the second wave of backlash against anti-rape activism

[niyad]

The Second Wave of Backlash Against Anti-Rape Activism

In the past two years, anti-rape activists have put campus sexual assault on the national policy agenda—but in recent months, the backlash against these efforts has intensified. A band of political conservatives are now openly challenging the existence of the campus rape epidemic and denigrating survivors, including talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham, columnists George Will, Jay Ambrose, Cathy Young and Naomi Schaefer Riley, representatives from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the American Enterprise Institute, and many others. This is not the first time conservatives have orchestrated a backlash against anti-violence efforts on college campuses.

What is happening today is a tired re-enactment of the backlash that started in 1985 with the publication of “Date Rape: The Story of an Epidemic and Those Who Deny it” in Ms. The article reported on Dr. Mary Koss’s three-year study of more than 7,000 students at 35 schools that found sexual assault was common and mostly committed by acquaintances and friends. Koss’s groundbreaking work made “date rape” a part of the national dialogue, but it also inspired a tremendous backlash from men’s rights activists (MRAs), Playboy and others over whether or not this type of sexual assault constituted “real rape.” The backlash was so intense, in fact, that in 1994, Katie Roiphe, an undergraduate English major with no social science training, garnered a book contract and national attention for her anti-date-rape tome, The Morning After: Fear, Feminism, and Sex. In it, Roiphe dismisses Koss’s data based on a gross misunderstanding of basic statistics, and clings to the idea that victims of date rape are partially to blame because of their drug and alcohol intake. This concerted effort by conservatives effectively dampened public outrage and action around the issue.
Much like the backlash of the 1980s and ’90s, today’s rape apologia comes in four distinct, but interconnected, forms: denying the problem exists, blaming the victim, vilifying whistleblowers and turning perpetrators into victims. Below, we outline the ways in which conservative backlashers are attempting to undermine the work of anti-rape activists—and, thankfully, how they’re failing.

Rape Truthers

The most popular backlash tactic is to challenge the data. “Rape truthers,” as we like to call them, criticize the sample selection and response rate of the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) study, the basis for the White House statistic that 1 in 5 college women face attempted or completed sexual assault. What these rape truthers fail to mention is that the CSA figures are almost the same as a 2007 Medical University of South Carolina study, a 2010 Centers for Disease Control study and a 2010 Harvard School of Public Health study, all of which used different methodologies. The stat also dates back three decades to Koss’s Sexual Experiences Survey.
Other rape truthers challenge the 1 in 5 statistic because they do not think that “incapacitated sexual assault” is “real rape.” Conservative columnist Cathy Young writes that “a far better solution would be to draw a clear line between forced sex (by violence, threats or incapacitation) and unwanted sex due to alcohol-impaired judgment, miscommunication or verbal pressure.” Naomi Schafer Riley states that “there’s been no epidemic of assault but instead a preponderance of sexual encounters fueled by bad judgment and free-flowing alcohol.” These ideas sound oddly similar to men’s rights activist Warren Farrell‘s assertion in the 1990s that “date rape” was “buyer’s remorse.” Today, MRAs are challenging the definition of rape, taking to the streets to plaster posters with “just because you regret a one night stand doesn’t mean it wasn’t consensual” and targeting the anonymous rape reporting systems at Occidental College and Dartmouth College.

The problem with the “real rape” argument is that it ignores state law. All 50 states [pdf] have laws that say an incapacitated party cannot consent to sex, with some variations on the definition of “incapacitation.” For example, “incapacitation” in Colorado is defined as being “physically helpless,” “unconscious, asleep, or otherwise unable to indicate willingness to act,” or “substantially impaired from any drug or intoxicant.” Florida defines “incapacitation” as “mentally incapacitated” or “temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling a person’s own conduct due to the influence of a narcotic, anesthetic, or intoxicating substance administered without his or her consent or due to any other act committed upon that person without his or her consent.”

. . . .

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/08/19/the-second-wave-of-backlash-against-anti-rape-activism/

[ncjustice80]

1. This should be the law of the land...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/accused-rapists-would-have-to-prove-consent-in-law-reversal-proposed-by-new-zealand-politicians-9592559.html

[niyad]

2. this stat from the article is appalling:

Mr Little told the New Zealand Herald the fact that only one per cent of sexual violence cases result in conviction in the country points to “something wrong” in the justice system.

welcome to du.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. Did you xpost in Good Reads?

I recommend it!

Great catch, niyad!

Thanks.
~ Lmsp

[niyad]

4. thanks, did not think about doing that.