Via Red State Feminist, a pdf file of the court’s ruling can be found here. The court ruled “that the plaintiff’s claim is frivolous, unreasonable, and without foundation.”
Here’s a bit of the ruling:
Read the rest of this entry »
Since I started speaking out about my rape and rape in general, I’ve been called a man hater, anti-male and a few derogatory labels I won’t repeat here. Yet as I think about why I speak out and blog against rape and other forms of violence and exploitation, hating men isn’t even at the bottom of the list.
What’s number one?
Preventing harm.
In an ideal world no one would be charged with rape because everyone tempted to rape would resist temptation. I know we’ll never reach that ideal world, but we can get closer to it than we are today. Sometimes that means standing up against those who try to block this effort.
So why do some still insist on giving me the label man hater for my effort?
At first I thought they confused my opposition to rape as an opposition to men since men commit most of the rapes. I thought they couldn’t have read much of my blog or they would see that I’m also against the exploitation and rape of men and boys.
Then it clicked. The label has never been about me.
It’s all about them. To define me as a man hater you have to refuse to truly see and value rape victims as full human beings who didn’t deserve what was done to them.
The women who tried to slap that label on me frequently talk about protecting their sons. And if that protection harms girls and women that seems to be an acceptable trade off. Those women who say they are only protecting the men and boys in their family often say they were feminists through college and beyond but finally came to their senses.
These women remind me of parents who fight to get every school levy passed until their last child graduates and who then switch sides to lead the fight against all subsequent school levies.
For these people it is all about them and their self-interests. They were never true to any philosophy about education. Those ex-feminists were never true feminists, they just aligned themselves where they saw potential benefits such as increased pay for women.
Either that or the intrinsic definition some have of what it means to be a man includes a level of violence and self-centeredness I see as criminal.
As a woman, I’ve experienced the harm that comes when men think of girls and women as something less than them. But my concern has never been limited to the harm that I have felt personally or that I am more likely to feel because of my gender. From as early as I can remember, my mother stressed respect for others and that it was wrong to exploit others just because you can.
So the label feminist has too narrow of a scope.
As I read Newsweek: An Inconvenient Woman about Mary Magdalene, the label of egalitarian popped out at me. It spoke to my responsibility not to see myself as inherently superior to anyone else, not even rapists. It means I can’t buy into monster myths.
For those who want to claim superiority, egalitarian is a nasty thing to be. It means you are no better in the eyes of God than the leper and you have no excuse for exploiting people you see as inferior.
This stratification of humanity relates to the view held by some in the Church that Eve caused Adam to sin just as rape victims caused their rapists to lose control. To me this ignores the lesson I learned from the story of Eve, Adam and the apple. And that is that passing the buck for the actions you take is as old as humanity. God didn’t like it then and I doubt God approves of it now.
In my comment on Alas: Gender Does NOT Trump Race, I wrote:
The view that any type of oppression/discrimination/hatred trumps another forgets that they are all symptoms of the same problem. And that problem is exploiting groupings of people for our self-interests and then using those same groups as scapegoats.
This underlying system harms even those who aren’t oppressed/discriminated against or hated because it creates a toxic environment.
Unfortunately, many see this toxicity as being caused by those who don’t quietly let the toxic system hurt them by staying in their proper place.
Many who want to deny racism/sexism/etc are likely scared that the unjust system will turn on them. The last thing they want is to be treated the way they treat those they discriminate against.
We tend to think others mirror our way of thinking so from the emotion put into attacking those who fight against sexism and sexual violence, anti-feminists must be afraid that feminists want to turn the tables on men.
They may feel that violence-against-women legislation does just that, but there’s a huge difference between making those who hurt others — with little risk of punishment — accountable for their actions and switching who can victimize without fear of punishment.
So if I’m an egalitarian, why aren’t I as vocal in all the areas where people are harmed or discriminated against? It’s very simple, I’m at zero degrees of separation when it comes to rape and the ripple effects of rape. In other areas, I can be supportive but I don’t have the same level of experience and insight.
It would be like an alien trying to communicate how to walk from Los Angeles to New York City without getting a closer look at the Earth than what astronauts can see from the moon. Hey, from up there, the Earth looks like a perfect globe and all you have to do is follow a curved line. That alien would probably grumble that humans don’t know how to follow even the simplest of instructions.
My view is often closer than the moon analogy, but I could easily say things as hurtful and as ignorant as many people say about the impact of rape.
Also posted on my blog, Posted by Abyss2hope in Anti-feminists and their pals, Feminism, sexism, etc, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues | 5 Comments »
On the Male Privilege Checklist (henceforth “the list,”) I wrote:
7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.
Karmaq, writing in The Unseen Kid’s comments, responded:
I question some of the stats… For example, the myth that rape only happens to men in prison (or gay men), when the FBI stats (if you want to believe the FBI) are that it happens way more often than we think. No one wants to talk about and even if they do, no one wants to hear about it. But I’ve met enough men (straight, never been in jail) who have talked to me about it (cause people tend to tell me stuff they don’t normally share) that I tend to suspect the FBI’s “1 in 7 men; 1 in 3or4 women” had some validity.
My response to Karmaq:
First, Karmaq is mistaken about what the FBI’s statistics say. The FBI only counts the small proportion of rapes that are reported to police, and they calculate their numbers per year, rather than per lifetime. As a result, the FBI’s numbers are far, far, far lower than the numbers you provide here. Most importantly, because the FBI’s inexcusably sexist definition of rape excludes men (”forcible rape, as defined in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will”), the FBI’s numbers are irrelevant to Karmaq’s point.
Second, contrary to Karmaq’s remarks, I never claimed that “rape happens only to men in prison (or gay men).” That would obviously not be true.
What I said is, that for men who aren’t in prison, the chances of being raped are very low, and I stand by that claim.
According to this study by the Centers for Disease Control, 15% of women and 2% of men in the US have ever been raped in their lifetime. That difference alone is enough to justify my statement. (The CDC’s numbers are based on interviews with a representative sample of the US population, not on police reports.)
Although the CDC’s is one of the best rape prevalence studies, I believe their results underestimate the prevalence of rape, especially for women. One particularly striking (but not at all unusual, as these studies go) flaw of the CDC’s survey is that their interview questions didn’t include a specific question asking about rapes that take place while the victims are unconscious or otherwise unable to resist due to drink or drugs - which is to say, a prototypical frat-house rape. Of course, anyone can be raped while passed out, but anecdotally I believe it happens significantly more often to women. (Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any good studies addressing this question, so anecdotal evidence is all I have.)
Readers may be wondering, of that 2% of men who report having been raped, how many were raped in prison? The CDC did not ask if rapes took place while incarcerated, so there’s no way of knowing what portion of the 2% of raped men, were raped in prison. However, it’s at least plausible that a significant portion of that 2% represents prison rape.
According to this Bureau of Justice Statistics report, 5% of US men have been in prison at some point in their lives. If one in ten men are raped while in prison - and some studies suggest prison rape prevalence may be that high or much higher - that would account for a quarter of all the male rape victims in the US. So although this is speculative, it’s plausible that a substantial number of the 2% of American men who have been raped, were raped while in prison.
Does it matter where rape takes place or who the victims are? In every moral sense, it does not matter. No one deserves to be raped. Prison rape is rape, and is totally inexcusable. Rape is rape, evil and wrong no matter where or to whom it happens. Every rape victim deserves sympathy and support.
But one point of the male privilege checklist is to make visible some ways a male-centric society harms women. (I believe that male-centric societies also harm men, but that’s a subject for a different post). Pretending that there’s no statistical difference in the likelihood of being raped goes against that purpose. In that context, that rape in ordinary US society is a crime overwhelmingly committed by men against women is important, and must be acknowledged.
It should be noted that the prison rape epidemic is probably going to get worse. Over the next couple of decades, the proportion of male rape victims may increase, because the proportion of men who have been in prison is projected to skyrocket. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ projections, if our current rate of sending men to prison is maintained, then at some point in the future 15% of American men will have spent time in prison. (6% of white men, 17% of Latinos, and 32% of Black men. For comparison’s sake, the projections for women are 1%, 2% and 6%.)
If those projections are true (or even partly true), and if the prison rape epidemic continues unabated, the overall number of American rape victims will vastly increase over the coming decades. This is true even if rape prevalence outside of prison doesn’t change at all. This is one reason why it’s essential to support strong measures to combat prison rape; unfortunately, all that’s gotten through congress so far are weak half-measures.
* * *Please Note* * *
My posts on “Alas” are sometimes heavily moderated. If you’d like to avoid that, you can instead leave a comment on the identical post at Creative Destruction.
Rape is a truly terrible act. There is not much worse than rape, but this article details something that might be. An unnamed fifteen year old girl reported to police that a Connecticut cab driver tried to rape her but she escaped.
This man’s acknowledgement that rape is a terrible act is undermined by the facts of the false rape case (that might be worse than rape) as reported by WFSB:
“The reason she ran off was she didn’t want to pay the cab fare,” Moscato said. “But on the other side, here’s an officer and you see someone running, screaming. We have to act quickly, because (what if) we have someone who is a predator out there?”
The incident happened on May 8 and the charges were dropped on Tuesday May 23. Despite the rhetoric being tossed out by those who think most accused rapists are the real victims, this case highlights that law enforcement doesn’t blindly take the accuser’s word as fact.
As someone who has been raped (more than once) and falsely accused of a crime (only one time) both were highly stressful, but being raped was the far greater violation. People who try to put false allegations (including all allegations where the person charged claimed it was consensual and which couldn’t be proved or disproved) on the same level as acknowledged rapes are in fact trying to minimize the crime of rape.
In a comment on my post about the women’s Duke lacrosse team’s plan to wear bracelets that say innocent, crossposted on Alas, Nyk writes:
I’m sorry, but being a woman [rape victim] does not give you a special right not to face peer pressure. If you have to stand up for what’s right, you have to do it, man or woman, and if you don’t do it, you are personally at fault for that. Not anyone else. You. This is a lesson I learned in a very difficult way, but in the end, it is still true. Those who desire a perfectly “fair” world are destined for unhappiness, because life is not fair even at its best, let alone at its worst.
What I find so interesting about this comment is:
1) Women rape victims are at fault if they crumple when besieged by pressure from their peers, with no distinction between true peer pressure and illegal attempts to subvert justice. It assumes that rape is not traumatic enough to interfere with resisting whatever your peers throw at you. Any weakness is the victim’s fault and not a consequence of the trauma of rape.
2) I’ve seen no similar commands directed at those who say they have been falsely accused of rape. None of the personal responsibility crowd is telling them that they should stop expecting life to be “fair” and that if they can’t handle being seen as possible rapists, it’s their own fault. Those who refuse to believe certain rape charges instead paint the alleged rapists as tragic heroes victimized by unfair justice systems and evil women. They’ve looked into these men’s hearts and know they would never commit rape. Any evidence against them must be false.
3) It is extremely pessimistic. It also ignores the fact that only the most privileged always expect to get what’s perfectly fair. I’ve found that those who have been spoiled with “perfect fairness” have the most trouble when they end up on the wrong side of the fairness/unfairness scale. And if they can’t have perfect fairness, nobody else should expect fairness, not even rape victims.
Many of those who support alleged rapists skip “not fair” or “peer pressure” and go right to “witch hunt” or “lynch mob.” Since both of those latter phrases describe actions where people get murdered, alleged rapists are to be seen as potentially greater victims than women who are raped.
I guess it’s my problem that I don’t accept this unquestionable truth.
Also posted on my blog, Posted by Abyss2hope in Anti-feminists and their pals, Feminism, sexism, etc, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues | 99 Comments »
A woman is dead and her boyfriend is in custody after a weekend shooting in St. Paul, police said.
I once assumed everyone would see this as a tragedy all Americans want to fight, yet in Time To Address Domestic Violence Abuses by Phyllis Schlafly, she writes:
The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was signed by President Bush in January without any public debate, but evidence is now surfacing which Congress should have examined before the law was passed. VAWA is a nearly-billion-dollar-a-year extension of one of the major ways that Bill Clinton bought the support of the radical feminists. Why Republicans passed this bill is a mystery. It’s unlikely that the feminists who will spend all that money will ever vote Republican.
Is this Ms. Schlafly’s way of trying to bring more violent men into the Republican fold? I’d dismiss her as a radical fluke except a known side effect of at least one state’s gay marriage ban removes women like the victim in this recent case from protection provided by anti-domestic violence laws.
It’s telling to me that I haven’t seen a single gay-marriage-ban proponent working to close this gap.
DAYTON, Ohio - A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage bars prosecutors from charging some unmarried people under the state’s domestic violence law, a state appeals court ruled.
Friday’s decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeals is the first from Ohio’s 12 appellate courts to rule that the Defense of Marriage amendment, passed by voters in 2004, means that the domestic violence law does not apply to unmarried people.
Does this mean that those in favor of the gay marriage ban see gay marriage as a greater sin than murder?
Also posted on my blog, Posted by Abyss2hope in Anti-feminists and their pals, Feminism, sexism, etc, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues, Same-Sex Marriage | 10 Comments »
A Food and Drug Administration panel voted 13-0 today to endorse a promising new vaccine that could stop viruses that cause nearly 70 percent of all cervical cancers and genital warts, but the potential distribution of the vaccine is causing political and cultural controversy.
Apparently, some so-called family values types would rather see girls and women die of cervical cancer (3,900 die each year) than support the widespread use of a vaccine that might make sex look safer. Since I doubt the fear of cervical cancer is the deciding factor when girls choose whether or not to have sex, this vaccine won’t spark a sexual boom.
As someone who has a free pap screening to thank for catching the problem in the pre-cancer stage when I was in my early twenties, I feel it is negligent to withhold a safe vaccine for the HPV virus based on family values.
I didn’t catch the HPV virus because I decided to become sexually active, I caught it because of rape or behavior that stemmed from rape.
Even though I only spent one night in the hospital, my surgery (cold knife conization) had a brutal effect on my body. Long after the bleeding and cramping finally ended, I barely had the energy to move. When summer arrived, the heat frequently leveled me. Nearly a year passed before I felt normal again.
But I was lucky.
With this vaccine, others won’t have to rely on luck.
This case is also another example of the hidden dangers that can harm rape victims. For more on the dangers that can follow rape, read these posts:
Girls and alcohol poisoning
Recognizing the heroes nobody sees
Rape judgments
I wish my experiences were completely out of the norm for rape survivors, but I haven’t found that to be true, especially among those of us who bought the lie that what happened to us was our fault.
Also posted on my blog, Posted by Abyss2hope in Anti-feminists and their pals, Feminism, sexism, etc, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues | 13 Comments »
As I read yet another blogger rant about how they know with absolute certainty that many women do lie about being raped, I noticed the implication that those of us who dare to take all allegations of rape seriously are 1) deluded 2) man haters.
Those who habitually align themselves with alleged rapists don’t see sexual exploitation as harming anyone except those charged with sex crimes. How can they if their heroes are those who give a 16-year-old girl alcohol then use her as a child porn movie prop and their villain is the girl who blacked out and testified that she couldn’t remember what happened? They seem to feel justified in doing this because none of the convictions in this case were for the crime of rape.
Just because they can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just because I told no one about being raped for two decades doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or that I have no right to call myself a rape survivor because my rapist was never charged or convicted.
I could counter specific faulty statements, but I’ll leave that for other posts. I want to get to what I see as a driving force in those who habitually align themselves with alleged rapists.
In any area we are in one of these states:
1) Unconscious incompetent
2) Conscious incompetent
3) Unconscious competent
4) Conscious competent
To move from state 1 to states 3 or 4, you have to go through state 2. But state 1 can be very comfortable while state 2 is the most uncomfortable and sometimes hopeless state.
I believe those who deny the scope of the sexual violence problem most vigorously are trying their best to remain in state 1 (and out of state 2) while they see themselves as being in state 4.
When it comes to sexual violence awareness, state 2 is where those who have exploited others sexually are forced to see themselves as fully responsible for their actions and where they must stop blaming their victims. Most don’t have the courage to do this without the threat of prison.
State 2 is difficult even for those who have never been sexually violent or sexually exploitive. They may have to see that they slandered true victims or stood by as someone they knew committed acts of sexual violence or taught children dangerous rape myths. Or they may have to accept that someone they trusted and loved made a deliberate choice to exploit them sexually.
When we’ve seen ourselves as always on the side of right, it takes courage to see where we’ve been wrong and where we have wronged others. Add a lack of knowledge about what to do to get into state 3 or 4 and it can be terrifying.
Many people retreat to state 1 and subsequently let their fear of state 2 and denial of what they learned there motivate them to increase their attacks on those who would drag them into such a terrible place.
Now on to the belief that all anti-rape activists are man haters.
To stay out of state 2, those in state 1 have to find a powerful reason to explain anti-rape activists’ true motivation since it can’t be that sexual exploitation, assault and abuse are serious problems in our society.
Since most alleged rapists are men, then the true cause for rape hysteria must be a deep desire to persecute men for being themselves.
A few of these ranters have gone so far as to refuse to take any rape charge seriously until victim advocates admit they have helped liars persecute innocent men. To test the irrationality of this request ask yourself if these same people would say something like, “I refuse to take murder seriously until you show me how many people faked their own deaths and made it look like they were murdered.”
It doesn’t compute. You either take a particular type of crime seriously or you don’t.
If you don’t believe certain types of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and sexual assault should be crimes, then focus on the decisions law makers have made and ask them to decriminalize certain acts and stop attacking victims of these types of crimes because you don’t think they have the right to say they are crime victims.
Note: Also posted on my blog, Posted by Abyss2hope in Anti-feminists and their pals, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues | 47 Comments »
In her Boston Globe column, and also reprinted on her blog, Cathy Young writes:
Feminism has achieved real and important progress in the treatment of sexual assault victims. A couple of generations ago, a stripper at a party with athletes would have been viewed by many as fair game. That this is no longer the case surely makes us a more decent society.
Whenever I see Cathy say something nice about feminism, I know the word “but” is fast approaching. Sure enough…
But even some people who applaud this change believe that in some cases, the pendulum has swung too far. Many feminists seem to think that in sexual assault cases the presumption of innocence should not apply. Appearing on the Fox News show ”The O’Reilly Factor,” Monika Hostler of the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault declared that her role was ”to support a woman or any victim that comes forward to say that they were sexually assaulted.”
To O’Reilly’s question, ”Even if they weren’t?” Hostler replied, ”I can’t say that I’ve come across one that wasn’t.”
Cathy is conflating two things that should be kept separate: an individual citizen’s own opinion, and our Court system. Yes, agents of our Court system are required to presume innocence, but unless she’s sworn in on a jury, Ms. Hostler doesn’t share that requirement. As I wrote in an earlier post:
I believe very much in “innocent until proven guilty.” If and when the police make arrests in this case, I want the accused rapists (whoever they turn out to be) to have their day in court, to be able to present a defense aided by legal council, and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. Then, and only then, should they be sent to prison for what I hope is a long miserable stay.
But “innocent until proven guilty” is a courtroom standard. My opinion is not the same as a courtroom… Nothing about the American system of justice requires ordinary citizens to refrain from having opinions; and it’s not inconsistent to want Courts to adhere to “beyond any reasonable doubt” while holding my personal opinions to a less stringent standard.
