There was a despicable op-ed in the Sunday Los Angeles Times by a woman named Heather Mac Donald, who works at the conservative think-tank The Manhattan Institute. Titled What Campus Rape Crisis?, the article is an anti-feminist refutation of rape statistics on college campuses. Mac Donald subtitles the article “Promiscuity and hype have created a phony epidemic at colleges.”
The statistics she is refuting are the same which prompted the ubiquitous “Consent is Sexy” posters on campus, those statistics which claim that between 20% and 25% of college women will be victims of at least attempted sexual assault before they graduate (PDF–check out page 17). The numbers come from a study commissioned by the Department of Justice in 1997. Female interviewers anonymously surveyed 4,446 women enrolled full-time in college and asked them specific questions about various forms of sexual assault and attempted assault taking place over a one-year period. The resulting statistic–about 5% of women had been victimized–was multiplied by four to estimate the number of incidents occurring during college. For the full details, look at the PDF above. Admittedly, their methods are slightly problematic, but not cause for a complete refutation.
Mac Donald’s argument, which is also the center of her City Journal article The Campus Rape Myth, is bitter, partisan, and illogical. She incorrectly interprets the DoJ statistics—which are cited by universities across the country—stating that between 20% and 25% of college women will the the victims of rape or attempted rape in their four years, rather than assault. There is a world of difference between sexual assault and penetrative rape, but it goes completely unrecognized by Mac Donald. In perhaps my favorite passage of the whole absurd op-ed, Mac Donald writes of what would happen if these statistics were accurate:
Admissions policies, which if the numbers are true are allowing in tens of thousands of vicious criminals, would require a complete revision, perhaps banning male students entirely. The nation’s nearly 10 million female undergraduates would need to take the most stringent safety precautions.
The truth about sexual victimization of college women is much more complicated than Mac Donald seems to think. She blames women for drinking, essentially claiming that a woman who is the victim of non-consensual sex while intoxicated has only herself to fault. She blames women for being promiscuous, and she blames the free-love of the 60s for starting it all:
Students in the ’60s demanded that college administrators stop setting rules for fraternization. The colleges meekly complied and opened a Pandora’s box of boorish, promiscuous behavior that gets cruder each year.
I’m sure if Ms. Mac Donald had her way, only married (heterosexual) adults would have sex, when they weren’t busy sleeping in their separate beds.
There’s no point in calling all women who are interested in sex whores; Mac Donald’s argument seems to discount the very fact that women possess healthy libidos, just like men. In the longer City Journal article, Ms. Mac Donald pinpoints Columbia’s very own Go Ask Alice! as part of the problem for its “simultaneous advocacy of ‘healthy sexuality’ and of the ‘rape is everywhere’ ideology.” Apparently the two can’t exist together. But the truth is they can! Women need to take control of their sexuality and be proud of their bodies. Mac Donald would undoubtedly shudder if she ever heard the term sex positive, but that’s what we as a culture need to be. Sex shouldn’t be something we sweep under our beds or hide in the closet: we need to talk about it openly. Mac Donald doubts the DoJ statistics because campus rape centers do not receive much traffic (a fact she seems to have culled from a single interview with a rape crisis center worker at James Madison University). The reason why not many of these supposed victims visit rape help centers is they are embarrassed about what has happened to them and they blame themselves.
Mac Donald is only exacerbating the problem by publishing such an anti-feminist and, frankly, prudish tirade. Ann Coulter-wannabe Michelle Malkin has picked up the story, seconding Mac Donald’s blame game and denial of the real problem of sexual repression and aggression.
So guys, let’s talk about it. We’re not going to make date rape disappear by pretending it doesn’t exist.
Damn that Los Angeles and its conservatism. When will Hollywood ever liberalize?
Said Sarah Cohler,
On February 27, 2008 at 11:28 pm:
I am a conservative woman, and personally believe that people having sex should really be married. That said, I am appalled that this woman thinks there is no rape crisis! No matter what your beliefs, rape happens, and is always the man’s fault. The woman might be accidentally making it easier for him to get away with it by drinking, but that still does not make it her fault. That’s just rediculous. The facts are the facts. This is not an opinion issue. I know a lot of people that have been raped and NONE of them reported it. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, does it?
Said Brenda,
On February 27, 2008 at 12:35 am:
“The reason why not many of these supposed victims visit rape help centers is they are embarrassed about what has happened to them and they blame themselves.”
That was rather amusing. It is projection, not journalism, that allows Sweeny to state this. I’m sure she figures this is ‘common sense,’ and in no need of citation for support.
I thought it was a solid point, though, when Sweeny pointed out that the source stats were based upon sexual assault, not rape. Apparently assault is violent physical or verbal attack, so I’m not sure how much MacDonald is actually overstating the rape case.
If assault can be hitting on a drunk girl or trying to deceive her into bed, this is a far cry from violent physical penetration. But if assault includes smashing her in the face, it’s not much different from penetrative rape.
So I think Heather and Sweeny would’ve done their respective readers a world of good by actually unpacking the real findings, because partisans on both sides aren’t bothering, of course, to do this.
If you go to feministing, the mostly female pc posters are simply outraged and echoing their own rage back at each other. If you go to conservative sides, same thing.
Heather’s article seemed plausible to me in its opening salvo because the 25% figure indeed sounded wildly overblown. When Sweeny pointed out the interpretive overstep, I was interested but now that moment has been muddied.
When Sweeny says:
“Admittedly, their methods are slightly problematic, but not cause for a complete refutation.”
Okay, she is saying partial refutation may be in order, but skips that completely. Wtf? Why? That’s it?
Sweeny quotes MacDonald and then writes:
“The truth about sexual victimization of college women is much more complicated than Mac Donald seems to think.”
Okay, but if Sweeny’s argument is nuanced, so is MacDonald’s, a position that most feminists are loathe to admit.
The status of intoxication is tricky. If an intoxicated woman consents to sex, then the next day recants, has she been raped? Does the intoxication attenuate her capacity to consent? If so, does it equally attenuate an intoxicated man’s ability to do so as well?
Rarely do I see women sympathetic to this viewpoint, and I get nervous when I read dogmatic statements such as “Rape is defined as …” which seemed specifically designed to preclude further discourse on the topic. Like definitions of racism which exclude whites as potential targets of racist thinking.
Bottom line: This could’ve been a decent post, a few promising suggestions were tossed out there, but were undeveloped, I presume, because the target audience already agrees with the author.
I will continue looking for a site that actually is able to rationally address MacDonald’s piece and avoid the echo chamber phenomenon.
Said withersbee,
On February 27, 2008 at 9:00 am: