Has Modern Feminism Weakened Women's Sensibilities?


srmaher
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Okay, maybe I stand corrected.  Feminism is definitely weakening women for no good reason.  The CDC just released a report and found that ONLY 1 in 5 US women has experienced rape in their lives.  There's definitely nothing to be squeamish about here :eyeroll:

 

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm?s_cid=ss6308a1_e#Table1

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Okay, maybe I stand corrected.  Feminism is definitely weakening women for no good reason.  The CDC just released a report and found that ONLY 1 in 5 US women has experienced rape in their lives.  There's definitely nothing to be squeamish about here :eyeroll:

 

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm?s_cid=ss6308a1_e#Table1

I didn't realize rape prevention was a feminism thing, I thought it was just a regular folk thing. Silly me.

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I didn't realize rape prevention was a feminism thing, I thought it was just a regular folk thing. Silly me.

 

That's a bit off topic, as I'm not aware of anything in this thread stating that rape prevention was weakening modern women.

 

One of the issues srmaher has with modern feminism is that it is "weakening" women by doing things like putting trigger warnings on literature.  According to the CDC's report, some 1.6 million women under the age of 25 were raped in the previous year, with an additional 5.2 million suffering another form of sexual assault.  About half of those women are college aged.  This would suggest that in any given year, colleges across the use are deal with 3.2 million rape victims and 10.2 million victims of other sexual assaults.  For many of these women, the psychological damage is deep and may not be fully resolved...especially if it happened recently.

 

The sad fact is that women who are sexually assaulted in college have some of the highest drop out rates.  So the reality is that placing the trigger warnings may actually be empowering women--by establishing an environment less likely to trigger their traumatic memories; an environment more conducive to helping them finish their educations and accomplish their goals. 

 

There is nothing empowering about facing down your demons before you are prepared to do so.  

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How is a trigger warning censoring? I see it more as giving a heads up, so that persons who do not wish to be exposed to whatever it is have the opportunity to remove/excuse themselves, similar to the warnings that sometimes appear before television shows warning of violent content.

Edited by Jenamarie
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Exactly, you are not providing the actual content, you are labeling content based on one persons (or one groups) judgment on what that content is.

 

Ratings and Warnings on speech certainly require examination and supervision of the material followed by a warning based on someone's opinions, beliefs and values. 

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My gosh. It is no wonder some women just give up and end up hating men. My husband is not a sexist in any way so I know there are good men out there. How can any one say that catcalling, hooting etc are not harassment? How can anyone say that providing a heads up that the material, video etc might be upsetting to rape victims is bad? Where is compassion? Understanding. Elder Holland's talk, "Like a Broken Vessel" is one of the greatest talks ever on compassion and hope for those who have mental issues, whatever the cause.
Only 1 in 5 women have been raped? What about molested or sexually assaulted? My guess is it is more like 1 in 2.  So does fighting back make us weak? Does it make us unworthy? I seem to recall something about refiners fire making us stronger not weaker.
It is my experience that many women who are degraded and mocked by men tend to become quite hostile and antimen. I wonder why?  By us condoning bad behavior in men the Priesthood is attacked in a very real way. Why do you think those women who want the priesthood do not trust the priesthood bearers? Is it their lack of faith in God or their lack of faith in man? I do not condone rallies and protests against the church but I do blame many of the men, and women, in the church for allowing this to be an issue by disregarding legitimate issues women have encountered. By disregarding the issues it has given satan a foothold to cause dissention. We do not need that. We need to work together not against each other.    And we for sure dont need people telling us women are weak because we fight for women. Oh and on a side note yes we do fight for, and need to fight for, men who have been abused as well. There are a lot more than most anyone wants to admit.

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Okay, maybe I stand corrected.  Feminism is definitely weakening women for no good reason.  The CDC just released a report and found that ONLY 1 in 5 US women has experienced rape in their lives.  There's definitely nothing to be squeamish about here :eyeroll:

 

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm?s_cid=ss6308a1_e#Table1

 

 

That's a bit off topic, as I'm not aware of anything in this thread stating that rape prevention was weakening modern women.

 

One of the issues srmaher has with modern feminism is that it is "weakening" women by doing things like putting trigger warnings on literature.  According to the CDC's report, some 1.6 million women under the age of 25 were raped in the previous year, with an additional 5.2 million suffering another form of sexual assault.  About half of those women are college aged.  This would suggest that in any given year, colleges across the use are deal with 3.2 million rape victims and 10.2 million victims of other sexual assaults.  For many of these women, the psychological damage is deep and may not be fully resolved...especially if it happened recently.

