Has Modern Feminism Weakened Women's Sensibilities?


srmaher
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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:

 

One flame war at a time, my friend; one flame war at a time.  :D

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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?

 

 

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.

 

Let's assume your 441 rapes reported to the police in a population of 707,000 is the starting point.  That gives us a female population of 353,500.  Children make up about 1/3 of the population, and crimes against children are more likely to be reported as child sexual abuse instead of forcible rape.  So let's take out 20% of the female population (older female children are more likely to experience rape at the hand of an acquaintance, so I don't want to toss them from the denominator).  That leave us with 282,000 women in our baseline population.  

 

Now, let's also factor in that somewhere between 75% and 95% of rapes go unreported (a British study, I know, but it was the easiest thing to dig up. Forgive me for being lazy).  This would suggest that there are actually somewhere between 1,764 and 8,820 rapes committed.

 

Estimated rape percentage of women in Detroit that were raped in 2012 comes to between 0.6% and 3.1%.  The CDC's report for rape in the past 12 months?  1.6%

 

Even if you use the whole population of 353,500, you're at .5% to 2.5%. 

 

The more I look into it, the more idiotic National Review's argument looks.

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Now, let's also factor in that somewhere between 75% and 95% of rapes go unreported (a British study, I know, but it was the easiest thing to dig up. Forgive me for being lazy).  This would suggest that there are actually somewhere between 1,764 and 8,820 rapes committed.

 

 

 

Can you point us to that study? I've heard that number. I'd like to know the methodology and the questions that the British study used. I'd also want to know if anyone else was able to reproduce those numbers and whether it was correct or not.

 

If we assume that 95% of rapes go unreported, and in Detroit the reported rate was 1.15% of women, that would mean that 23% of women suffered that in one year alone. So, if you extrapolate that out over 5 years...

 

You see where I'm going with this, Moe? If those numbers are correct, there should be rage. There should be angry mobs in the streets protecting our mothers, sisters and daughters.

 

If those numbers are wrong, then bringing them up does nothing but victimize every woman who hears them and puts them in to a victimization mindset.

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Can you point us to that study? I've heard that number. I'd like to know the methodology and the questions that the British study used. I'd also want to know if anyone else was able to reproduce those numbers and whether it was correct or not.

 

If we assume that 95% of rapes go unreported, and in Detroit the reported rate was 1.15% of women, that would mean that 23% of women suffered that in one year alone. So, if you extrapolate that out over 5 years...

 

You see where I'm going with this, Moe? If those numbers are correct, there should be rage. There should be angry mobs in the streets protecting our mothers, sisters and daughters.

 

If those numbers are wrong, then bringing them up does nothing but victimize every woman who hears them and puts them in to a victimization mindset.

 Click on the link on "British Study,"  It will take you to the reference in a wiki article.  The study was done by the Crown Prosecution Service.

 

The starting point I was using was a reported rate of 0.12%.  I got to .5% to 2.5% after adjusting for the unreported rapes.

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Contra FT:  It's very possible that a lot of these rapes are perpetrated on the same victims. 

 

Contra MoE:  Is the CDC counting actual cases, or are they (as you did) extrapolating figures from reported crimes in conjunction with studies like that of the CPS?  Because, if the latter--no wonder you got similar results.  ;)

 

I just have concerns with how we're defining "rape".  It seems to be rapidly becoming the consensus that if a male--drunk or sober--has intercourse with a female who is intoxicated--it is per se rape.  Is the same standard being applied to females--intoxicated or otherwise--who have intercourse with an intoxicated male?  In college administrative settings especially, "innocent until proven guilty" is getting turned into "guilty until proven innocent, and accusers never lie".  Like I've hinted earlier--I have limited compassion for guys who find themselves in these situations, since as a good little Mormon boy I think they should just stay celibate until marriage anyways.  But this mentality, sooner or later, is going to spill over into the judicial system, and it will go beyond sex crimes. 

 

That scares the bejeebies out of me.  

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Contra MoE:  Is the CDC counting actual cases, or are they (as you did) extrapolating figures from reported crimes in conjunction with studies like that of the CPS?  Because, if the latter--no wonder you got similar results.  ;)

 

The CDC is counting reports of some 12,000 women contacted by telephone and surveyed on the topic.  For what it's worth, the sampling design and methodology seem sound to me.

 

So the CDC is counting actual, self-reported cases.  But it's still no surprise that I got similar results.  The percentage of rapes that go unreported is determined by doing surveys like these, counting up the number of incidents, and then comparing the number of incidents reported to police.  

 

so circling back around, it seems that the original finding was that 1 in 5 women on campus have been sexually assaulted.  Somehow that got morphed into 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted on campus.  That's a very different (and probably false) thing, but NR took it and tried to beat a false statistic to shreds using more flawed math.  When you straighten out all the misrepresentations, the evidence seems to work back out to 1 in 5 women on campus having been sexually assaulted.

 

 

I just have concerns with how we're defining "rape".  It seems to be rapidly becoming the consensus that if a male--drunk or sober--has intercourse with a female who is intoxicated--it is per se rape.  Is the same standard being applied to females--intoxicated or otherwise--who have intercourse with an intoxicated male?  In college administrative settings especially, "innocent until proven guilty" is getting turned into "guilty until proven innocent, and accusers never lie".  Like I've hinted earlier--I have limited compassion for guys who find themselves in these situations, since as a good little Mormon boy I think they should just stay celibate until marriage anyways.  But this mentality, sooner or later, is going to spill over into the judicial system, and it will go beyond sex crimes. 

 

That scares the bejeebies out of me.  

 

And I think we need to have some very serious discussions about how we're going to treat these "shades of rape" (for lack of a better term).  I can't remember if it was earlier in this thread or somewhere I came across while reading for this thread that I found this story: (and I'm too lazy to go back and look)

* boy and girl date

* boy and girl have sex

* boy and girl decide to 'just be friends'

* boy and girl cuddle up and are drifting toward sleep in her bed

* boy makes a move on girl, girl says no

* boy makes a move on girl, girl says no

* boy makes a more aggressive move on girl and girl says, "fine, let's get this over with so I can sleep"

* girl files charges of rape against boy

 

To me, that's not as severe a case of rape as a forcible rape (sorry feminists).  On the CDC definitions, it might even have been considered sexual coercion, rather than rape.  How much responsibility should the boy carry?  How much should the girl carry?  I don't know.  

 

But I do know that there are emotional consequences and self worth problems that can arise when people give up that part of themselves for the wrong reasons.  I also believe that, inadvertently, our justice system puts a very low consequence on the men who "won't take no for an answer."  When it goes to court, the fact that she said yes in the end is often enough to negate any number of no's before it.  I'm not sure that's right.

 

Ultimately, there needs to be a cultural shift in how men and women talk about consent.  I'm not sure we've reached that discussion yet, but for what it's worth, I think the feminist movement that is "weakening women's sensibilities" is doing a pretty good job of bring that discussion closer to the table.

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But I do know that there are emotional consequences and self worth problems that can arise when people give up that part of themselves for the wrong reasons.  I also believe that, inadvertently, our justice system puts a very low consequence on the men who "won't take no for an answer."  When it goes to court, the fact that she said yes in the end is often enough to negate any number of no's before it.  I'm not sure that's right.

 

Perhaps; but the trouble is that courtship, like any other negotiation, is (pardon the brashness) basically one long exercise in "getting to yes".  Violence is obviously a legally inexcusable means of "getting to yes", and so is fraud/deceit.  Beyond that?  It's hazy; and the problem isn't going to be solved just because California now requires men to wait for an audible "yes".  The next step in the process will be protestations that the "yesses" are being elicited with undue pressure, and we'll be back to square one.

 

 

Ultimately, there needs to be a cultural shift in how men and women talk about consent.  

 

I don't think the end game is changing how we "talk about" anything.  It's about changing how "consent" is obtained--some sort of dynamic that is fundamentally different from the old ideas of pursuit and persuasion. 

 

 

I'm not sure we've reached that discussion yet, but for what it's worth, I think the feminist movement that is "weakening women's sensibilities" is doing a pretty good job of bring that discussion closer to the table.

 

Some wings of the feminist movement are bringing the discussion to the table in more or less the same way that George W. Bush brought discussion about the future of Iraq to the table.

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I think a lot of guys are more or less taught (through the club & bar scene) that asking for sex is just like a salesman asking for a sale. It is all a numbers game, the more people you get in front of and ask the more sales you'll make, and no does not mean no... it means not yet. I also have a limited amount of sympathy for boys (men get married first) who find themselves on the wrong side of the law here, but I do see where the boundaries are blurred for all involved.

 

I do not advocate anyone having non-consensual sexual contact. The trick is (as with sales) how do you prove anything without a bill of sale? Do guys need to start getting signed permission slips every time they want to kiss to protect themselves legally? (talk about a romance killer) Would such contracts need to be signed within marriages as well to rule out sexual abuses within marriage?

 

It's all interesting. I don't think anyone is debating the idea that forcefully assaulting and using sex as a tool of humiliation is wrong, or that using greater strength to sexually gratify oneself at the expense of another is wrong.  Where I do see confusion though is in the mystery of intimate relationships in the first place; when is it appropriate to kiss? how do you know she'll want it to, should you ask permission to kiss? Assuming a more normal seeming approach is taken and kissing is more spontaneous and two parties seem to be getting along just fine, and she has accepted an invitation for a sleep over (or invited him over at 3:00 am) and things start to heat up... she says, "oh no, we really shouldn't" between passionate kisses and hands doing there thing - has she said no? Technically the word "no" came out, but everything else is saying she wants to. Is this now the point we expect our thoroughly aroused male to simply stop everything and leave (I agree he shouldn't be there in the first place, but a lot of people find this acceptable).

 

Take the scenario above and change it into a married couple. The wife seems all in other than a brief hesitant phrase that somewhere in the midst uses the word "no" while still communicating body language in the affirmative. Later she and her husband aren't on good terms and she claims he has violated her because she said no. Is this guy a sexual predator threat to society? Of course not. Was he even in the wrong? I don't know... I believe in clear communication and respect for one's spouse and feel matters like this are touchy, but I don't feel like he should face criminal charges.

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  • 2 weeks later...

MOE is right. Not worth this discussion on endless loop. Saying that, I always enjoy reading the comments of certain ladies - there's several of you and you should know who you are - you do a great job of being tactful. I don't have the energy to debate over this stuff anymore. If somebody wants to clump all feminists under the same degree, that's really their lack of understanding, and not my problem.

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I thought this was a really interesting response on this issue  - 

 

The Modern Campus Cannot Comprehend Evil by Camille Paglia

 

Wildly overblown claims about an epidemic of sexual assaults on American campuses are obscuring the true danger to young women, too often distracted by cellphones or iPods in public places: the ancient sex crime of abduction and murder. Despite hysterical propaganda about our “rape culture,” the majority of campus incidents being carelessly described as sexual assault are not felonious rape (involving force or drugs) but oafish hookup melodramas, arising from mixed signals and imprudence on both sides.
......
 
The horrors and atrocities of history have been edited out of primary and secondary education except where they can be blamed on racism, sexism, and imperialism — toxins embedded in oppressive outside structures that must be smashed and remade. But the real problem resides in human nature, which religion as well as great art sees as eternally torn by a war between the forces of darkness and light.

 

 
 
...and case in point
 
This guy is under malicious attack on his campus after he published his concern that the "affirmative consent" legislation may "muddle the line between consensual sexual behavior and sexual assault because it fails to specify what is needed to establish affirmative consent". 
 
 
 
 

 

Edited by Windseeker
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