Will a quarter of all women really get raped?

Great Debates
61

That’s interesting…I never knew MacKinnon was linked with the “all sex is rape” quote. I did read some of Dworkin’s work. As I mentioned she makes the case (and I think she does say “analogous” or something of that sort)…that all sex is “essentially” or “synonymous” with rape due to the patriarchical nature of male/female relations. I think that a number of writers have “walked that line”…I mentioned some quotes from Russell and Brownmiller…of suggesting that normal male sexual behavior is not all that different from the behavior of rapists…implying but not directly stating that sex=rape, at least to some degree. If you ever chance to read Dworkin’s work it is pretty filled with vitriol and polemic and she certainly seems to equate male/female intercourse as negative and coercive, and “rape like”…if she didn’t mean to suggest “all sex is rape” she certainly approaches the line. If people misattributed her intentions (and frankly I think she does a bit of waffling in her responses in the Snopes article)…it is not difficult to see how they might have done so. I do remember her using to word “violent” to refer to normal male/female intercourse…and she does allocute to that in the Snopes article.

I am unfamiliar with MacKinnon’s work, though I know she has been controversial. I am curious if anyone has read anything by her, and if so, what exactly does she say in regards to male/female consensual intercouse?

62

You are wrong. The law does not demand a paper trail.

Virtually all, if not all states in the USA recognize the legal concept of Expressed Consent, Implied Consent and Consent on Behalf of Minors and Mentally Incompetant Adults pertianing to the area of Emergency Medicine.

( Brady, Emergency Care, 9th ed. pp. 33-34. ).

While I am unable to offer cite beyond the medical realm, I cannot and do not believe that you are correct. Un- coerced consent- true consent- is a concept that has fairly firm and well-established legal footings.

Cartooniverse

63

But definition is what matters in rape. And that’s why the accusation of rape is so subject to abuse, and why we must exercise skepticism - especially when it is so painful. I’m not advocating a return to the days when the common law made rape almost impossible to prove. But when faux scholars like Dworkin abuse the terminology because of their own profound psychological damage, it creates an injustice as great as that which it seeks to alleviate.

And part of it does, frankly, depend on the victim and the decision of the victim to move on. In the case of a violent rape, or repeated mental abuse that’s not going to be possible. But in the case of psychological coercion, which as we’ve seen as a remarkably elastic concept, it can be. At the lesser end, victims can decide whether to remain victims or not. Unfortunately, part of the socialization of girls in our culture (it may be a simple fact of sexual dimorphism) encourages the exploitation of victim status. It’s a survival technique. Indeed, we’ve arrivied a cult of the victim which a friend of mine calls the Oppression Olympics, and that is itself tragic when it saps toughness.

I’m speaking from experience. The definitions Dworkin, MacKinnon, Russell et al. use encourage women to view sex through a lens of victimhood, and to interpret ambiguous experience in the worst possible light. My feminist political theory class exposed me to writings that, had I been a year or two younger and a bit less skeptical, might have resulted in my viewing a nasty, exploitative sexual incident that happened right after my 18th birthday as rape. As it happens, I’d file it under some sort of sexual abuse. It was unpleasant, but hardly life-changing, although it was my first or second sexual experience. (Which it was depends, again, on definitions.)

I suspect they’d discount my story, partly because I wasn’t particularly traumatized and partly because I’m male. In a paint-by-numbers reaction formation, theit accepted logic is that women have nothing to learn from men, and men have everything to learn from women. (That is, when they’re admitted to the classroom, which Mary Daly would not permit.)

64

It’s not likely to change your viewpoint about rape statistics in general, but I must point out the logical fallacy in this quote. You’re assuming that each rapist has only raped one woman (and that the numbers of women and men are equal, but let’s let that slide).

I would bet money that at least one rapist reads this board. I suspect it’s even less likely that he will come forward than it is that all the women who’ve been raped will.

65

(1) Doubling the number of incidents does not necessarially double the lifetime chances. The math doesn’t work out that way.

(2) I double checked my math and I made several mistakes. I will reproduce (what I think is) the correct math below. If anyone can substitute my made-up numbers with real numbers, it would improve accuracy.

No. of total rape incidents: 0.6 per 1000 people. Assume all 0.6 are female and are not fraudlent. Assume that 500 people out of the population of 1000 are women. Rape incidents are defined by the DoJ as including reported incidents “attempted rape” (including “verbal threats of rape”) (my guess is that not many people would report attemted rapes unless the incident really did scare them).