 

The sad fact is that women who are sexually assaulted in college have some of the highest drop out rates.  So the reality is that placing the trigger warnings may actually be empowering women--by establishing an environment less likely to trigger their traumatic memories; an environment more conducive to helping them finish their educations and accomplish their goals. 

 

There is nothing empowering about facing down your demons before you are prepared to do so.  

I didn't know the context of your post and I see I misunderstood it.

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Okay, maybe I stand corrected.  Feminism is definitely weakening women for no good reason.  The CDC just released a report and found that ONLY 1 in 5 US women has experienced rape in their lives.  There's definitely nothing to be squeamish about here :eyeroll:

 

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm?s_cid=ss6308a1_e#Table1

 

This sounds very similar to the claim that 1 in 5 women on college campuses are sexually assaulted. I looked at the link you provided and I was unsure if they are talking about the same thing (i.e., sexual assault on campus). That being said, here are a few sources debunking the myth that 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted on campus.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377492/obama-administrations-deserving-victims-heather-mac-donald

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

 

http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/

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Isn't one woman sexually assaulted (whether on or off campus) one too many?

 

Sure; but from a utilitarian standpoint--that doesn't mean we'd necessarily take all of the same measures to address a problem that affects 1/50 of a particular population, that we might take to address a problem that affects 1/5 or 1/2 of that same population.

 

I might ask you, "isn't even one child who was shot in a school because her teacher was unarmed and had nothing to defender her with except for her own body, too many?"  To which you would (presumably) say "Yes, JAG; but it's preferable to the alternative of arming teachers, which I hold would create a much greater net social harm."  And then we would proceed to get the best data possible so that we could quantify the problem as we evaluate potential solutions--understanding that no solution will be perfect and that every possible solution will result in some amount of trauma and perhaps even loss of life.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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This sounds very similar to the claim that 1 in 5 women on college campuses are sexually assaulted. I looked at the link you provided and I was unsure if they are talking about the same thing (i.e., sexual assault on campus). That being said, here are a few sources debunking the myth that 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted on campus.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377492/obama-administrations-deserving-victims-heather-mac-donald

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

 

http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/

 

The MacDonald piece in NR is particularly enlightening.  Who would send their daughter to college knowing that she faces a statistical risk of sexual violence some four hundred times higher than that of downtown Detroit?

 

Either BYU is really onto something by demanding total abstinence from all students, or else someone's numbers have some serious problems.  Either way . . . I'm feeling pretty darned self-righteous at the moment!  :angel:

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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That's a bit off topic, as I'm not aware of anything in this thread stating that rape prevention was weakening modern women.

 

One of the issues srmaher has with modern feminism is that it is "weakening" women by doing things like putting trigger warnings on literature.  According to the CDC's report, some 1.6 million women under the age of 25 were raped in the previous year, with an additional 5.2 million suffering another form of sexual assault.  About half of those women are college aged.  This would suggest that in any given year, colleges across the use are deal with 3.2 million rape victims and 10.2 million victims of other sexual assaults.  For many of these women, the psychological damage is deep and may not be fully resolved...especially if it happened recently.

 

The sad fact is that women who are sexually assaulted in college have some of the highest drop out rates.  So the reality is that placing the trigger warnings may actually be empowering women--by establishing an environment less likely to trigger their traumatic memories; an environment more conducive to helping them finish their educations and accomplish their goals. 

 

There is nothing empowering about facing down your demons before you are prepared to do so.  

 

In the wake of the Ray Rice incident, a new pair of hashtags has emerged on Twitter.  #WhyILeft is empowering, but #WhyIStayed is just as important: stories of women who either couldn't get out of an abusive situation, or who didn't feel they deserved to get out.  Some of the #WhyIStayed stories are from women (and men) who weren't prepared to face down their demons yet.

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And then we would proceed to get the best data possible so that we could quantify the problem as we evaluate potential solutions--understanding that no solution will be perfect and that every possible solution will result in some amount of trauma and perhaps even loss of life.

 

A bit off topic (from me): but I would love if we could collect the best possible data in order to be able to address such a problem. Unfortunately, for years, NRA lobbying has prevented even the collection of such data.  :grumble:

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This sounds very similar to the claim that 1 in 5 women on college campuses are sexually assaulted. I looked at the link you provided and I was unsure if they are talking about the same thing (i.e., sexual assault on campus). That being said, here are a few sources debunking the myth that 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted on campus.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377492/obama-administrations-deserving-victims-heather-mac-donald

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

 

http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/

 

Very different things.  This CDC report (published on September 5th) reports that one in 5 women are raped, and that 40% of women experience some other form of sexual violence in their lifetimes.  Accounting for the potential of overlap, we're looking at 1 in 2 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes.

