In a speech, self-described “conservative feminist” Christina Hoff Sommers said:
Let me turn to my second major objection to contemporary feminism: its reckless disregard for the truth. In doing research for my books, I looked carefully at some standard feminist claims about women and violence, depression, eating disorders, pay equity and education. What I found is that most –- not all —- but most of the victim statistics are, at best, misleading –- at worst, completely inaccurate. […]
I partly agree with Sommers: Too many feminists — including those we rely on to get facts right (such as academics and published writers) — have been careless about fact-checking their claims. Critiquing a textbook on domestic violence, Sommers writes:
Zorza also informs readers that “Between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency room in America are there because of domestic violence.” This claim is ubiquitous in the feminist canon. But is it false. There are two legitimate studies on emergency room admissions: one by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and another by the Centers for Disease Control. The results of both indicate that domestic violence is a serious problem, but that it is far down on the list of reasons women go to emergency rooms. Approximately one half of one percent of women in emergency rooms are there seeking treatment for injuries from domestic violence.
Sommers cites a second recent textbook, The Penguin Atlas Of Women In The World, which repeats the same error. And she’s right — it is an error. (Although, as I’ll show in a future post, Sommers’ counter-claims are just as false.)
I think this is the strongest of Sommers’ claims. Sommers is right to say that “false assertions, hyperbole and crying wolf undermine the credibility and effectiveness of feminism in general.” And many errors could easily be avoided if authors just checked primary sources — something that professional writers and academics should do routinely.
Within feminism, there’s sometimes too little skepticism regarding statistics and news stories which emphasize harms against women. We’ve created a culture which does a rotten job of self-correction.
But although she has a point, Sommers is still substantially wrong, for two reasons. First, Sommers conflates unambiguous errors of fact — which will inevitably happen sometimes, especially in a movement the size of modern-day feminism — with well-reasoned disagreements. And secondly, Sommers’ own work is full of errors, and at times actually deceptive.
In her lecture, Sommers writes:
Some of you are probably thinking –- the literature on feminism is vast and complex –- there are bound to be some mistakes. So what? But I and other investigators have not found “some mistakes.” What we have found is a large body of blatantly false information. The Domestic Violence Law textbook and the Penguin Atlas of Women in the World are not the exception. They are the rule.
So here’s Sommers’ argument:
1) Feminist writers sometimes repeat “blatantly false information.”
2) This errors are the rule, not the exception. This is documented in the works of Christina Hoff Sommers and “other investigators.”
3) Therefore, feminism, as a rule, consists of “a large body of blatantly false information.”
The trick here is in point 2. Sommers wants us to believe that her critiques of feminism, as well as those by “other investigators,” are filled with examples of feminists making unambiguous factual errors. But that’s not true. In Sommer’s book Who Stole Feminism?, Sommers does catch feminists making some unambiguous errors, but most of the book is taken up by subjective political disagreements, not by fact-checking.
In order to accept that Sommers’ work demonstrates that a “reckless disregard for truth” is the “rule,” “not the exception,” we’d have to accept that anytime a feminist disagrees with Christina Hoff Sommers — because such disagreements take up most of Sommers’ work — that is evidence of a reckless disregard for the truth. But of course, it’s no such thing.
So what do I mean when I say subjective political disagreements? By “subjective political disagreements,” I mean questions that reasonable, honest people, basing their opinion on well-founded evidence, can disagree with Christina Hoff Sommers on.
I will focus on one example: the rape prevalence research of Mary Koss. Koss’ research is probably the single example that “conservative feminists” and their allies have used most often to “prove” feminist dishonesty, 1 starting in the early 1990s in books like Sommers’ own Who Stole Feminism?, and continuing to this day (Heather MacDonald published an attack on Koss’ research just last year). According to the Independent Woman’s Forum,2 Koss’ research is the “number one feminist myth” in America.
So what was Koss’ rape research? In the 1980s, Koss pioneered a new approach to surveying populations about their past experiences with rape. Where previous surveys measured rape prevalence by asking respondents a single, sometimes hilariously vague question (“Has anybody ever attacked you in any other way?”), Koss asked a series of comparatively specific questions (“Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man threatened or used some degree of a physical force (twisting your arm, holding you down, etc.) to make you?”) about respondents’ experiences.
Koss’ study of “hidden rape” proved three important facts, which feminists and criminologists had long suspected: that rape happened much more frequently than official numbers indicated; that most rapes aren’t committed by strangers; and that most rapes are never reported to police or other authorities.
Koss’ study, in the decades since, has led two parallel lives. In one life — a life lived in books funded by right-wing foundations, anti-feminist websites, and the like — Koss’ work is an enduring symbol of feminist dishonesty and deception, and is considered a discredited joke, trotted out for rehashed debunkings every couple of years.
In another life, however — a life lived among academic experts — Koss’ work has been amazingly successful. Decades later, her work is respectfully cited in peer-reviewed studies — a few years ago I found that just two of Koss’ articles had been cited over six hundred times.3
Although subsequent research has arguably improved on Koss’ 1980s work, her insight — that rape victims are more likely to recount their experiences in response to a series of behaviorally-specific questions — is accepted by virtually all published rape prevalence researchers. And Koss’ central findings (described above) have been replicated in study after study, including two major studies conducted by the Federal government.
By ordinary academic standards, a frequently-cited study which has been replicated multiple times is solid work. That’s not to say that Koss’ study was perfect — no study ever is — but citations plus replication is the gold standard.
Of course, reasonable people can sometimes disagree with professional researchers, and Sommers and other “investigators” are entitled to their opinions.4 But Sommers’ position on Koss’ research isn’t that reasonable people can disagree. Instead, she and other “investigators” have repeatedly used Koss’ research as their major example of feminist lying, even though Koss’ results are widely accepted by experts and have been replicated over and over.
This is the central dishonesty of Sommers’ thesis: She claims her work shows that feminists “as a rule” have “reckless disregard for the truth,” but most of her book concerns matters that an honest person could easily disagree with Christina Hoff Sommers about.5
Sommers has to frame all her disagreements with mainstream feminism as feminist lying, because that is the basis of her case against feminism. If she admits that reasonable, honest feminists can disagree with Christina Hoff Sommers, she loses her claim that modern feminism consists of “a large body of blatantly false information… at best, misleading –- at worst, completely inaccurate.”
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Earlier this post, I said that “Sommers’ own work is full of errors, and at times actually deceptive.” In my next post in this series, I’ll back that statement up, using her discussion of emergency room admissions as my example.
This post appears both at “Alas, a Blog” and at “Blog By Barry.” To facilitate intra-feminist dialog, the comments at “Alas” are only open to feminists, while the comments at “Blog By Barry” are open to all.
- Think I’m exaggerating? Here is an incomplete list of books which rehash the “conservative feminist” arguments against Koss’ research: The Morning After by Katie Roiphe; The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism by Carrie Lukas; Dead End Feminism by Elisabeth Badinter; Lip Service by Kate Fillion; Tax-funded Politics by James T. Bennett; A Nation of Victims by Charles J. Sykes; Moral Panic: Biopolitics Rising by John Feteke; The New Victorians: A Young Woman’s Challenge to the Old Feminist Order by Rene Denfeld; The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell; Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? by Warren Farrell, Steven Svoboda, & James P. Sterba. It’s likely there are additional books I’m unaware of, not to mention dozens of articles and hundreds of website. [↩]
- A Sommers-influenced “conservative feminist” think tank. [↩]
- In Who Stole Feminism, Sommers claims that Koss’s work is frequently cited by activists but “not so much by established scholars in the field of rape research.” It would in fact be hard to name a scholar of rape prevalence who has been cited more often in the professional literature. [↩]
- To delve into the details of the debate, including detailed responses to the arguments most often brought up by Sommers and other “investigators,” see my past posts about the Koss controversy. [↩]
- It’s not just rape prevalence research; I could make similar arguments for how Who Stole Feminism? treats topics like domestic violence, education, the wage gap, etc…. [↩]
I don’t think you are being accurate in your summation of Mary Koss’ work as it is commonly represented by those who cite it.
Basically, Koss’ stuff can be separated into two general conclusions:
1) The conclusion about the process of rape reporting, i.e. that people are more likely to report certain occurrences given certain methods of questioning; and
2) The conclusions about the numerical statistics of rape, i.e. that ___% of students were raped.
The first one is, AFAIK, pretty well accepted. But it’s the second one which gets misused, mis-cited, and the like.
This is not Koss’ fault–well, not much, anyway. Koss’ work, like all well written work, is not itself problematic. It doesn’t matter HOW anyone chooses to define rape, sexual assault, or anything else, so long as they make it clear in the paper so you know what they are writing.
The problem comes with the use* of common terminology to describe a wide range of actions. When that gets passed down the telephone line of reporting, all the context gets lost and it is interpreted at the basest level.**
*Any “fault” attributable to Koss should stem from the fact that Koss and other writers in this area must know how their work will beinterpreted, and they don’t choose to use more clarifying terms.
** For all your good writing on linguistics, I have never managed to get you to buy into this problem; I don’t know why. When subsequent misinterpretation of a statement is inevitable, folks should act to stop the problem early on.
One thing in your post really jumped out at me: that Koss, by rephrasing her questions and getting more specific, found out that rape was more frequent than previously believed and by people known to the victim rather than strangers. The bold part is what jumped out at me. My impression is that there is social resistance to the fact that sexual crimes are generally by people known to the victim, whether rape or child abuse. A lot of money, media attention, school education by teachers and guests like police, popular tv shows focus on street proofing, stranger abduction & internet seduction of minors. (Dr Phil’s map of registered pedophiles in your neighbourhood as an example). It is a lot more uncomfortable to face the fact that friends, family members, and other people we trust can be the perpetrators of sexual crimes. I wonder how much of this underlies and influences Sommers’ attack on feminism.
I agree that Koss’s work is important if it indeed does what you say it does. I also say it should be refined, by including incidence of female on female rape and female on male rape, to give people a real estimation of those numbers, often ignored.
The ignorance of female on female rape leads to things like Vancouver Rape Relief vs Kimberly Nixon, where an organization is given the legal right to decide “which kind of women” it wants as volunteers. It presupposes that a rapist has to be male, and that masculine appearance is triggering and ought to be removed as much as possible (even if it means using dubious reasoning and terms, such as WBW – when the real point of contention is not the person’s history, but their appearance). It erases lesbian victims and other female victims of sexual violence (as well as trans ones).
Feminism in my opinion would be stronger and more respected by the mainstream as well as academia if it used correct numbers in all/most instances and prided itself in its empirical rigor regarding its data, with reason.
Violence against women can be treated as important, and in the mainstream, is generally seen as more worthy of horror even if it would happen much less than violence against men (from whichever source). So I don’t think correcting the false impression societal-wise, that women ought to live in fear, is a bad thing. Giving women confidence because they are actually less likely to be victims (than men), ought to allow them to be less self-restrictive in their activities, and reduce the notion that girls ought to be chaperoned or protected more (and its accompanying sexism, giving boys later curfews and such).
I disagree with Sommers that feminism as a whole is a willful liar, because I believe feminists want to better the condition of women in general, not shoot themselves in the foot. I also believe feminism could do things better though, by going against stereotypes of the mainstream portraying women as fragile dolls that ought to be put on a pedestal, lest they be killed. Feminism does that in part, except in the domain of violence and rape, where what I see usually amounts to saying women should live in fear, or have reason to live in fear.
Doesn’t fear act to remove the agency and free will of women, and act to reinforce patriarchy? Fear is what keeps male victims of rape silent, as well. It is a powerful negative emotion. Fear is what keeps trans women in the closet, or in deep stealth (without revealing to anyone their trans status when post-transition).
I wonder if it would be possible to raise awareness about these issues (violence and rape of women) without using tactics that end up reinforcing the fearful cloud plaguing women in society.
I’ve been living in fear myself, given statistics given about transphobic violence, though stopping to live isn’t reasonable, even with such high rates of murder (where the murderer is either not caught or freed because often excused in court), rape which usually accompanies murder, violence everywhere done for any reason and sometimes under the eye of the authorities…if not by authorities themselves. I still need a social life, employment, and enjoyment out of life, and I can’t wait til the moment society accepts trans people as equal, which may be long after I’m dead.
Women in general also need to be able to live their life, wether they are considered equal in every respect or not.
Feminism in my opinion would be stronger and more respected by the mainstream as well as academia if it used correct numbers in all/most instances and prided itself in its empirical rigor regarding its data, with reason.
I think pretty much any cause/ideology could be filled in for “Feminism” in the above sentence: environmentalism, Keynesianism, libertarianism, etc. Yes, empirical rigor good!
Feminism does that in part, except in the domain of violence and rape, where what I see usually amounts to saying women should live in fear, or have reason to live in fear.
I feel like I see just the opposite. Non-feminists quite often tell women that they should live in fear because there’s simply nothing to be done about it. For example, when I was upset recently by the articles about the serial date-rapist who met women through online dating services, drugged them and then raped them while they were unconscious, and expressed my disbelief that a jury would let this guy go when there were literally a dozen women with the same story about what he had done, a non-feminist said to me,
“Well, I would have done the same on that jury; it’s just not beyond a reasonable doubt. Women have to realize that they’re going to lose believability if they consume alcohol. If women really want to avoid being raped, they shouldn’t drink anything that could impair their memory at all. That way, if they wake up and don’t remember what happened the night before, they’ll KNOW they were drugged.”
In other words, women should be afraid of having a glass of wine on a first date.
In contrast, feminism advocates that women should not be afraid to walk in the dark (hence Take Back the Night rallies); women should be able to have a drink without fearing the date rape drug; women should be able to report rape and have it prosecuted without the fear of having their sexual histories put on trial…
Feminism is not about fear. It is about changing society, including the law, so women *don’t* have to be afraid.
I totally agree there.
I don’t think we see the same result to those rallies though. Such rallies say its okay for women to “take back the night” when such marches occur, but it says little about “the rest of the time” and goes on to cite statistics that end up reinforcing the idea that women are disproportionately targeted by strangers (for violence, not rape). In my opinion, it gives the image that “Someday, women will be able to walk alone at night without fear”, with the addendum “but, for now (and until strangers stop doing violence to women), we can only do this by rallying together”.
If it gave statistics of men being targeted by strangers for violence, often in bright day time, it might counter the effect, though I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do either. I’m unsure what measure is best to take, I only know the effect of the current one is less than optimal.
Schala, just to clarify, do you self-identify as a feminist?
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SM, I think my summary of the Koss study is accurate (although EXTREMELY nutshelled). It wasn’t my intention to summarize how Sommers and others have mis-characterized Koss’ work. In this post, I intended to focus on Sommers’ meta-argument, rather than dealing with the details of her arguments about Koss’ work. (Of course, I’ve done that in detail in past posts.)
As for your criticism of Koss, SM, I’m honestly not sure what your argument is, so I can’t respond to it. What, precisely, are you saying she did wrong?
I’d say I identify as a trans feminist, and my ideas pretty close to Julia Serano’s (though not identical). My main area of expertise is trans and intersex people’s relation to gender (which varies a lot to say the least). I’m no scholar though.
Amp, I’m enjoying your posts but I think in this particular one you are misreading your opponents, and are therefore not presenting a great argument.
When you say this:
Do you see how you are changing the bolded sections?
This is (in your case) not really having much of an effect on your argument. But it serves as a good example of the type of thing that i suspect Sommers is complaining about.
It’s like a game of telephone. Using a hypothetical example:
1) A WDS (well designed study) shows that almost all women experience some form of sexual thing that makes them uncomfortable. The study looks a wide range, from rape, to overt harassment of the butt-grabbing variety, to sex you did not want to have, all the way through to “overhearing a comment which seems inappropriate.”
Nothing’s wrong with the study per se. WDS reports that as gradations of rape and sexual harassment, noting that 85% of women studied had experienced it.
2) Someone else cites WDS, noting that 85% of women had been raped or sexually harassed.
3) Someone else picks up on that, and cites #2, with the same statistic.
4) Someone else cites #3. By this time, they have little idea (though they could find out) what the study actually looked at. 85% of women are raped or sexually harassed! goes on their blog post.
And so on. Perhaps by #6 someone decides that harassment is a type of assault, so they’ll just say 85% of women are sexually assaulted.
My point is that this is deliberate. The people who wrote the study, and those who are citing the study, have to understand what the common layperson’s interpretation of the study will be. They must know that if you tell folks “studies show 85% of women are sexually harassed or raped!” that people aren’t automatically going to think that “sexual harassment” can be as minor as “overhearing a comment which seems inappropriate.
Yet folks do it anyway. So: Why?
Well, in my opinion, it is because folks are deliberately trying to make their cause “sound as powerful as it can,” which means that they are interpreting basically everything in their favor. The result is that although the studies themselves may not have clear factual errors, they function as if they do. That, I believe, is the point Sommers is making.
This is common sense, does that count for anything?
Sailorman,
Are you claiming that Koss’s study included in its statistic “overhearing a comment which seems inappropriate” as an example of sexual assault or harassment? It doesn’t seem useful here, where Amp is criticizing Sommers on specific citations to specific studies, to use hypotheticals. If you think Koss wrote up her study in a way that she had to have known would make it easy to cite erroneously, please refer to her study rather than a hypothetical one.
I’m personally afraid to walk around in certain places at night. I’m a 63-year-old woman, less “attractive” than a younger woman (maybe, depends on who we’re talking about, and what does sexual attraction have to do with this anyway?) but also less able to run away or defend myself. (Though I can actually be a pretty tough cookie when I have to be.)
Three thoughts. First of all, I’d like to know the truth here. (How boring.) Am I more or less or just-about-the-same likely to be attacked in those places at those times than a man? I imagine reliable statistics are hard to come by here, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Second, let us suppose that I and a male my age are exactly as likely to be attacked under given circumstances. Does that mean that I don’t have to be afraid? Well, that would depend on how high that likelihood is, wouldn’t it? If I’m about 50% likely to be attacked I’m not going out there. The fact that a male would run the same risk exactly is irrelevant to my choice as to whether to go walking in the dark, however important it may be for other reasons.
Finally, let us suppose that the numbers come back showing that I’m more at risk than a male. I’m not sure what we think we’re going to do about this. People who attack other people are felons, criminals, and by definition they aren’t particularly vulnerable to social pressure. (If they were they wouldn’t engage in this behavior at all.) Changing the sexism that runs so deep in this culture is a very good idea on its own grounds, but I’m uncertain in my mind what if any effect that would have on our hypothetical (or, alas, all too real) criminal. I’m not sure he’d be more likely to attack me (if he would) because he’s a sexist pig. He may just be looking for someone who looks vulnerable and who may not be able to put up as much of a fight. An older woman looks like a safer bet than a young man on this scale, I’d imagine.
Susan,
If someone is looking just to rob a person, or even to get kicks out of beating up someone weaker, then the risks probably depend a little less on gender per se and more on perceived vulnerability, although women categorically tend to be seen as more vulnerable even when they objectively are physically equal to men (and also are socialized to have an appearance that makes them more vulnerable: long hair, skirts and heels would make a man easier prey too).
However, outside institutional environments such a prisons, rape of women by men is hugely more likely than the rape of men by anyone. Therefore someone who isn’t looking just to rob or beat up, but who wants sex and either prefers or doesn’t care about lack of consent, will target women rather than men. I don’t want to overplay the incidence of stranger rape, because it’s still less common than acquaintance rape, but it does exist.
That certainly makes sense, PG, thanks.
Pingback: Women's Space
Does anyone know how the WomenSpace blog does a trackback with a post that does not link back here? I’m confused as to how that works technologically. (I’m also confused by a blogger who doesn’t link the post that she’s talking about, but that’s an old story.)
I don’t know how she’s doing it, but one easy way would be to use a form like this one.
My point is that Amp is IMO misreading Sommers’ criticism. Amp would rather conclude that Sommers is denying Koss’ factual conclusions–IOW, he wants to attack the claim (false, I think, and a straw man) that Sommers disagrees with the actual statistical result. But that is not what Sommers said, and that is by no
Rather, the common protest is that that people misuse and misinterpret studies such as these, that they do so dishonestly, and that they deliberately do so in an attempt to support their position.
Unfortunately, I have to go eat. Bit i’ll continue this later ;)
But there’s still no reason to use hypotheticals. What are your examples of Koss’s own work being prominently misinterpreted in the telephone way you describe above? If it doesn’t really happen, where’s Sommers’s beef?
I agree with what PG said in post #12, though my own comment in response to Susan was about violent assault that is not sexual in nature. Sorry if I wasn’t precise. I don’t mean to minimize the harm of rape either. It just happens less than assault though.
If statistics I saw are right, women have a 25% chance of being raped in their life, which gives a pretty small chance on a day-to-day basis, statistically, even considering younger = more at risk.
I’ve not seen statistics on violent assault (wether reported to the police or not), common sense tells me it’s more common in incidence and prevalence however.
This doesn’t mean I condone rape or sexual assault. I just think it might be more viable to worry (personally, not societally) about something that is more likely to happen, that worrying and being prudent is fine, but being fearful can limit people, sometimes to a pathological degree (anxiety disorders).
I’ve been assaulted before, many times (when I was seen as male). Yet since transition I worry a lot less than before about being assaulted (and it hasn’t happened since, either).
Societally, its good to worry about all problems and try to resolve them as best as possible and as soon as possible. Both rape and assault can be very damaging (even if rarely equally), and society as a whole should work towards preventing its occurrance and the attitude that favor the climate in which it occurs (bullying accepted as a rite of passage, difference okay to be shunned, the cult of perfection, winning at all costs, lack of empathy being seen as a good quality, sensationalism over the truth, etc).
Feminism plays a great role in helping towards accomplishing the societal part, but in doing so the way it does, it might hurt the personal part (making people more fearful). This is the whole point of what I said above.
This seems very sensible. To the extent that Take Back The Night or anyone else fosters unreasonable fears, it’s actually working against its stated goal.
Anyone’s chances of being assaulted, sexually or otherwise (and I’d agree on the basis of nothing much except it sounds right that non-sexual assault is more common than sexual assault) varies a great deal according to a number of factors, including but not limited to time of day, precise location, the number of other people around, gender, age, perceived disability or super-ability (the male weightlifter), perceived wealth or lack thereof, on and on. Under ordinary circumstances my chances of being assaulted are very very small, which is as it should be.
If I get it into my head for whatever reason that I’m in constant danger, fear alone can limit my movements. We need to be realistic, and in this context realism means reasonably fearless. The real dangers, though real, are quite slight unless I go walking around alone at 2 am in the middle of a horrible slum. Even there and then, most people get where they’re going in perfect safety.
Schala,
Considering that the American common law definition of assault is quite broad — “an attempt to commit a violent injury upon another” — certainly we are all more likely to be assaulted generally than in a specifically sexual fashion.
I’ve been assaulted by my siblings; heck, my little sister has a long, thin mark on her eyelid and the skin under her eye that always makes strangers think she messed up her mascara, that’s from the time when our cousin was three and hit her (then six) in the face while he was holding a set of keys. Even though she’s literally scarred by that, she doesn’t think our cousin abused her or anything like that. On the other hand, had he been older than she and committed sexual abuse, I feel pretty certain that she’d be less inclined to let childhood bygones be bygones, even if the sexual abuse had left no physical mark (e.g. if he had coerced her to perform oral sex).
Scrapping just seems to be an accepted part of growing up, though none of us have touched each other in anger since we we were in our early teens. You often claim that this is socially unacceptable when directed toward girls; that hasn’t been my experience. (I do think physical fighting after adolescence is more socially acceptable among men than women, but at least in my social circles, it’s still neither common nor admired.)
I can’t articulate fully why I think a sexual abuse would have been unforgivable while another kind of assault has been largely forgotten and never was held as a grudge, but I think this is a commonly held distinction.
I don’t hold a grudge against those who bullied and beat me for years. No, I hold a grudge to the climate of fear they created for me to live under, to the repressed memories that exist because of it (I can’t remember a single incident of being beaten up, even though none made me unconscious, I only remember it was constant).
I have no physical mark of their beatings, none that I can say “see, I got that at x time because of y thing”. If I do have some of those, they were forgotten. The psychological damage was not forgotten, but one incident would not have been enough to cause such.
I agree sexual assault can cause extensive psychological damage. I just said it was comparatively rare it happened, so that, on a personal level, it made more sense to worry more about the more immediate threat than the larger less-likely threat.
As I said with trans women, and the high-statistics of crime committed against them. I better worry about overt discrimination and being beaten up than about being murdered or rape, even if my chance of being murdered is disproportionately high compared to the average American and my chance of being raped is very high as well.
Schala,
I guess I am thinking that most sexual abuse seems to leave behind psychological damage, whereas physical assaults often don’t so much (or at least if they do, people don’t seem to be conscious of them). One of my friends got spanked by her parents; she also was molested (involved his rubbing a clothed erection against her clothed body) by a family member. She feels a great deal more psychological damage from the molestation, which she repressed for years, than the corporal punishment, which she never had a problem acknowledging. Maybe this is just due to our society’s attitudes about sex as peculiarly shameful.
Maybe, if we consider some people (Middle East in particular) value women’s virginity above women themselves. That all uncommon sexual practices that are not harmful to anyone are considered paraphilias and mental illnesses. That even in today’s society, it’s considered crass (or the domain of academia) to discuss sexuality in an open manner (I don’t mean high school bragging). Many are considered shallow for going to strip bars, whatever view they hold of the actual strippers.
Incident for incident, sexual assault is probably more damaging. As a sum total of incidents, it all depends on the circumstancial elements. To some people, my childhood might have been cake, and some might not have lived today if they had to go through it.
I had to create a secondary persona who was emotionless, to diminish the amount of damage done to my core persona. Since they’ve been apart for so long, they are distinct. Though I have high level of co-consiousness, and as far as I know: only two personas. So I was lucky. Dissociation is a common defense mechanism in childhood abuse.
In my personal opinion, had I been sexually abused on top, I would have found it more damaging than the rest, because I psychologically associate sex and love unconsciously, and would have felt horrible to have someone take advantage of my innocence this way. I intellectually know sex and love are different…but tend to get attached very easily and fast, so that I would get easily attached with anyone I had sex more than once with (willingly).
“I don’t mean to minimize the harm of rape either. It just happens less than assault though.”
Giving the major under reporting of rape and all other forms of sexual assault/abuse, I fail to see how anyone could make such a statement. Until people live in a society in which they can feel more comfortable reporting sexual violence there is no conceivable way of knowing whether sexual assault is more prevalent than pure physical assault or vice versa.
Faith,
Theoretically that’s true, but I think almost *everyone* has experienced what could legally be termed assault, although almost none of us reported it as a crime either. When one kindergartener bites another, that’s assault — but unless the victim’s parents are the fussy type, the police and legal system will never know.
In contrast, a good half of the population (male) seems unlikely to face sexual assault unless they end up in a institutional environment (e.g. prison). I say seems because I’ve never been male, so I don’t know what boys do to one another when girls aren’t around.
I wrote a long response to Sailorman, and lost it. So here we go again…. a little more curtly this time, which I hope you’ll understand under the circumstances.
SM, I see three claims you’ve made in this thread, to support your critique of my post. All three claims are wrong.
First, you claim that Sommers isn’t “denying Koss’ factual conclusions.” I have no idea where you got this idea, but certainly not from reading Sommers’ book. Sommers spends quite a few pages of Who Stole Feminism? denying Koss’ factual conclusions. She often does this through quotation (mostly of Neil Gilbert and of reporters from the Toledo Blade), but in context it’s clear that she’s quoting them approvingly.
For example, Sommers wrote:
The numbers Sommers reports in the above passage are incorrect (Sommers implicitly admitted this later, when she quietly changed the numbers in some later reprintings — without changing her conclusions about Koss’ accuracy). But more importantly for our discussion, it’s clear Sommers is “denying Koss’ factual conclusions.”
Number two, you claim that Koss didn’t do enough to prevent people from playing “telephone” with her study’s results. I don’t know what more you think she should have done. She published an accurate scholarly report in a peer-reviewed journal, and she published a longer, slightly more detailed version of the same paper in a book. She cooperated with Ms Magazine in publishing a popularized version of her results (the book I Never Called It Rape), which stated her results in non-scholarly, easily understood, accurate language. The Ms article Koss cooperated in producing — which doesn’t even contain the phrase “25%” or “1 in 4” — was also accurate.
At some point, I have to conclude that absolutely nothing Koss did in this regard would satisfy you.“Telephone” is a real problem, but Koss has done more than most researchers do to state her results accurately.Third, and least important, you claim I don’t “buy into this problem” of people playing telephone with statistics. Not true. I’ve written about this exact problem, in regard to Koss’ work.
No problem; i’m checking in and out of work and lost my own one a while back.
Last things first:
I stand corrected, and I apologize (FYI, i wasn’t ignoring it; that predates my involvement with the blog and I didn’t know about it.) I don’t have time to go through that thread in detail, but it seems from the title that you and I agree on this point.
Not true: it’s merely that you know more about it than I do, and the lack of knowledge on my part means that I didn’t know things which would change my position. I’m satisfied. My own searches and experience regarding Koss showed up the first stuff, but not the book. I have to basically attribute this to laziness on my part when searching, as there’s not much other excuse.
SM, I agree that it was unfair of me to say “I have to conclude that absolutely nothing Koss did in this regard would satisfy you.” (At some point, I went back and “crossed out” that sentence because I thought it was unfair.) I sometimes forget that not everyone has read about this question as much as I have!
ETA: But what I can’t forgive is you not recalling a post that you never read, that I wrote in 2004. I expect each and every comment-writer on “Alas” to have memorized every post I’ve ever written! Anything else is unacceptable, and will lead to you being immediately banned!
What, am I being unreasonable here? :-P
I expect each and every comment-writer on “Alas” to have memorized every post I’ve ever written!
Response to Christina Hoff Sommers, part 3: Truths and Lies isn’t your first post? I may have some memorizing to do.
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