Multiplier (either for unreported incidents or increase in crime rate): x, making the number 0.6x per 500 people

Of the 0.6x out of 500, 0.2x are in a given 5 year age range (when most rapes happen), 0.2x are in a given 10 year range (maybe 5 years below and 5 years above the range) and 0.2x are in a given 50 year range (everything else). I am totally making these numbers up, but they seem to be reasonable.

Assuming an even distribution of ages, there are (500)(5/65) or about 38 women in the first group, (500)(10/65) or about 77 women in the second group and (500)(50/65) or about 385 women in the third group.

The chances of a woman going through all 5 years in the first group without being raped is [1 - (0.2x)/(38)]^5, the chances of making it through the second age group is [1 - (0.2x)/(77)]^10, and the chances of making through the last is [1 - (0.2x)/(385)]^50. Multiply all three together and you get a lifetime probability.

Assuming x = 1 (perfect reporting, crime rate does not go up), I get 92.5% chance of not being raped. Assuming x = 2 (only 1/2 the cases are reported), I get an 85.5% chance of not being raped. Assuming x = 3 (only 1 out of every 3 rapes are reported), I get 79.9%. I need to assume an x = 3.6 before I can get 75.3%.

If you take the very conservative approach, and say that the great majority of people who are violently raped will report it to the authorities (or, at the least, will have it reported for them, such as by hospitals) and are comfortable using the latest crime rate then 7.5% seems like an accurate number.

However, the 0.6 per 1000 is very recent. It was more than double that during the 90s, about 3.5 times that during the 80s, and more than 4 times that for 1973 - 1979. Even taking the conservative approach (almost all incidents were reported) 1 in 4 seems reasonable for the 70s and 80s.

66

I have to say that I have seen this view represented in print. I am sorry to report, however, that it was in a remaindered book, the authorship and credentials of which I cannot remember. This author DEFINITELY had a thing against those of us with Y chromosomes.

I am not at all sure that this view is representative of a “camp” of feminism. I think it is the view of a nut.

That said, I have heard directly from some feminists what kind of bastard I am for being a typical man, and not swallowing whole everything they had to say. I don’t think I am alone in this experience, but will refrain from statistical speculations.

As to the OP: I have had some women confide a rape experience to me. I don’t know how many have not. I do not find the statistic unbelieveable, but given the political attachments to it, I do find it suspect.

67

You know, InternetLegend, we really ought to get an animated sarcasm smiley. FTR, I was generating a useful “statistic” using some of the same methods that generated the statistics we’re all kvetching about.

68

Edwina, don’t be so sexist. Men disagree with your rape propaganda because they are looking at it objectively, not giving absurd statistics the benefit of the doubt. No proof they are true, no reason to believe they are true.

Numbers of supposed rapes are artificially inflated by equating drunking consent with no consent, even if both parties were drunk, and that sort of thing. I don’t know if it includes statutory rape, but it’s that shouldn’t count either in most instances. It’s researchers who are to blame, and activists. People who benefit from making women paranoid.

Rape is certainly a social problem, as is all violent crime, but this fear mongering doesn’t help anyone. Fighting ignorance means fighting this statistic. Here is one detailed debunking of the statistic. Another and one more. Anecdotal evidence is no evidence at all, either way.

Intentional false reports don’t really appear in these studies as there is no motive to lie, they only appear in reports to the police. These false accusers should be punished, they cause harm to the people they accuse and to genuine victims. The numbers of false allegations are debateable but high. More information. False convictions are too easy to come by and too common.

As for which “camps” of feminists think all sex is rape, the mad ones. Morgan, Brownmiller, MacKinnon, Dworkin. The influential ones. The ones that sell lots of books. Yes, I’m aware there is a faulty quote on that page, but that is irrelevant. The other quotes aren’t faulty and the one incorrect MacKinnon quote is still important because of the effect it has had on feminism at large. It has influenced other feminists to believe all sex is rape, whether she believes it or not (example). Other feminist quotes about rape: 1, 2, 3. Slightly out of date, as Robin Morgan is no longer editor of Ms. Magazine and with a axe to grind, but they speak for themselves.

Some facts about rape.
Researching the “Rape Culture”
The New Mythology of Rape

That’s enough for now.

69

People who think it’s easy to go to the police.
Think again.

People who think that they don’t personally know rape victims.
Think again.

I was raped when I was 17, and sexually assaulted after my drink was spiked 6 months later.
In “real life” only my counsellour and my SO know this.

It doesn’t come up in after dinner chit-chat that often, and even if it did, I might not admit to it.

After the sexual assault, as I lay in a hospital bed, disoriented and alone, a 40 year old, MALE plain clothes detective came to take a statement.
He expected me to tell him what had happened, in a cubicle with curtains, without anyone else there for support, without privacy, without even proper clothes on.

I told him to leave.

Can you blame me?

The police never brought the matter up again, how could I?

1 in 4 doesn’t surprise me.
Because I’m a nice middle-class girl who happened to be an attractive target, and it happened to me twice.

If you add in child abuse, women in abusive relationships, sex workers abused by clients, date-rapes, drug rapes and plain old-fashioned stranger rapes, I’d say it mounts up.

70

Ok, I’ll add my two cents here.

Yes, in my personal experience, 1 to 2 out of 4 of my close personal women friends, myslef, and my own sisters has either been molested as a young girl, or raped as an older female.

It’s sad, but true. :frowning: And no, most of them were not reported, and not publicly confessed to.

71

Some of you men might be amazed how many women you know have been victims of sexual assault, up to and including rape. Of course, some of it is of the “giving in to the whiny boyfriend” category, but a surprising amount of it is not. Some of it takes place when the victim is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, but a surprising proportion does not. You’d also be amazed how many true sexual assaults take place when the victim is below the age of consent. As other posters have stated, just because none of your acquaintances have related their tales of sexual assault to you, doesn’t mean you don’t know anyone who’s been an assault victim.

To add to the extremely unscientific polling:

One dear childhood friend of mine was the victim of rape by a neighbor. IIRC she was about 10 years old at the time. I’m not sure whether even her husband knows. I didn’t believe her at the time, but mostly because I was very naive and didn’t really comprehend what she was telling me about what had happened to her. Her parents believed her, but decided not to press charges.

Another childhood friend of mine was repeatedly sexually abused by a relative.

My sister was the victim of an attempted rape as a teenager. If my mother hadn’t come home when she did, it would have been a completed rape. God knows why, but she decided not to press charges. And I’m sure there are others I know who have been victimized, but just haven’t told me about it.

Myself, I’ve been the victim of what could legally be defined as sexual assault on several occasions. In none of these situations was I under the influence of any alcohol or drugs, just stupidity.

Some were of the “giving in to the whiny boyfriend” variety; back when I was much younger and more easily manipulated, I let my then-boyfriend jerk me around much more than I should have in terms of what level of physical intimacy I would consent to. On several occasions, he physically forced or attempted to force me to do things I wasn’t comfortable with, and which I had refused to do, but he kept pushing (sometimes psychologically, sometimes physically, and I’m not a large or physically powerful person; I’m 5’1” and back then I was less than 100 lbs.; he was 6’ and probably 170). Luckily it never rose to the level of rape. Thank goodness I now have more sense about these things; in retrospect I should have dumped the schmuck and walked out, but hey, I was 17 and thought I was in love.

Then there was the near-date rape in Madrid when I was 19; luckily, that only happened once, although unfortunately not before I saw and felt, ummmm, a lot more of my date than I had any desire to see or feel. He was history immediately thereafter. I mostly blamed myself at the time for allowing him to maneuver me into a situation where I would be alone with him, but that certainly doesn’t excuse his behavior. I felt repulsive afterward, but never took any legal action.

When I studied in Russia in 1989, our group director said we were the first group in the history of our exchange program (40 people/semester, 3 semesters/year, for IIRC more than 20 years) where nobody was raped. Most of the rapes were never prosecuted, because in the USSR at the time, apparently it’s nearly impossible to prove in court that the sex wasn’t consensual if it wasn’t a complete stranger who attacked the victim.

So I don’t know if this adds up to “25% of women will be raped,” but I bet the proportion of women who have been sexually assaulted is waaaaaay higher than 25%.

72

That was my question - how can you claim there seem to be serious problems with the “dramatic statistics” if you say there’s no way to compare them? You put up pairs of statistics, and said they looked mutually exclusive. How on Earth could you come to that conclusion if you didn’t do a teensy bit of the math you claim can’t be done?

You’re drawing conclusions that the stats are wrong without defending it, and you’re tearing apart my attempts (which I admit are attempts, and imperfect).

You didn’t bother to check the source of their claims, either.

Basically you’re saying it’s an unsolvable problem, but you know the figures are wrong.

You’ve set up your place in this discussion to be a lot easier than mine. I’m just going to be cynical about everything from now on.

73

Blue John, I looked through your links:

The first three all bashed the same study (which has already been done on this thread), which has nothing to do with the lifetime statistic.