Cathy thinks that rape victims’ advocates should not assume that a rape happened until it’s been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. How, exactly, does Cathy imagine that would work? Victim advocates don’t have the resources or the training to conduct independent investigations. Courts can take years to reach a “guilty” verdict - assuming there’s ever a trial, which there isn’t for most rapes. Should advocates refuse to help victims (pardon me, alleged victims) until a “guilty” verdict is handed down?
Here’s what I imagine rape victim advocates would do if Cathy Young ruled the world:
ADVOCATE: (picks up phone) Hello, rape crisis hotline. How may I help you?
WOMAN: (Distraught) My… I… I think I’ve been raped. This guy I know, Edward, he held me down and forced….
ADVOCATE: (Interrupting) You mean he allegedly held you down and forced you.
WOMAN: What?
ADVOCATE: I have to presume Edward’s innocent until he’s been proved guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Please go on.
WOMAN: Okay… He, well, I kept saying “no, please don’t.” But he ignored what I said and ripped off my skirt -
ADVOCATE: You mean Edward allegedly ignored and allegedly ripped off your skirt. I’m keeping open to the possibility that you’re lying. Now, please hold, while I get Edward’s attorney on the line so he can cross-examine you. If your story remains credible after adversarial cross, then we can begin talking about dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome.
WOMAN: Umn… Could I talk to someone who’ll believe me?
ADVOCATE: Before a trial takes place? What do you think this is, Nazi Germany?
Ms. Hostler was correct when she said “it’s my role as an advocate to support the woman or person who comes forward to say they were sexually assaulted.” She’s not there as a judge, or a jury member, or an officer of the court; her support will not send any accused rapist to prison. She’s there to support rape victims. Being adversarial, skeptical or cynical about the stories she hears will not help rape victims. Going on O’Reilly and saying “why yes, Bill, I think some of the so-called victims who have come to me for help are total liars” will not help rape victims.
What does help rape victims is knowing that there is one place in the world where they can go and be believed and taken seriously. That is Ms. Hostler’s role.
And suppose that there are a couple of liars who come to Ms. Hostler’s agency and say “I was raped” when they really weren’t. So what? It makes no sense for victim advocates to treat 100% of the victims they help with skepticism and doubt, impeding their ability to help actual victims, in order to catch out the occasional faker. It’s not a rape victims advocacy center’s job to divide rape allegations into those that can be proved true and those that can’t be proved - that’s what courts are for.
Even if Cathy had fairly quoted Ms. Hostler, Cathy’s argument would be wrong, for the reasons given above. But as it happens, Ms. Hostler wasn’t quoted fairly (there’s a transcript of the interview here). Here’s the important bit:
O’REILLY: You don’t believe as an American citizen that you should give anyone the presumption of innocence. Is that what you’re telling me?
HOSTLER: Oh, absolutely. But my role in sexual assault is to support a woman or any victim that comes forward to say that they were sexually assaulted.
“Oh, absolutely” can be interpreted to mean “oh, absolutely, the courts shouldn’t presume the defendant is innocent. But my role is to support the victim.” That’s how Cathy seems to interpret it.
But if that’s what Hostler meant, why start the second sentence with the word “but”? A sentence starting with “but” usually contrasts with the previous sentence in some way - that’s what the word “but” means. But there’s no contrast here, so the “but” is out of place.
I think Hostler meant “oh, absolutely,” meaning “Oh, absolutely, defendants should get the presumption of innocence in court. But my role as an advocate is to support the victim.” If so, the word “but” makes much more sense, because there’s a contrast between the two sentences.
Another statement Hostler made in the same interview clarifies her attitude:
O’REILLY: Now for the top story tonight, convicting two Duke lacrosse players in the court of public opinion. An organization called the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault apparently believes Reade Seligmann and Colin Finnerty, the two Duke students charged with rape, are guilty. […]
HOSTLER: Bill, I wouldn’t say that I think that those particular boys are absolutely guilty. But what I do think is that woman was raped in that house on that night.
Clearly, Hostler doesn’t dismiss the possibility that the two accused rapists are innocent.
It’s ironic that Cathy is criticizing Hostler for not giving the two accused rapists any benefit of the doubt. Ms. Hostler does give them the benefit of the doubt; it’s Cathy, assuming the worse of Ms. Hostler even though the interview as a whole doesn’t justify Cathy’s assumptions, who is unreasonably refusing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Wanting to remove all doubt, I emailed Ms. Hostler. She says “of course” she believes that courts should presume defendants innocent until proven guilty. With all due respect to Cathy, there was enough textual evidence in the interview itself to raise doubts about Cathy’s interpretation, and Cathy should have made that clear in her column. Not only did Cathy’s column fail to inform her readers of the presence of doubt; Cathy’s quotations omitted the elements of the original interview which would have enabled her readers to notice the ambiguity for themselves.
Although I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose, the effect is that Cathy has unfairly smeared Ms. Hostler before a national audience. I hope Cathy uses a future column to correct her distortions and apologize to Ms. Hostler.
Let’s consider, one last time, Cathy’s accusation that “many” feminists want to do away with the presumption of innocence in rape cases. The one example she gave falls apart on examination. Without resorting to quoting undergraduates (a desperation tactic Cathy’s used in the past), I wonder if Cathy can support her accusation at all?
***PLEASE NOTE***
Comments for this post are open only to feminist and pro-feminist posters. Non-feminists may respond to the identical post at Creative Destruction.
As I had expected, the news about the woman who has been ordered by a judge to take her children to see their father, the man who had raped her, is bringing out the claims by men’s rights activists that women frequently falsely accuse men of rape. A big problem is including unfounded cases with cases of outright false allegations. When a rape case is deemed unfounded, it does not mean the woman was lying.
This blog continues with some excellent information on how statistics on rape cases may feed into the myth that most rape allegations are false and therefore no rape occurred.
“Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing….”
There is a huge flaw in using this data to say that 25% of the sexual assaults reported didn’t happen and therefore 25% of the alleged rape victims are liars.
In many of the cases handled by the Innocence Project (where the quote above came from), those cleared through DNA testing were convicted of rape/murders. So making a direct correlation between a DNA mismatch and a false allegation (as the phrase is commonly used) would mean that no murder occurred. Since we know this isn’t true, the use of this data is meaningless in determining the percentage of alleged victims (in non-lethal rape cases) who lie about being raped.
An alarming national trend: False Rape Allegations by Eugene J. Kanin, Ph.D.
The investigation of all rape complaints always involves a serious offer to polygraph the complainants and the suspects. Additionally, for a declaration of false charge to be made, the complainant must admit that no rape had occurred. She is the sole agent who can say that the rape charge is false.
and
First, with very few exceptions, these complainants were suspect at the time of the complaint or within a day or two after charging. These recantations did not follow prolonged periods of investigation and interrogation that would constitute anything approximating a second assault. Second, not one of the detectives believed that an incident of false recantation had occurred. They argued, rather convincingly, that in those cases where a suspect was identified and interrogated, the facts of the recantation dovetailed with the suspect’s own defense
The investigation process used as the basis of this study raises a huge red flag. Even though the official stance is that all rape allegations are investigated fully, it’s clear that in the recanted cases investigators quickly assumed the accusers to be liars. Combine that assumption with the polygraph and you’ve got everything you need to get false confessions (and false retractions).
In the city studied by Kanin, there is no mention whether the recantations were given in response to a threat of criminal charges against those who reported rape or whether the recantations were influenced by a “We investigated your allegations and know you weren’t raped. What really happened was ____, isn’t that right?” type of questioning.
It would be fascinating if someone did a survey of all those who made rape reports in that city during the period of Kanin’s study to see how they would evaluate the police response and ethics. If they were asked: “Were you pressured to recant your rape allegation?” what percent would answer yes?
About reports of a 50% rate of false rape reports on campus referred to by Kanin, I suspect the high rate is due to combination of a mismatch in where people draw the line between “real” rape and unwanted but non-criminal sexual contact and the college’s desire to look as safe as possible. Likely the campus police would ask questions to see if the alleged victim did anything wrong or “stupid,” and if the answer was yes then the campus police could decide that what happened to her couldn’t be rape.
In my post Abyss2hope: Gang rape and university culture - a case study the gang rape describedwasn’t classified by the university as a rape. In fact if it were included in a study like Kanin’s it very well could be classified as a false allegation of rape.
The bottom line is I can’t find a single scientific reason to believe the claims that more rape reports are false allegations than any other type of serious crime.
Note: Also posted on my blog, abyss2hope.blogspot.com
That seems to be the message in Kathleen Parker’s column Sex, lies and prison. As long as the rapist is “a good son” and his victim isn’t a stranger he snatched off the street, then he isn’t a “real” rapist no matter what a jury decides. So much for the argument that rapists are “innocent until proven guilty.”
For Ms. Parker, rapists are innocent until she decides otherwise.
The moral of Gorman’s story, which can’t be proved or disproved in this limited space, is that boys and men accused of rape have little hope of reclaiming the life they once knew, regardless of whether they’re guilty or innocent.
Really? Tell that to Kobe Bryant.
And isn’t it interesting that Ms. Parker makes all accused rapists, those innocent and those guilty of rape, sound like the only ones we should be concerned about in rape cases. Rape victims are only important if something about them can be used to make them seem less than “good.”
Apparently, those of us who have been raped by “good” men or boys are only “good” if we shut up and let all “good” rapists continue on with their lives as if they’ve done nothing wrong. I bought into this destructive advice for far too long and paid a steep price for my silence.
If squashing victims’ voices means those “good” men and boys continue with the same type of rapes, Ms. Parker doesn’t care or will continue to blame the “bad” victims for the actions of “good” serial rapists.
Ms. Parker is blind to the irony that many “good” rapists pick victims who are vulnerable to attack and who are least likely to be believed if they do report. Ms. Parker’s disbelief that “good” men and boys commit “real” rapes is so strong that she sees all prior reports of rape as proof that the alleged victim must be the real perpetrator.
One minute a junior at Florida State University majoring in business/computer systems, the next a prison inmate labeled a sex offender.
Uh huh, it happened just like that. But somewhere in that minute, the accused had time to turn down a plea deal that would have kept him out of prison and given him twelve months probation. But does Ms. Parker scold him for his stupidity at not taking the deal? Nope. She continues to paint him as the only victim in this case.
With so much glossed over in this article, there is no way I can trust that Ms. Parker has accurately given readers the full picture of the events that led to this man’s conviction. With her “I only see wrongly-accused men” glasses, she can’t do anything except discount all elements in this case that counter her vision of who is a criminal and who is not.
But all is not lost for our wholesome convicted rapist. He reconnected with his high school sweetheart and got her pregnant. No marriage yet for this wholesome father and convict, but in this case Ms. Parker approves.
This backlash against the prosecution of “good” rapists will continue to grow as the minimum sentences for rape convictions go up. Of course another irony is that those behind the backlash are often those behind the push to increase minimum sentences given to “real” rapists.
For you men who would never rape any girl or woman, not even the “bad” ones, it should bother you that Ms. Parker lumps you in with “good” rapists.
Note: Also posted on my blog, abyss2hope.blogspot.com
In the National Review Online, and also on the IWF blog, IWF vice-prez Carrie Lukas critiques of Mary Koss’ groundbreaking study of rape prevalence. Lukas’ target is Koss’ finding that 1 in 4 college women has experienced either rape or attempted rape since age 14.
The one-in-four statistic… was derived from a survey of 3,000 college women in 1982. Researchers used three questions to determine if respondents had been raped: Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs? Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man threatened or used some degree of physical force… to make you? And, have you had sexual acts…when you didn’t want to because a man threatened to use some degree of physical force… to make you?
Based on women’s responses, researchers concluded that 15 percent of women surveyed had been raped and 12 percent had experienced an attempted rape. Therefore, 27 percent of women … more than one in four … were either the victims of rape or attempted rape. This is the origin of the one-in-four statistic.
Yet other data from that same survey undercut its conclusion. While alcohol surely plays a part in many rape cases, the survey’s wording invites the label of rape victim to be applied to anyone who has ever drank too much, had a sexual encounter, and then regretted it later.
Yes, that’s a concern - out of context, I’ve always found Koss’ question about alcohol distressingly ambiguous.
However, it’s not enough to express concern. We should also ask, what does evidence say? Anti-feminists have been repeating this criticism of Koss’ survey for at least 15 years, but I’ve never seen one provide a speck of evidence that the question, in the context of a survey about rape and sexual coercion, is actually misunderstood by respondents to mean “have you ever had sex while drunk and regretted it in the morning?”
In fact, evidence shows that Lukas is wrong. Researchers Martin Schwartz and Molly Leggett tested the disputed question empirically back in 1999.1 They surveyed students with a modified version of Koss’ survey, which substituted this question for Koss’ original alcohol and drugs question:
Have you engaged in sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to but were so intoxicated under the influence of alcohol or drugs that you could not stop it or object?
If Lukas and other critics are correct to believe that Koss’ question creates a significant “false yes” problem, leading Koss to overestimate rape prevalence, then a significantly larger proportion of students would have answered “yes” to Koss’ original question than to Schwartz and Leggett’s rewritten version. So what actually happened? Rewriting the question made no difference at all - 17% percent of students surveyed by Schwartz and Leggett were found to have been raped, a number basically identical to Koss’ 15%. This proves that Lukas is wrong - Koss’ results are not caused by students saying “yes” because of morning-after regrets.
This result is unsurprising, because Koss and her co-researchers did extensive validity testing of the questions to make sure that they weren’t misunderstood. If a lot of students had misunderstood the question as referring to next-morning regrets, the question would have been rewritten early in the process. (So why didn’t Lukas mention the validity testing? For that matter, why didn’t she mention Schwartz and Leggett’s 1999 research?)
Lukas continues:
In addition, only 25 percent of the women whom researchers counted as being raped described the incident as rape themselves.
This misstates, in a subtle but very important way, what Koss’ study asked. 73% answered no to the question, “it was definitely rape” (emphasis added).
We have to consider context: we’re talking about young women, most of whom were raped by someone they knew (usually someone they were dating and had already been sexually fooling around with), who were in high school over 20 years ago, when discussions of date rape were extremely rare. It is any surprise that most of them weren’t positive that their experience was “definitely” rape?
In the real world, women who are raped - even in situations which anyone would call rape - are frequently, for whatever reason, not prepared to name what happened to them “rape,” let alone “definitely” rape. As Schwartz and Leggett noted, even among women who were physically forced or drugged into absolute helplessness - experiences that even the most determined anti-feminists will ruefully admit are rape - many or most refuse to label their experience “rape.”
What are the implications of deciding, as Lukas does, that if the victim doesn’t say it was ‘definitely’ rape, it’s not? Consider these statistics from Koss’ survey: 70% of the alleged rape victims in Koss’ study resisted by physically struggling with the man, and 84% tried to reason with him to no avail. The large majority reported having sex when they didn’t want to due to force or threat of force.
Lukas’ argument is that it doesn’t matter if the woman resisted physically, tried to reason with the man, and felt they had unwanted sex due to force or threat of force; rape isn’t defined by non-consent, it’s defined by whether or not the victim checks “yes” by the words “it was definitely rape.” Should anyone be comfortable with that logic? Should the law really be that even if someone physically holds down an unwilling woman and shoves his penis into her vagina by force, it can’t be rape if the victim, for any reason, doesn’t say it’s “definitely” rape? That must be what Lukas thinks, if she applies her logic consistently, but does it make any sense?
Lukas goes on:
The survey found that four in ten of the survey’s rape victims, and one in three victims of attempted rape, chose to have intercourse with their so-called attacker again.
This critique of Koss just restates the old “a woman who stays must not really have been abused” myth. It’s bullshit when said regarding battered women, and it’s bullshit when said regarding raped girls and women, too.
In Lukas’ fantasy world, of course a subsequent encounter - which may or may not be voluntary - proves that the earlier encounter wasn’t rape. The real world isn’t that tidy. It’s extremely common for victims of abuse to stay with their abuser for a while - certainly long enough for another sexual encounter.
Marcella at Abyss2Hope (before she started guest blogging here) addressed this, writing:
From personal experience I can speak to this paradox. My boyfriend didn’t fit the profile of a rapist as I’d been taught (a monster who snatches girls off the street) so even though what happened to me was rape, I couldn’t accept that he meant to treat me that way. I couldn’t accept that the guy who had been in my life nearly my whole life and who was one of my brothers’ best friends could be a rapist.
Looked at without understanding, people could think I decided to have intercourse with my boyfriend again. I did no such thing. It took a second rape (when I was still in shock from the first rape) before it began to sink in that the first time hadn’t been a fluke. He hadn’t mistaken the signals of non-consent.
Two rapes by the same person don’t cancel each other out or imply consent.
If you still don’t understand, think of it this way:
On the positive side of the scale I had 10 plus years of fun when this guy was around.
On the negative side of the scale I had less than 1 day of unimaginable pain and betrayal.
(I really recommend reading Marcella’s entire post).
Finally, Lukas concedes that “Another study…. found that one in eight American women … about 12 percent … had been victimized.” She makes it sound like this study stands alone. In fact, study after study after study - including major studies by the federal government - have found that between 10% and 18% of American women are raped at some point in their lives. These studies have used a variety of methods, worded the questions in various ways, and in some cases used extensive interviews to confirm that the questions were not misunderstood. There is no longer any legitimate argument over this matter; Koss was right to say that there is a great deal of “hidden rape” unmeasured by FBI and official statistics, and her anti-feminist critics were wrong to accuse her of deceit and exaggeration.
In social science, replication is considered the strongest evidence; if a finding is replicated by independent studies using various methods, it is considered strong. Koss’ findings, by this standard, are strong. This is a settled question. Rather than continuing to slandar Koss and distort her findings, the IWF should throw its political weight behind rape-prevention measures, such as anti-rape education aimed at middle schoolers.
In Marissa’s comments, Just Another Disenfranchised Father wrote:
However, I think that the point of Lukas’s article was not to suggest that going back to the purported rapist means that a rape has not taken place. I think she, and Christina Hoff Sommers, are pointing out the intrinsic inconsistencies of the survey which resulted in the 1 in 4 statistic and this makes that statistic suspect.
This makes no sense. If Lukas doesn’t believe that future sex encounters establish that all prior sex encounters were consensual, then where is the “intrinsic inconsistency”? The two things are inconsistant only if you believe that in a large majority of abusive relationships, the abused party leaves the abuser immediately after any case of serious abuse; but we know that’s not the case.
PLEASE NOTE
Comments for this post are open only to feminist and pro-feminist posters. Non-feminists may respond to the identical post at Creative Destruction.
Jill and Piny both have good posts at Feministe regarding Anorexia Nervosa. My favorite quote is from Jill’s post:
And as for denial, on a most basic level, fuck that. Sorry, but why are the values of self-sacrifice only brought up when we’re talking about women’s bodies? We’re supposed to deny ourselves food in order to stay thin so that someone else (always male) will enjoy looking at us; we’re supposed to deny ourselves sex so that the virginity fetishists can have an all-access pass once we’re married; and even then we’re supposed to sacrifice all of our own wants and needs for our children and our husband, and still deny sex if we don’t want any more babies. I call bullshit. I’ve had enough of the cult of female martyrdom, and I feel no need to let other people tell me that I should feel guilty for enjoying pleasures like food and sex. I own a vibrator, I use birth control, and I make myself steak au poivre and drink good red wine every Friday night. These things bring me far more pleasure than skinny thighs or blood on my wedding-night bedsheets. And if that makes me an over-indulgent pig, then so be it.
