{"id":2019,"date":"2005-12-21T08:20:10","date_gmt":"2005-12-21T15:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/12\/21\/an-epidemic-of-female-teachers-committing-statuatory-rape\/"},"modified":"2005-12-21T08:20:10","modified_gmt":"2005-12-21T15:20:10","slug":"an-epidemic-of-female-teachers-committing-statuatory-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2019","title":{"rendered":"An "epidemic" of female teachers committing statutory rape?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a right-wing website, Joe Kovacs writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The seeming U.S. epidemic of cases involving female teachers raping or molesting their students has been “sexported” Down Under, as Australia is experiencing a similar rash of cases.<\/div>\n

Kovacs goes on to list about 60 cases drawn from the U.S., Britain and Australia. Skimming through the list, he includes at least one case in which the teacher was acquitted, and other cases that seem like a stretch, but let’s put that aside.<\/p>\n

I’m struck by his use of the word “epidemic.”<\/p>\n

When Mary Koss’ study of rape prevalence was first published, some feminists said the study (which found that about 12% of women in college had been raped at some point in their lives) showed that there was an “epidemic” of rape in the US. Influential critics of feminism, such as Christina Hoff Sommers, Katie Roiphe, and Neil Gilbert, argued that to use the word “epidemic” was a vast exaggeration.<\/p>\n

Let’s suppose that Koss was wrong by a hundred times (although she wasn’t), and that only 0.12% of women are raped in their lifetimes. Even so, that would still be thousands and thousands and thousands more girls and women raped, than the number of boys who have been raped or molested by female teachers. I’m not in any way excusing what was done to those boys, of course. But I think it’s curious how flexible the standard for “epidemic” status is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a right-wing website, Joe Kovacs writes: The seeming U.S. epidemic of cases involving female teachers raping or molesting their students has been “sexported” Down Under, as Australia is experiencing a similar rash of cases. Kovacs goes on to list … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,96,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mary-koss-controversy","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues","category-sexism-hurts-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}