 

What isn't clear from the table, but is discussed more in the text, is that 80% of those events happen before the age of 25.  The more detailed break down is 40% before 18, 40% between 18 and 25, and 20% after age 25. If you want to extrapolate that, 40% of those 1 in 2 women is about 20% of women between 18 and 25 have been sexually assaulted.  

 

You're right, that doesn't translate to 1 in 5 women being sexually assaulted on campus, but it brings up the possibility that 1 in 5 women on campus have been sexually assaulted. (Realistically, that percentage is probably higher because we've ignored the influx of the women assaulted before age 18).  There's a bit of variance there, but the concept doesn't change.  In a class with more than 5 women on a college campus, there's a good chance that one of them has been sexually assaulted in their life.

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What's interesting is when I look up the article on which the 20% claim you are deriding is based (Koss, 1987), it doesn't really say what anyone is claiming it says.  Am I surprised that a media organization (in this case, apparently Ms magazine) failed to accurately report the results of a scientific study?  No.  That happens daily, and its frustrating to scientists [1].  I'm also not surprised that political organizations (or politically motivated individuals) are using poorly reported statistics to make their case.  That too, frustrates scientists.  Lastly, I'm not surprised that political organizations (or politically motivated individuals) are beating up these poorly reported statistics to discredit those who use them.  This frustrates scientists.

 

It frustrates scientists because nobody in that chain of media to political motivations is bothering to look back at the original research to see what it actually says.  

 

What's interesting about the Koss article from 1987 and the CDC article published 5 days ago is that they are very similar in their reported findings.  Both report that about 6% of women in the samples have been sexually assaulted in the past year.  Both report that about 40% of women in the sample have been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes (the Koss study measures assault since age 14).

 

The only real difference between the studies is that the Koss study used a sample of enrolled college students (and is only generalizable to a population of college students) and the CDC study used a representative sample of the US (and is generalizable to the US population).  

 

Now, here's the thing--if 6% of women on college campuses have been sexually assaulted within the past 12 months, in a 4 year school, you might expect 4 times that many women to have been sexually assaulted sometime within their college experience.  If you penalize that for that fact that women might be assaulted in more than one of those time periods, the total percentage is somewhere south of 24%.  We can't pinpoint where without an idea of how many of the assaulted are assaulted again, but the true percentage is probably somewhere between 10% and 20%, I would guess.  

 

 

 

 

 

[1]. Check out this gem: "Severe Sleep Apnea Sufferers More Likely to Die"  They actually claim in this article that "sleep apnea sufferers are more likely to die of any cause than than are folks without apnea."  The natural negation of that statement is that folks without apnea are more likely to die of no cause whatsoever.  

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The MacDonald piece in NR is particularly enlightening.  Who would send their daughter to college knowing that she faces a statistical risk of sexual violence some four hundred times higher than that of downtown Detroit?

 

Either BYU is really onto something by demanding total abstinence from all students, or else someone's numbers have some serious problems.  Either way . . . I'm feeling pretty darned self-righteous at the moment!  :angel:

 

Unfortunately, this is an entirely inappropriate comparison.

 

The Detroit statistic uses a denominator of total crimes reported to police in 2012, with the numerator being the number of rapes reported to police in 2012.

 

The 1 in 5 statistic uses a denominator of total women on campus with a numerator of number of sexual offenses reported to the researcher (police involvement was not required for inclusion).  

 

So, not only does the Detroit statistic fail to incorporate non-rape sexual offense, it's measuing the increased risk in units of women/crime.  (in a proper relative risk comparison, the increase would be measured in units of women/women, causing the experimental unit to fall out of the equation and the risk comparison to be in terms of true risk)

 

Ultimately, this goes back to what I said in the previous post of both sides misrepresenting statistics to score political points.  It does nothing to advance any understanding of the scope of the problem nor of the ways to address it.

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I understand what you're saying, MOE, but I have a question:

 

Before I joined the church, I worked as a bar runner in a bar called the Howl at the Moon Saloon. I worked there for about a year, and usually at least once a month you would get groups of ladies out on hens nights who got a little handsy with the staff.

 

Not because we were super-hot and they couldn't help themselves, but because we were safe, they were drunk and they were in a crowd.

 

According to this website, 351912 people were employed in the industry in 2005:

 

http://www.nciaa.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=160641&module_id=29898

 

The population of the US is 319 million. If we assume a roughly even split of men to women in the bar industry, that means about .1% of the male population faces exactly the same thing I faced.