The next couple of links were interesting in that higher numbers of false reports seemed be dependant on when the study was conducted, which leads me to the possibility that the early DoJ numbers (from 1970s and 1980s) were inflated, due to false reporting in the social climate of the time. There is no reason to believe the false reporting is still a significant issue in this age of 0.6 incidents per 1000.

74

I agree. I know a lot of women who were sexually assaulted. In fact, every girl I had dated had been sexually assaulted or raped at one point or another in their life :eek: I found this fact rather apalling. I felt bad, because I never knew how to comfort someone who has had something like that happen to them. It never happened to me, so I have no way of being able to relate. I talked to my psychologist about how all my relatioships involved girls who had various issues because of a prior sexual assault/rape. The psychologist told me that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, which shocked me (sorry I didn’t ask the shrink for a cite). She also mentioned that perhaps I had a sympathetic nature that attracted victimized people to me. Had me rather puzzled. Also kind of felt bad that there was nothing more I could do to help them :frowning:

Conversely, I have been falsely accused of rape by two different people. One was out to solely manipulate my best friend and I, and was telling my friend I raped her so it would ruin my friendship with him. The other was an ex-girlfriend who claimed the reason for our breakup was that I raped her in a movie theater. Despite being able to prove my innocence in both occasions, the accusation itself seriousuly damaged my reputation at school. ‘Rape’ has such an ugly sting to it that it is easy to throw around to get people riled up. The word was clearly used against me in both occasions for the sole purpose of causing me grief.

75

I also have read the same debunking of the “1 out of 4…” stat as mentioned by Truth Seeker. I believe Mary Koss was a college professor at the time and basically hypothesized that number out of thin air, and wrote it in a paper published in some scholarly journal. Afterwards, other papers appeared and referenced her original as if the statistic was true or empirical. Then those later papers were citated by others and so on and so forth, until so many references to the “1 out of 4…” are around that it becomes a “truth” in the academic circles. (That’s humanities for ya.)

I’ve also read that in a great percentage of actual rape cases, the victim actually knew the rapist. It’s more of a “date rape” situation where the boy keeps advancing even after the woman says “no”. The scenario where a totally unknown, stranger rapist jumps out of dark corner is much rarer.

76

Maybe I misunderstood, but I always heard the 1 in 4 (and 1 in 5 for boys) statistic linked to all forms of sexual abuse, including molestation–not exclusively rape–and over the course of a lifetime. No cites, though, I’m relying on information from therapists and social workers.
In my own life and classroom, I would guess that those numbers were fairly accurate. I distinctly remember looking around the room at my fourteen students and realizing that at least TEN of them were victims of some type of sexual abuse. That isn’t the norm, I know, but this was in a very small school, so my ten kids were a significant percentage in themselves.
If you think you don’t know any women who were sexually abused or raped, think again. When I started making public disclosures about my experiences as a rape and molestation survivor, women and girls came out of the woodwork to share their experiences with me. In spite of the emotional scars, you can’t always spot us on the street.
My heart goes out to the survivors here. It’s incredibly hard to have gone through this experience, and then have to listen to reminders that some women lie, as if that fact somehow negates our own experience.
Emotional sidenote: Jar, if it helps, my dad wouldn’t believe me either. His take on rape is thus: a. Women ask for it, or b. Women lie about it to “explain” unwanted pregnancy, std, etc. My response has evolved to an understanding: I respect and honor certain people by sharing my experience with them. He hasn’t earned that respect or that honor, and probably never will. He is, in my opinion, missing out, because it’s an enormous mark of respect when I share this with someone. And anytime I hear someone spouting off about those wacky, calculating, lying women, my response is the same. Sad.

77

21 years, known 4 women who confessed to being raped to me. Of those 4, 3 of them were raped before they were 16, and 3 (different three) were raped by family.

And for the millions of my fans who hang onto my every word, although I am a lesbian none of these people are, and only two knew my preferences, so it’s not like I’m just hanging around women terrified of men or “feminazis” or what have you.

78

Quietly transcribes this post to book labelled “Everything Mearlchan’s Ever Said (Heart).”

79

Question.

Why are people saying “Oh, you can’t just apply the average to the whole life, there are different rates at different points!”?

Yes, the statistics cited per year are an AVERAGE. Which means that 95 year old ladies are being counted in the percentage, too. I think that one can DEFINITELY just multiply that number by 80 or so. Or maybe I’m being math-stupid.

80

Just to add to what Laurange just said,

I have read WAYY to many news articles in the past few years of men breaking into “retirement” homes, and raping, or removing and raping little old ladies in their 80’s and 90’s.

It does happen. :frowning: