I was reading a transcript of a Donahue show (via Ms Musings) themed around the question “are women getting a free ride?,” an episode devoted mainly to anti-feminists Warren Farrell, Marc Angelucci and Peter Allemano (Farrell is the author of the men’s rights classic The Myth of Male Power, Angelucci and Allemano help run the National Coalition of Free Men). Also present was Gloria Allred, there to provide feminist counterpoints, and several more anti-feminists to speak on specific anti-feminist issues (a pinch of bitter divorced men, a sprinkling of anti-Title-IX jocks). Plus some dude from Stuff magazine for comic relief.
As usual, a lot of factual claims got tossed around. Many of those claims are things I know nothing about, and so can’t comment on; but there’s quite a few I do know about and would like to comment on – I expect there will be a bunch of posts from me on this subject.
For the most part, I think Allred did a great job, speaking well and refusing to fit into the women vs. men mold the anti-feminists were trying to press her into. But while aruging that “women have a long way to go,” she said “one out of three [women] will be raped sometime in her lifetime.”
Quoting myself:
According to Dr. Mary Koss’ study (which was conducted in the early to mid eighties), about 15% of college women have been victims of completed rape at some point since age 14.
This result of Koss’ study has been frequently criticized by anti-feminists. But at least three other nationwide studies of lifetime rape prevalence came to similar conclusions; the National Women’s Study found 13% (not available online, sorry), the Centers for Disease Control study found 15%, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics study of college women found 10%.
I don’t think there will ever be a single number that people can point to and say “this is the right answer.” Unreported rape is inherently difficult to measure; there will never be a study that someone can’t find reason to doubt, and every new study will raise new questions. But from the best studies currently available, somewhere between 10% and 15% of American women will be raped in their lifetimes.
So the 33% figure Ms. Allred suggests is way out of line with current research.
Why does this matter? Normally, this isn’t the sort of fact-checking I’d bother posting, because it’s not important to the argument Allred is making: Whether 10% or 33% of women are raped in their lifetime, either way it’s way too high, and either way Allred’s point – that “women still have a long way to go” – is true. From a debate point of view, Ms. Allred’s error isn’t substantial, because correcting the error doesn’t undermine the point she was making.
But there’s more to life than debating. The real statistics, as far as I can make out, are that somewhere between 10% and 15% of American women are raped sometime in their life. That’s terrifying enough; using numbers that are even higher and scarier, especially on national TV, could needlessly frighten people, especially women. The truth is bad enough without exaggeration.
All of the studies I’ve seen on rape statistics cite surveys given to college students. How can we extrapolate that to the general population? Women are often raped after college so using the data for the past 4 years as “lifetime” data seems wrong to me. Maybe I’m just missing something.
Good questions.
Of course, you’re right that surveys of college women can only tell us about what women who go to college experience. However, the studies do ask about life before college, so it’s not just “the past 4 years.”
Of the four studies I mentioned in this post, two were representative surveys of American women in general, not just of college women. Since all the surveys have similar findings, it would appear that college women are pretty much like other American women in terms of how often they are victims of rape.
Many aspects of the summary in the CDC report are inaccurate or out of date.
The claim that 25% of women and 8% of men experienced partner, spouse or date violence is incompatible with recent studies that show that men and women commit violence against a partner, spouse or date at equal incident rates.
Men are More Likely Than Women to Be Victims in Dating Violence:
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/520686/
Bibliography of multiple studies:
http://www.mensactivism.org/activism_files/fiebert.pdf
I also want to know what the CDC defines rape as:
“Using a definition of rape that includes forced vaginal, oral, and anal intercourse…”
Note that the definition includes these, but is not limited to only these acts.
Is sexual assault included? Lumping sexual assault in with rape is a misnomer.
If a man reprimands a teenage girl for wandering into traffic and nearly getting run over, is this sexual assault? This incident happened in 2006.
I also am curious if ‘forced’ is defined to include:
-Having sex after consuming any alcohol.
-Having sex after consuming any drugs.
-Having sex when one doesn’t feel like it.
-Being convinced to have sex by ones partner.
-Non-conventional sexual behavior like BDSM.
-Having sex when one first says ‘No’ and later says ‘Yes’.
