Feminist literature seems to imply that the vast majority of men are rapists in either fact or wish. That many many more rapes are committed than are ever reported. That men think of rape constantly but only restrain themselves out of fear of the law.
Is this true? How many rapes are there really–
I for one think that most men are not, and that it is a few bad apples.
For discussion’s sake, interpret ‘rape’ in the traditional way, not the Dworkin ‘it’s all rape’ mentality.
Umm…cite? What feminist literature says this? I certainly can’t imagine anyone makes the claim that even a slight majority of men are in fact rapists, and I’m pretty skeptical that many people have even made the claim that the majority of men wish they were rapists, unless they’re using a really loose definition of the word (I suppose its possible that the majority of men have fantasized about rape at one point or another, but I hardly think that qualifies as wishing they were rapists, anymore then a woman fantasizing about being raped actually wishes to be the victim of such a crime).
In anycase, its hard to debate against a position that’s simply been summarized in two sentences by someone who doesn’t in fact support that point of view. It would help if you’d dig up a specific example of this argument being made by someone who actually think its true.
Who are “the feminists” and what are their beliefs? I’m still waiting to hear of a centralized ideology that we all adhere to.
IOW, the OP seems to be a tired repeat of the old “Militant/radical feminists speak for all feminists” meme.
How much feminist literature have you actually read?
The Centers for Disease Control say 1 in 6 women are raped in the US, but everyone knows that the CDC is just a tool of the vast and pernicious feminist conspiracy.
I’d also like a cite of the “non-Dworkin” literature which makes this claim - especially since you eliminated that source and sources of that type in your OP.
A few years ago, I noticed that the residence halls at my campus were covered with these fliers that claimed that 1/4 of all college women are raped. I started a thread about it here.
The general consensus was that the statistic was B.S.
But this is a very different thing than the OP’s claim that “Feminist literature seems to imply that the vast majority of men are rapists in either fact or wish.”
Let’s just assume for the moment that the CDC number is accurate. Even if most rapists only raped one woman, it would follow that 1/6 of men are rapists. That’s a far cry from “the vast majority.”
When you consider serial rapists, it’s an even farther cry. I’d really like to hear where scrambledeggs got his information, but given his habit of dropping OP-bombs and skittering away into the woodwork, never to return to his thread, I doubt we’re going to find out.
Well, some feminists (of both the militant anti-male and well-the meaning but misguided/misinformed variants) have quite regularly touted a statistic that 1 in 5 woman are raped in their lives. (It’s interesting to see from an earlier post that it’s now been further exaggerated to 1 out of 4).
I can’t remember where I read it (might have been a Straight Dope column, or possibly a textbook on propaganda techniques), but all that basically comes from an initial small study that had 1 in 5 females report unwanted sexual contact of any type at some point, possibly even of the variety that if you consented and then changed your mind about whether it was a good idea afterwards it still counts. This is a far cry from rapes, but activists want to make a point and so tend to be a bit loose with the definition.
I know a person that has a women’s studies Bachelor’s and considers herself a feminist. I’m not sure if it was her claim, or she was repeating it, but the claim was that all men intimidate women with the (implied) threat of rape to exert their dominance on society. I could ask her for a cite, but I’d rather not get into it with her.
Here’s some credible data on rape incidence: Abstract Redirect | NCJRS
Mixing rape and attempted rape tends to muddy the message, IMHO. But circa 17% is still a fairly high number.
I wouldn’t say all men intimidate women. But there is an environment of the constant implied threat of rape, and it does affect how women live their lives and limit them in some significant ways. Even just small things- a woman may miss out on a promotion because she refused to take the night shifts.
We had a serial-assaulter in town once, so the police advised all women to stay indoors until they caught him. If there was someone assaulting black people, would they tell all black people to stay indoors, or would they do what it takes to make things safe?
the 17% that Qadcop mentioned is close enough to one in five for me, and appears to be in line with my experience.
That study did break that down to 14.8% of women reported experiencing completed rape. That’s slightly less than 1 in 6 (16.7%) and significantly less than 1 in 5 (20%).
The number is horrific enough as it is, let us not diminish its impact by conflating it without decent evidence.
I also note that study was done in the United States, presumably the number would be much higher or lower in other countries.
I like statistics. You can make them say whatever you want.
Watch this: 83 % of women in the United States will go through life without ever experiencing any form of rape whatsoever.
See? doesn’t sound so bad that way.
Rape is a terrible crime, but I’m not certain how accurate the numbers are. If we base them solely on criminal reports filed, we are told that a large number of victims do not report. I can believe that, so we must assume a larger amount. This becomes problematic to study unless one can survey several thousand women, narrowly defining the act of “rape”. I’ve gone through a few sexual harassment orientations that made it fairly clear that any unwanted contact of a sexual nature constituted “rape”.
Oh, I agree. I was merely providing evidence of the long arm of the feminist conspiracy.
Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, 1975 Maybe that is what the OP is talking about.
It isn’t quite the same thing as claiming that all men are rapists, but it is kind of close. I think Brownmiller is making a rhetorical point rather than a literal claim, but FWIW.
Regards,
Shodan
Can we get a solid definition of rape as a boundary of this discussion?
I mean, I once made completely consensual love to my then-girlfriend while we were both drunk and under the legal drinking age. According to one of my associates, this fulfills the state’s definition of rape. (not to hijack, but is this true?) This seems much different than the violent non-consensual act that we need to discuss.
When I heard the 1 in 4 claim (many times), it was always described as “1 in 4 women will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes.” Which I think is different from rape–it includes all sorts of things that are not pleasant at all but which are also not rape.
I still have no idea of what the validity of such a claim is, but I never heard that particular number as being limited to rape. I’d say the first time I heard it was in about 1992, in Berkeley.