 

If we assume a very conservative estimate of 1 uninvited pinch or grope per person in the bar industry per month, then in the last 15 years each male was assaulted roughly 180 times. If we assume that no male whatsoever outside of the bar industry faces that sort of assault, that would mean that number of assaults on males-to-population would work out to be about 18% of the male population in the US face sexual assault in their life.

 

Do you get nervous when you go on a bus alone at night? Would you if statistics like "18% of all males get assaulted sexually in their lives." were shouted at you day and night? Do you think I should talk about myself like I'm a survivor of assault?

 

Of course not. Those people were jerks and I didn't like it and the rest of the staff didn't like it, but I wouldn't degrade somebody who actually faced a real assault by honestly comparing myself to them.

 

The problem, MOE, is that if these statistics are accurate and are not designed specifically to scaremonger, there is an epidemic so terrible that we should do something today, right now. We should march through the streets and deal with an issue that clearly cannot be dealt with by the police.

 

On the other hand, if these numbers are specifically created using leading questions and couched in scaremongering tactics, someone is making a living by making women feel unsafe and preyed upon. That is so scummy that it needs to stop. Either way, we need to get to the bottom of it.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, this is an entirely inappropriate comparison.

 

The Detroit statistic uses a denominator of total crimes reported to police in 2012, with the numerator being the number of rapes reported to police in 2012.

 

The 1 in 5 statistic uses a denominator of total women on campus with a numerator of number of sexual offenses reported to the researcher (police involvement was not required for inclusion).  

 

So, not only does the Detroit statistic fail to incorporate non-rape sexual offense, it's measuing the increased risk in units of women/crime.  (in a proper relative risk comparison, the increase would be measured in units of women/women, causing the experimental unit to fall out of the equation and the risk comparison to be in terms of true risk)

 

Ultimately, this goes back to what I said in the previous post of both sides misrepresenting statistics to score political points.  It does nothing to advance any understanding of the scope of the problem nor of the ways to address it.

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I understand what you're saying, MOE, but I have a question:

 

Before I joined the church, I worked as a bar runner in a bar called the Howl at the Moon Saloon. I worked there for about a year, and usually at least once a month you would get groups of ladies out on hens nights who got a little handsy with the staff.

 

Not because we were super-hot and they couldn't help themselves, but because we were safe, they were drunk and they were in a crowd.

 

According to this website, 351912 people were employed in the industry in 2005:

 

http://www.nciaa.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=160641&module_id=29898

 

The population of the US is 319 million. If we assume a roughly even split of men to women in the bar industry, that means about .1% of the male population faces exactly the same thing I faced.

 

If we assume a very conservative estimate of 1 uninvited pinch or grope per person in the bar industry per month, then in the last 15 years each male was assaulted roughly 180 times. If we assume that no male whatsoever outside of the bar industry faces that sort of assault, that would mean that number of assaults on males-to-population would work out to be about 18% of the male population in the US face sexual assault in their life.

 

Do you get nervous when you go on a bus alone at night? Would you if statistics like "18% of all males get assaulted sexually in their lives." were shouted at you day and night? Do you think I should talk about myself like I'm a survivor of assault?

 

Of course not. Those people were jerks and I didn't like it and the rest of the staff didn't like it, but I wouldn't degrade somebody who actually faced a real assault by honestly comparing myself to them.

 

The problem, MOE, is that if these statistics are accurate and are not designed specifically to scaremonger, there is an epidemic so terrible that we should do something today, right now. We should march through the streets and deal with an issue that clearly cannot be dealt with by the police.

 

On the other hand, if these numbers are specifically created using leading questions and couched in scaremongering tactics, someone is making a living by making women feel unsafe and preyed upon. That is so scummy that it needs to stop. Either way, we need to get to the bottom of it.

 

Well, it would seem that about 23% of men experience sexual assault in the course of their life (according to the CDC report), and I'm not scared of getting on a bus.  But I also see more depth in the numbers than that, such as only 5% of men have been assaulted in the previous year.  Most assaults on men actually happened when they were quite young, and sexual assault becomes less common as they age.  The statistics show a different pattern for women, where they are more likely to be assaulted by men in positions of authority when they are young, and then by acquaintances when they are older.

 

The fact of the matter is, however, that we aren't really having a choice of "march in the streets to deal with this issue" and "get to the bottom of the scummy scaremongering tactics."  Both of them are happening around us.  And there's a lot of scumminess on both sides, because, as I've said previously, people aren't understanding the science.  What we need is for people dig a little deeper, and think a little more critically.  But a lot of what I'm seeing against (and for) the 1 in 5 statistic isn't critical evaluation.  It's reactionary.  And that won't ever help.

