violence center (OCADVSA) As might be expected, Atkinson’s commentary is rife with feminist illogic and non-sequiters. The question then, is this: If their cause is so righteous, why do they have to lie about it?
Jezebel, the name alone tells you it is not a site to be taken seriously.
I expected nothing less than bravery from this writer and well done for standing your ground on this important issue. Jezebe and feminist are keen on using some sort of advanced schoolyard “Mean Girls” bullying and mobbing practiced on both women and men who question them. I never thought such a tactic would exist beyond grade school.
Wonderful response. It angered me to see the response by Jezebel to your well-written article which contains nothing but facts alongside your balanced proposed solutions. It’s very obvious the writer from Jezebel is mostly reacting out of emotion instead of rationality or intellectual honesty.
There’s no reason for anyone to treat such a empathetic and honest woman like you with such hostility, especially after writing such a balanced article clearly thinking about ALL victims of injustice, not just one group. The response you received is just not right and the people at Jezebel should be ashamed of themselves. They seem to think their actions are righteous but it all seems to come out of a place of extreme negativity and resentment. They just don’t care about anyone else as the people they are fighting for, which is more harmful to society as they realize.
I appreciated your article because false claims and exaggerated claims of rape (he leered at my breasts, I felt violated=a sexual assault) do as much damage to women as to men…eventually, women simply will not be believed anymore. We do not make women safer by vilifying men and turning rape into something so ordinary and common that real victims are disbelieved and unsupported. I am sorry your very well-written, respectfully-toned article was greeted with such hostility…it reminds me of the treatment Emily Yoffe of Slate got when she suggested that one way to keep rape from happening was to encourage our young women to stop getting themselves smashed at parties. What on earth is wrong with speaking the truth these days?
Well, I just LUV those wonky statistics that 200 out of 45 women will be raped in her lifetime, 50 times of that during freshman year, etc.
It’s the basis I use to argue for the right to keep and bear arms/Second Amendment with liberals.
Of course, they want it both ways: they want women firmly defined as constantly being attacked, and they want us disarmed. So that we can “take one for their side,” I presume. (There is a nasty/hidden masochistic Victorianism inside much conventional radical feminism. As I have encountered it in liberal cities and higher education institutions, the message is that a woman’s moral character is demonstrated by how much she has been victimized. Ergo things like inflated rape statistics, and Pinktober. The important thing, of course, is never to fight back. That would be unladylike. And not getting drunk/stoned, and keeping one’s head on straight? Well, we can’t be expected to do that, impulsive little innocents that we are!)
Jezebel has more mobbing than a murder of crows. But the internet has a lot of commentary like that. I suppose this is why so many educated people across history have hesitated to see women access a life of letters: the resulting discourse frequently regresses to the mean(est).
I’m a woman, I detest Jezebel, and I revile the definition of womanhood as helpless victimization.
People! If you are at all interested in these issues, it is all covered in complete detail in the book When Women Sexually Abuse Men-The Hidden Side of Rape, Stalking, Harassment and Sexual Assault: http://www.amazon.com/When-Women-Sexually-Abuse-Men/dp/0313397295/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374262749&sr=1-1&keywords=when+women+sexually+abuse+men
Included is a detailed and in some cases, first-ever analysis of false accusations, a published reply from the CDC itself to criticism; the campus tribunals situation, and an analysis of justice department efforts including an exclusive revelation of an extraordinary justice department teleconference, and much more.
People! If you are at all interested in these issues, it is all covered in complete detail in the book When Women Sexually Abuse Men-The Hidden Side of Rape, Stalking, Harassment and Sexual Assault: Available at amazon.com Included is a detailed and in some cases, first-ever analysis of false accusations, a published reply from the CDC itself to criticism; the campus tribunals situation, and an analysis of justice department efforts including an exclusive revelation of an extraordinary justice department teleconference, and much more.