Sing it, sister!
But the main reason I’m posting is because of this quote, from a post on the blog “Cosmic Tap”:
My personal offhand estimate had been that we might lose about 100 Americans annually to anorexia. My research this morning showed that I was not far off ““ a 2001 study by the University of British Columbia’s Department of Psychology of every American death for the most recently available five year period showed only 724 people with anorexia as a causal factor - 145 per year. Christina Hoff-Sommers, in her research for the book Who Stole Feminism, came up with a number below half that. In a presentation to the International Congress of Psychology, one expert (Dr. Paul Hewitt) estimated a death rate for anorexia of 6.6 per 100,000 deaths. Even if you assume that sufferers outnumber deaths by a few orders of magnitude, it would still seem that all objective evidence shows the health impact on Americans from anorexia is statistically nil. Now, I know that doesn’t make for very good shock journalism, but it doesn’t change the uncomfortable fact that it’s true.
Hoff-Sommers claimed that between 50 and a hundred Americans a year die from anorexia - but her claim was based on an appalling misunderstanding of mortality statistics. She’s right that only a tiny number of Americans have “anorexia” credited as their cause of death, but that’s not the relevant question.
According to the NIMH, anorexics typically die due to “complications of the disorder, such as cardiac arrest or electrolyte imbalance,” not anorexia itself. Hoff-Sommers might as well have claimed that because so few people have “cigarettes” written on their death certificate, smoking hardly ever causes any deaths.
So what’s the real number? There are about 19 million American women between ages 15 and 24; of those, somewhere between 190,000 and 380,000 have anorexia (it’s estimated that 1-2% of young women suffer from anorexia). About 0.56% - somewhere between one and two thousand - of those die of anorexia-related causes each year. (This is a conservative estimate, both because some studies have found a much higher long-term mortality rate, and because not everyone with anorexia is a young woman age 15-24).
Hoff-Sommers used the mistaken “100 deaths” statistic to refute an also-mistaken number some feminists used in the early 1990s. She was right to correct the feminists - but, unlike Hoff-Sommers, the feminists were willing to retract their mistaken statistic. Hoff-Sommers has never corrected or retracted her false “100 deaths from anorexia” figure.
* * *
Anthony at The Cosmic Tap complains that concern for anorexia is a “moral panic” - but it’s clear that he’s uncritically bought into a far more pervasive and popular moral panic, fat-hating. He complains that two-thirds of Americans are “overweight” and jumps from this to all the usual cliches about Americans stuffing their faces and so forth. But there’s no evidence that fat people eat significantly more than thin people.
Anthony also doesn’t mention that the “two-thirds” statistic defines anyone with a BMI (body mass index) over 25 as “overweight.” But by that standard, merely being muscular can make someone “overweight” (Brad Pitt is a famous example - what a porker!).
More substantively, as a JAMA study published last year showed, “overweight” Americans with BMIs of 25-30 actually live longer than Americans who aren’t overweight. The panic over weight has very little to do with health. It is instead a true moral panic - a reflection of the fear that Americans are over-indulgent and pleasure-driven. As Elkins wrote, “Eating is the new sex. Anti-fat hysteria is the new Puritanism.”
It’s a rare day in Mudville that I agree with Wendy McElroy…
The toddler wandered from her nursery school, Ready Teddy Go, through a door left open. A bricklayer named Clive Peachey drove past her in his truck. At the inquest, he stated, “I kept thinking I should go back. The reason I didn’t was because I thought people might think I was trying to abduct her.”
Instead, he assured himself that the parents must be “driving around” and would find her.
A few minutes thereafter, Abby fatally fell into an algae-covered pond.
There’s no doubt that child molestation is a real problem, and increased awareness is a good thing. But as Abby’s story horribly illustrates, societies in which adults don’t feel free to approach or help strange children, are not child-safe.
McElroy, uncharacteristically, doesn’t comment on how this effects men in particular. But I think men are more likely to be seen as sexual predators, with the result that innocent men are more likely to worry about their actions being misconstrued than innocent women. (I’ve posted in the past about the extra suspicion some male child care workers have to deal with).
Curtsy: The Argument Clinic.
UPDATE: Abyss2hope has a different take.
As usual, open for whatever discussion or links you’d like to post - and don’t hesitate to post links to your own stuff!
By the way, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten around to part two of my “No Basis” critique yet. I’m mildly sick, and doing a heavy-research blog post just doesn’t seem as high a priority as, you know, lying on the couch and watching a lot of TV. I am going to do part two, but it may be a week or so - I’m taking it easy.
Nonetheless, I still need to empty all these open tabs, so….
Tomorrow is Blog Against Sexism Day!
I’d better start thinking of a post…
The Third Carnival of Bent Attractions!
The Second Radical Women of Color Carnival!
Fetal Personhood as Metaphorical Thinking
This discussion of abortion politics and pro-life thought, by regular “Alas” comment-writer Richard Jeffrey Newman, develops a fascinating line of thought, using as a starting point a couple of the abortion discussions we’ve had here on “Alas,” and so will be especially entertaining for “Alas” readers. One of the best posts I’ve read this week - check it out.
Top Ten Things Fattiepatties is Tired of Discussing
Ten months from now, I must remember to nominate this series for a Koufax award for “best series of posts 2006.” Fattiepatties discusses the ten “fat acceptance” discussions she’s sick of having over and over. Excellent, smart analysis. She’s halfway through the series now; start here and scroll up.
Feh-Muh-Nist: Dance Like No One’s Watching
Utterly fantastic, beautifully-written post about “Dancing While Fat.” This is the sort of writing I envy. (I’ve added Feh-Muh-Nist to the blogroll.)
The Fifteen Year Plan for Same Sex Marriage
The long-range strategy for same-sex marriage. The article is a bit too optimistic and rah-rah go-team-go for my tastes, but it’s nonetheless interesting.
Slavery Denial
We condemn holocaust denial. So why don’t we condemn those who softball or try to excuse American slavery for slavery denial?
Queer vs. Nigger/Nigger vs. Queer
Newsflash: Contraception Prevents Unwanted Pregnancies
Ohio State Senator Proposes Bill Banning Republicans From Adopting Children
Being an elected official makes sarcasm much more satisfying.
Israel’s Economic Abuse of the Palestinians
Keeping $700 million in taxes that rightfully belongs to the Palestinians is just scratching the surface.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Rape
Curtsy: Muse and Fury.