Edited by MarginOfError
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So considering the statistics I say women need feminism to have support from other women to be strong against the evils of the world. 

You men can argue stats all you want but it does us women no good. It is a way for you to distance yourselves from the reality that women face that only other women can really understand. You can empathize and be supportive but you just dont truly know how we feel. We women need each other. Joseph Smith realized that when he organized the RS.  
Now that does not mean all women are pursuing good goals in aid of their sisters but dont paint all of us with that brush. We mostly talk and work together as we should. We do not need men trying to divide us and push some to more radical and even wrong ideas. Feminism helps us be strong and that is good. 

Edited by annewandering
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So considering the statistics I say women need feminism to have support from other women to be strong against the evils of the world. 

You men can argue stats all you want but it does us women no good. It is a way for you to distance yourselves from the reality that women face that only other women can really understand. You can empathize and be supportive but you just dont truly know how we feel. We women need each other. Joseph Smith realized that when he organized the RS.  

Now that does not mean all women are pursuing good goals in aid of their sisters but dont paint all of us with that brush. We mostly talk and work together as we should. We do not need men trying to divide us and push some to more radical and even wrong ideas. Feminism helps us be strong and that is good. 

 

I'd be interested to hear what you think feminism does today that helps you be strong.

 

As I've stated I certainly think that feminism brought about some much needed changes. All one needs to do is to take a look at how women are treated in the Middle East to see how far we have come as a society.

My wife right out of high school was a certified mechanic and exposed to all the possible horrors of being a women in a male dominated field. She went on to reach the pinnacle in academia and then medicine and has found herself again in a male dominated area and facing the challenges of being treated differently because of her gender. At the same time she has to deal with the disapproving looks from women of our faith when they find out she's not a typical home-maker. 

 

`Based on this thread I asked her if she considers herself a feminist and she replied "No". 

 

Modern feminism is overly focused on being victims and has lost sight of it's original goals. Even women who find themselves the epitome of feminist ideals find themselves uncomfortable with what the movement considers progress. Let alone the hypocrisy it displays such as demanding that government stay out of your bedroom and womb while demanding government pay for birth control and abortions or the silence of feminist groups when left-wing commentators describe conservative females in the most vile female bashing term or government employees are treated as objects and preyed upon by politicians who support the "cause".  

 

Rather then encouraging women to be strong modern feminism encourages women to find reasons to be offended and angry. The "empowerment" it seeks is to expand political correctness and government regulation.

I think that is what the OP was getting at when he says that modern Feminism is weakening women's sensibilities. I certainly don't think he was saying that women should "get over" sexual assault and stop whining about it.

 

If there is a surge in men mistreating women, I can't help but wonder how this came about. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a tie to the break-up of the family. Men who weren't raised with a proper example on how to treat women and women raising children who see no need for fathers. The solution..of course more government.

 

I think if there is a truly progressive feminism it's this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR9FHKKbMZo#t=43

Ideas that benefit society as a whole and encourage stability rather then divide it.

Edited by Windseeker
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Unfortunately, this is an entirely inappropriate comparison.

 

The Detroit statistic uses a denominator of total crimes reported to police in 2012, with the numerator being the number of rapes reported to police in 2012.

 

The 1 in 5 statistic uses a denominator of total women on campus with a numerator of number of sexual offenses reported to the researcher (police involvement was not required for inclusion).  

 

So, not only does the Detroit statistic fail to incorporate non-rape sexual offense, it's measuing the increased risk in units of women/crime.  (in a proper relative risk comparison, the increase would be measured in units of women/women, causing the experimental unit to fall out of the equation and the risk comparison to be in terms of true risk)

 

Are you sure?  The FBI statistics linked in the NR article say that Detroit had 441 forcible rapes in 2012, out of a population of 707,000.  That gives about .06 percent, if I've done my math right--a bit higher than NR's suggested rate of .05 percent, but not outrageously so.  If you assume 52% of Detroit's population are women, then that gives you a .12% forcible rape rate among Detroit women, right?

 

. . . number of sexual offenses reported to the researcher (police involvement was not required for inclusion). 

 

This part, I agree is a huge problem.  Whistling/cat-calling is boorish, and I can see how some women would feel threatened by it.  But when most of us hear "sexual assault", we think "forcible rape"; and I think trying to lump them into the same category both cheapens the experience of the latter group of women.

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