These are just a few scenarios that if improperly categorised could inflate the amount of ‘forced’ incidents.
Lastly, the figure that ~10-15% of all women will be raped in their lifetimes means that of 143.4 million U.S. females, there will be 14.34 to 21.51 million rapes over the course of an 80 year lifespan. Excluding those who will live longer, and the increased population that will occur in that time, results in a crude number of estimated yearly rapes at 179,250 to 268,875.
For 2003 there were 81,310 rapes. This figure is ~1/3 of the alleged yearly percentage.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2005/pg5o.html
Either the crime is under-reported (and there is no way to know if any crime – robbery, burglary, murder, etc. – occurred if it is not reported) or the study inflates the risk of rape.
The common claim is that rape is under-reported. What is also equally logically likely is that the methodology of the survey is flawed and over-reports the percentage of women who are raped.
U.S. 2000 population by single year cohort.
A couple of points…
I’m intrigued by the statistics that surveys of all women and of college women show a similar percentage of women have been raped. That would imply that if a woman hasn’t been raped by age 22 she can pretty much stop worrying about it, which seems unlikely to me. Granted, some risk factors are present or more prevalent for college women than for older women (lots of young men around, inexperience, alcohol and drug abuse), but I still can’t imagine that a woman is 10 or 20 times as likely to be raped before as after college.
I also wonder, like Lee, how rape is defined. If “oh, all right already, anything to get some sleep” counts as rape, virtually every married woman has been raped at some point.
That said, I think there’s pretty solid data from numerous surveys that rape is underreported, and that there are at least twice as many unreported rapes as reported ones. There’s very little evidence for most rapes; even if there’s evidence that sex act(s) occurred, there’s often no proof that they weren’t consensual. If I knew I had no way to prove it I’d have a hard time reporting a rape. (I might do it on the theory that if he did it once, he’s probably done it before and probably will again, but I’d also be scared and want to make the whole thing go away as soon as possible.)
I’ve responded to this criticism (and to what’s in the links you provide) at length in this post.
From the CDC report:
So that’s how they defined rape. Contrary to your speculation, they did limit their definition of rape to oral, vaginal or anal penetration.
I don’t believe that any of those incidents would be systematically classified as rape by the CDC methodology. Nor would Lu’s “anything to get some sleep” example be counted.
You don’t understand the statistics you’re quoting. The 81,310 isn’t how many rapes were reported to police in 2003. It’s the results from the NCVS survey – which is a different survey than the CDC survey, and has nothing to do with police reports. The NCVS methodology is very flawed for measuring rape prevalence.
* It’s presented to respondents as a crime survey (the C in “NCVS” stands for crime), which discourages respondents from reporting rapes that they’re not sure is a crime (such as rapes by boyfriends or husbands).
* They didn’t take adequate measures to ensure that respondents had privacy when being interviewed. How many 14-year-old rape victims are going to talk about the time their boyfriend refused to take “no” for an answer if their parents are sitting next to them on the sofa? How may wives will talk about their husbands raping them if their husband is in the room while she’s interviewed?
* The NCVS interview questions vastly undercount rape. The US Department of Justice did a survey of college women in which the same researchers, using the same methods in every way apart from the questions asked, compared the results from NCVS questions and the method researchers believe is best (which is to ask multiple, behaviorally specific questions. An example of a behaviorally specific question is “has anyone made you have anal sex by force or threat of force? By anal sex, I mean putting a penis in your anus or rectum.”). What they found is that the NCVS questions radically failed to measure rape, compared to the behaviorally-specific questions.
Can you give any logical reason to believe that rape prevalence studies are radically overestimating the prevalence of rape? Your theory so far seems to be that rape prevalence surveys use incredibly broad definitions of rape, but that simply isn’t true.
Surveys show that a large number of women report that they’ve had sex when they didn’t want to by force or threat of force; and that most of these women say they haven’t reported the incident to police. Either huge numbers of those women are lying, or the surveys are accurate, it seems to me.
One thing study after study has found is that most rapes occur while the victim is in junior high, in high school, or of college age. However, this effect – while real – is slightly exaggerated by the “lifetime prevalence” factor, because a woman who is raped at age 15 and again at age 30 is counted the same as a woman who was raped only at age 15.
My guess is that the reason most rape victims are young, is because most rapists are young. Most rapists – like most violent criminals – are teenage boys and young men, and they typically rape within their peer group. But there are probably other factors at work, too. Younger women are probably also more vulnerable, as you suggest.
Finally, although I haven’t gone through and examined this systematically, it seems to me that the full-population studies often find somewhat higher numbers than the college-aged-women studies. For instance, the CDC study found 15%, while the BJS college women study found about 10%.
Amp, the Lee posting here isn’t me.
Thanks for pointing that out, Lee (original Lee). I’ve modified the other Lee’s name to distinguish them from you.
Lee (new one, not the original one): To prevent confusion, if you post here again, please pick a different name or a variation on “Lee.” Thanks!
So that’s how they defined rape. Contrary to your speculation, they did limit their definition of rape to oral, vaginal or anal penetration.
I am not speculating, I am quoting from the report verbatim: “Using a definition of rape that includes forced vaginal, oral, and anal intercourse…”
One is explicit, the other is not and leaves open other possible scenarios. If they wanted to state “only” they could have done so.
Their definition also does not include any provision for a man to be raped by a woman, which we know does occur.
Define consent. I am not parsing here…this goes to the root of how feminism has redefined so many words that they have become meaningless. Is it consent if he is drunk but she is sober? Is it consent if both are drunk? Then why hold the man accountable but the woman not if both are drunk? Is it consent if she acquiesces after 3 ‘No’s’ to a ‘Yes’? Is this force or threat of force? Is it consent or force or threat of force if she changes her mind after 30 seconds of intercourse and he stops immediately? In 5 seconds? In 15 seconds? In one minute?
Surveys or Studys? A survey is done by interns on a phone tree, asking questions that may or may not be scientifically rigorous. A study is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
Define force or threat of force.
Is the woman feeling threatened equal to a threat?
Is the mere prescence of a man equal to a threat?
Is one plead by the man of “C’mon honey…” equated with force or threat of force?
Having sex when she doesn’t want to is rape? What about men having sex when they don’t want to? Partners of both sexes have sex with their spouse or lover when they don’t want to. It is what people do who care for the other and want them to be pleasured. To classify that as rape is a misnomer.
These queries go to the root of what those who perform the studies consider rape, force and threat. This is for good reason, as many collegiate rape studies ask the women if they have ever had sex when they didn’t want to or were not 100% enthusiastic about it. Classifying this as rape is just dishonest.
If a woman having sex when she doesn’t want to is rape, then is a man buying a woman jewelry he doesn’t want to robbery?
The claim that 25% of women and 8% of men experienced partner, spouse or date violence is incompatible with recent studies that show that men and women commit violence against a partner, spouse or date at equal incident rates.
I don’t mean to be rude, but no you have not responded.
That post is from June 26th, 2004, originally written in November of 2002, citing data from 1977 and 1980, and updated in 1985.
The link I posted:
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/520686/
from the University of New Hampshire:
http://www.newswise.com/institutions/view/?id=177
regarding a study of dating violence was release last week Sun 21-May-2006.
Last week!
You are basing your rebuttal of data collected within the past 2 years on data that is a quarter of a century old, from an entry you penned 3 1/2 years ago, before the data refuting your support was even collected.
Times change. Your data is simply out of date and no longer relevant to how people behave within dating scenarios. Women are no longer ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’. They are just as likely to commit acts of violence, although the men will inflict greater injuries.
You’re not rude, you’re just mistaken.
The post I linked to cites a wide variety of sources, but the most recent ones were from the late 1990s. For instance, the post relies heavily on a CDC study that was published in 1998. Furthermore, the studies using the Conflict Tactics Scale I looked at while writing that post were published as recently as the late 1990s. So your claim that my data is outrageously out of date is just wrong.
Second of all, the link you provide contains nothing new (and is in fact based on sub-studies, some of which were published before 2002). It’s yet another iteration of the same old CTS-based study which has been repeated dozens of times. Since the post I linked to criticizes the CTS at length, and since the study you link to uses the CTS, obviously my criticism is relevant.
Furthermore, as the study you cite says on page 13 (pdf link):
Something very similar to this was a major theme of my post. Since the study itself includes this point, how can you say it’s irrelevant?
Lee (ADLTI) wrote:
The problem is, you don’t understand how to read the report. You’re quoting verbatim from page 2, which is a one-page summary of the entire report. To be accurate, you should refer to the actual definition they used (which appears on page 13), not just the reference to it in the executive summary. Here it is again:
Despite its flaws (it’s an obvious error that their definition of rape did not include “envelopment” type rapes), this is the definition that they used. And you are simply, obviously wrong to say that it includes anything apart from penetration of the vagina, mouth and/or anus.
It occurs, but unless you define “rape” very loosely it’s extraordinarily rare. Furthermore, you’re technically wrong to say that all female-on-male rapes are excluded; for instance, a woman raping a man using an object or her fingers to penetrate his anus would be counted as rape under this definition.
Nonetheless, I agree with you that the study should have asked about forcible envelopment – a category which would include not only some female-on-male rapes, but also some male-on-male rapes. (I suspect more of the latter than of the former).
Either provide reasonable citations backing up this statement – and by “reasonable,” I don’t mean MRA and anti-feminist websites and publications – or withdraw it, please.
Impossible to say without more information. If one of them used force or threat of force to make the other have sex against their will, then no, it was not consensual. If they both consented to sex freely, then it’s consensual, regardless of which of them is drunk (or if both are drunk). If one of them was so drunk that they were actually unconscious, or so drunk that they were incapable (not just unwilling) to resist or say “no,” then it was rape.
If there was no force or threat of force used to obtain the “yes,” then yes, that’s consent. However, “not rape” does not equal “not sleazy.” It’s quite possible that there’s no problem at all in the situation you describe; but it could also be a case of unfair use of pressure and emotional manipulation. Just because it’s not rape doesn’t mean it’s not appalling.
Here’s a simple rule: Enthusiastic participation. Don’t have sex with anyone who isn’t actively, enthusiastically having sex with you. Why is that so threatening? Why do anti-feminists so fear the loss of the right to have sex with people who are just barely on the edge of consent? What decent person would ever want to have sex with someone who is only barely consenting?
There’s no strict time limit (and, contrary to myth, no court has set a strict time limit). If the person doesn’t stop in what strikes a judge or jury as a reasonable amount of time, then they could be convicted of rape for refusing to stop after being asked to stop.
Are you against this? Do you think that once someone has agreed to sex, they lost the right to say “no stop get off” and have that respected? Do you think that if I hear my girlfriend say “no stop get off,” and I ignore her and continue, that’s not rape? What if I continue for ten minutes? Twelve? Twenty? What time limit do you propose, Lee (ADLTI)? Or are you saying that no matter how long I keep on going, forcing myself into her despite her telling me to stop, no rape has occurred?
Actually, federal government studies are counted as studies, because they go through a peer review process, but are often not published in academic journals but instead published directly by the government.
But in any case, I was referring to studies – both government studies, and academic studies. Thanks for asking for the clarification.
Do you have evidence that any major study of rape prevalence has EVER considered any of these things rape for the studies’ purpose? Please prove it with citations to the studies in question.
Again, I think you’re the one being dishonest.
I read the above paragraph as claiming that “many” collegiate rape studies classify “ever had sex when they didn’t want to or were not 100% enthusiastic about it” as rape. To me, “many” means at least three. Please cite three such studies.
I haven’t posted that it includes “… includes anything apart from penetration of the vagina, mouth and/or anus.”
I posted that “(It is) (u)sing a definition of rape that includes *forced* vaginal, oral, and anal intercourse…”
The flaw is what is ‘forced’ and how that is defined. The definition on page 13 restates the definition to be one of “without consent”. Is this to be read as “forced” = “without consent”?
As I did not make a claim that it includes anything apart from penetration of the vagina, mouth and/or anus, we’ll move on from your Red Herring.
I will use the first part of the definition of the report:
“Rape was defined as an event that occurred without the victim’s consent…”
“…without consent…”
The recent parade of female school teachers who have sex with minor male students is ample support for the fact that this 1) occurs, 2) is not extraordinarily rare at all and 3) meets with a definition of rape that includes lack of consent.
Minor children cannot consent in our culture or legal environment to sex with an adult. They are, by definition, below the age of consent.
Therefore, these boys did not consent to sex, and these adult women raped these male children. The number of incidents is de facto proof that this is not ‘rare’.
I will not post the scores of women who have acted in such a manner since 2000.
This link will list just a few:
http://tinyurl.com/q8jm3
Here you demonstrate, quite ably and succinctly, what is deeply flawed about many pro-Feminist arguments. You insist upon defining the terms of the debate, and in most cases insist upon an a priori dismissal of support that refutes your arguments, and base this refutation soley upon where the data is posted.
This is a form of Ad Hominem dismissal – you don’t accept the data as acceptable, as you deem the source invalid due to personal prejudice, therefore the argument is invalid.
You will have to give better reasons to dismiss support other than it is on “…MRA and anti-feminist websites and publications…” The converse of this statement is that support that is on “…FRA and pro-feminist websites and publications…” is also invalid.
If you are willing to accept such a stricture, so am I.
In any event, here are some studies that have questionable definitions of ‘consent’.
What if BOTH were incapable of resistance due to intoxication? What if BOTH were so drunk as to be incapable of saying “no”?
It isn’t threatening, and to allege such is to attempt to steer the argument away from merit. Where in this entire exchange do I seem, appear or posit as “threatened”? I am not and to claim so is mischaracterisation – although I tip my hat to the oldest of Feminist Canards – that men who disagree are “threatened”. This tactic doesn’t work anymore, btw. I disagree with the arguments, nothing more.
On to “..Enthusiastic participation…” Enthusiasm defined as how? By whom? What about sex while half asleep at 3am? This would lack emotional enthusiasm, then it would fail your standard. What about those who are physically weak or older? Then it would lack physical enthusiasm, and fail your standard.
What about men who stop after 15 seconds, when asked, and then the woman alleges rape aftewards? What of men who stop when asked but are still accused of rape?
Here you get off the path again and trot out the old method of tarring the opponent with multiple accusations that have zero to do with the merits of your argument. The prescence of multiple serial questions aimed at my alleged agreement with points that you make up is used to make it seem as though I agree with the notion of men forcing themselves upon women.
These methods used to work when arguing the Pro-Feminist position. No more.
Three rape studies collegiate or otherwise – that classify ‘having sex when she didn’t want to’ as rape:
1)http://www.questionpro.com/akira/showSurveyLibrary.do?surveyID=94983&mode=1
2)Koss, M.P., & Gidycz, C.A. (1985). Sexual Experiences Survey: Reliability and validity. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 162-170.
“Questions are used to assess whether/if victimization occurred as a result of coercion, threats, drugs, authority, or use of force. One example is “Have you ever had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?”
3)http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3112405.html
“Intimate partner violence. One item from the Conflict Tactics Scale27 and two items from the Abuse Assessment Screen28 were used to ascertain 12-month and lifetime partner abuse.* The questions administered to Moshi residents were “[In the last 12 months/ever in your life,] how often has your husband or partner (1) insulted or sworn at you? (2) threatened to hurt you physically? (3) hit, slapped, kicked or otherwise physically hurt you?” In addition, women were asked one question from the Sexual Experiences Survey:29 “[In the last 12 months/ever in your life,] have you ever had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because your husband or partner threatened or used some degree of physical force to make you (twisting your arm, holding you down, etc.)?”
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=+%22Have+you+ever+had+sexual+intercourse+when+you+didn%27t+want+to%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t403&x=wrt
Most surveys, studies and questionaires use the CTS and SES as their basis.
One of the standard questions in the SES is:
“…had sexual intercourse with someone when you didn’t really want to because you felt pressured by his/her continual arguments?”
Other variations are :
“…had sexual intercourse with someone when you didn’t really want to because…”
1)he/she threatened to end your relationship otherwise?
2)threatening to use physical force
http://www.uwec.edu/projects/bica/SES_f.htm
Any incidents where someone has sex when they don’t want to, but…are considered by current methodology to be lacking in consent, ergo rape. Thus when rape numbers are cited, all of these questions that begin with “…had sexual intercourse with someone when you didn’t really want to because…” are included in that number.
Thus inflating and conflating the incident of rape on college campuses (and within the populace at large).
so only college educated women are raped? that statistic does not trickle down to the rest of the population.