Can Conservative Christians Be Convinced To Ally With Democrats?
David at The Debate Link argues persuasively that no, they can’t; “as an organized political entity,” the Christian Right can’t get behind “any proposal that doesn’t relate to abortion, gay marriage, and abstinence.” But then a few posts later David reverses himself, after reading this Washington Monthly article, about some Conservative Christians who are sick of Republicans putting big business and hardball politics ahead of issues.
The Gender Mysteries of Don Knotts
Reappropriate on “Crash“: Racist, Shallow, and Easy For Whites To Swallow
The Same Peanut Butter Tastes Better With A Brand Name
As Word Munger sums up, “People prefer inferior peanut butter when it’s got a recognizable brand name. People will say the same peanut butter tastes better when it’s labeled as a recognizable brand.” But since enjoyment is subjective, does this mean that people really do get more taste enjoyment out of eating a brand-name product?
Gendergeek’s FAQ for Men’s Rights Activist readers
Curtsy: Muse and Fury.
Why Curious People Shouldn’t Own Stun Guns
New to the Blogroll: Bad Feminist
The appropriate kitch artwork illustrating each and every post is impressive. More substantively, I liked this post suggesting specific ways feminists could switch way from a judicial-branch approach to protecting abortion rights.
Real Life Simpsons.
“The opening sequence of The Simpsons, but with real people.” Via Crooked Timber.
Widowhood is Bad For Whites, But Not Blacks
Excellent Series of Essays on Being An Adjunct Professor
Wow.
The Double Edged Sword of Fuck Me Feminism
UK nurses want to supply clean blades and cutting advice to self-harmers
Parental Notice Laws Don’t Reduce Abortion
New To The Blogroll: Vigilence
Smart, “professional-feeling” blog focused on queer rights and fighting the Christian right.
On Being a Straight White Pro-Feminist Progressive Male
Kevin Drum on the Irrational Wackiness that is CEO Compensation
1. Larry Summers is a mirror of the lefty-basher’s soul.
The truthful reason Summers had to resign - his losing power struggle with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences - is a matter of record, but provides only a minor opportunity for left-bashing, and so is of no interest. Instead, each pundit stares into Summers’ resignation and sees their own favorite excuse for left-bashing staring back.
2. Summers did some good things at Harvard.
Of course, that doesn’t excuse the many times Summers was a jerk.
3. Newsflash for Conservatives: There is no constitutional right of freedom from criticism
In particular, there is no first amendment duty for feminists to refrain from criticizing the President of Harvard because criticizing him makes him more vulnerable to faculty politics; nor, if the President’s enemies take advantage of the moment, is it fair to blame feminism.
Many conservatives seemingly want freedom from criticism. Recently, Bowdoin College Republicans passed a declaration saying no one should face “recrimination” for their views. “Recrimination” is just a fancy word for expressing a counter-opinion. No one should be free from recrimination.
Similarly, David Horowitz referred to some left-wing professors as having “totalitarian instincts.” What had the lefty profs done? They criticized Horowitz’s new book; that, in Horowitz’s mind, is enough to justify a charge of totalitarianism. Puh-leeeze.
4. Some topics should not be excluded from reasonable discussion.
* Whether or not it is appropriate for the President of Harvard, who has presided over a nosedive in hires of tenure-track female faculty, to argue that women don’t want the top science jobs and are biologically less likely to be able to do the top jobs, should not be excluded from reasonable discussion.
* Calls for the President of Harvard to resign should not be excluded from reasonable discussion.
5. Unfairness and meanness can shut people up
I don’t think that merely being meek, or quiet, or kind, means you have nothing worthwhile to say. A style of dialog that tends to cut out the meek and kind in favor of the brash and cruel is therefore problematic, because it shuts up people I’d like to hear from.
As debating technique, over-the-top condemnations are bad strategy. As the Summers case shows, such condemnations can easily be twisted by feminism’s enemies into ammunition for attacking and/or dismissing feminism. More importantly, there’s the question of accessibility. If my grandmother asks me for a good explanation of why Summers was wrong, I’m not going to send her an essay that opens by calling Summers a dick - not even when the essay goes on to make excellent points. The more our tone says “anyone who disagrees with us is loathsome,” the more in-groupy and less accessible what we say becomes.
There were certainly examples of this problem in some feminist responses to Larry Summers’ famous speech on women’s achievement in science (there were also calm, reasoned responses which have largely been ignored by conservatives).
On the other hand, it should be noted that the people who criticize leftists for creating an “intolerant atmosphere,” are frequently eager to engage in name-calling and incivility themselves: for instance, calling Summers’ critics Stalinists and witch-burners and tyrants. Unless these folks are willing to refrain from such insulting and unfair comparisons, it’s hard to take their concern for civil debate seriously.
6. Civility and calmness can shut people up
I don’t think that merely being angry, or loud, or foulmouthed, means you have nothing worthwhile to say. A style of dialog that delegitimizes anger and outrage in favor of a calm, cool surface is therefore problematic, because it shuts up people I’d like to hear from.
Furthermore, privilege interacts with the “everyone should always be calm and kind” approach to dialog. It’s easier to be calm and kind when it isn’t one’s own ox being gored; a white person may have an easier time talking about racism in a “calm” and so-called “rational” manner, because they’re not being hurt by racism. Just because someone is righteously pissed off doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be listened to.
Furthermore, the style our culture understands as “calm” and “neutral” tends to be a style of discourse that matches how wealthy, white people often comport themselves. I doubt this is a coincidence.
I’m not saying that sex, race, etc, is deterministic; there are countless examples of women who argue against sexism in a calm manner, people of color who argue against racism in a calm manner, queers who argue against homophobia in a calm manner, and so forth. Similarly, it’s commonplace to see white straight men become emotional and abusive when they argue these issues. Nor am I saying that being in an oppressed group excuses being abusive.
Nonetheless, a norm of calm, level-toned discourse is going to unfairly silence some people; and there’s good reason to worry that a disproportionate number of the folks who are silenced will be people from groups (women, minorities, disabled, fat, etc) who are already marginalized too much in our society.
On the internet, I think the solution is different websites with different norms - on some websites civility is expected, others use more freewheeling standards, and the end result is that more people get to speak than would be the case if all websites held to a single common standard. But I’m not sure how, or if, that sort of solution can translate to real-world issues like the Larry Summers flap.
7. Links to criticisms of Larry Summers’ speech.
Four Points on Summers’ Transcript, by Colin Danby.
Response to Laurence Summ