Ugh. No jokes this time, just an appalling little exchange on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit. First, a Redditor called xbyiu offers some unsolicited, and pretty pig-ignorant, thoughts about SlutWalks. The basic thesis:
Personally, I think a lot of feminists just don’t care about rape victims. They’d much rather see women as a whole being a victim of the patriarchy and fight against that sort of abstract idea then deal with the reality of rape, which can be fought against with simple tips on how to protect yourself.
Hold on; it gets worse.
To this the r/mr regular EvilPundit replied (in a comment that, last I checked, had gotten three times more upvotes than downvotes):
I’d go even further, and say that many feminists love rape. For them, it’s a perfect way to demonise men in general.
If rape didn’t exist, feminism would invent it. In fact, feminism does invent a lot of rape, with its imaginary statistics such as “1 in 4”, and so on.
In other words, feminists don’t really want to prevent rape. But most rape is imaginary. So feminists are trying to not prevent something that doesn’t much happen anyway. Brilliant.
A note on the “1 in 4” thing: EvilPundit’s insinuation that it’s an “imaginary statistic” is a common MRA talking point. It’s not imaginary, but it’s not quite accurate either. The one-in-four number comes from a study conducted in the 80s by researcher Mary Koss: based on a detailed survey of college women, she found that roughly one in four of her respondent had been a victim of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14. This is often simplified – and distorted – into “one in four female college students are raped while in college.”
In fact, Koss’ survey found that one in eight college women answering her survey, not one in four, had been the victim of completed rape. Other studies have reported numbers not far off from this. The National Violence Against Women Survey, for example, found that roughly one in six of female respondents reported being the victim of rape in their lifetime.
The fact that some people have misrepresented Koss’ study doesn’t mean that her findings are “imaginary.”
I’m not even sure why I’m writing all this, given that as a feminist I presumably don’t care at all about rape.
Pic above taken from here.
EDITED TO ADD: EvilPundit’s comment has gotten some downvotes since I posted this, but it still has more upvotes than downvotes.
This is one of the joys of manboobz – discussions of exactly how many acts it takes to make 2 gallons of sperm. 🙂
The commenters here are all thinkers, you don’t just go “yeah, same to you!”, you start wondering, “hmm, I wonder how much it would take …” and then you go and work it out. 🙂
I mean, it’s also technically possible that he meant zero gallons, as “zero” is technically a number of gallons. But it’s colloquially meaningless, of course. And clearly nonsense in context.
MRAL, that’s actually worse. You’re saying hateful things without even hating the people you’re saying them about?
I haven’t heard about what magdelyn brings up, so I looked it up and found this post:
aspiringeconomist.com/index.php/2009/09/11/rape-statistics-1-in-4/
Without delving into Sommers’ critique, it doesn’t seem so crazy to me to count that as rape. There are also studies that get actual rapists to admit that they have engaged in rape–but without calling it the R word. But hey, that would be maternalistic to label what they do as rape. And it’s definitely not rape if she sleeps with the guy later. It’s not like humans are, you know, complicated.
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9502/sommers.html
On a side note, the “skeptical” analysis of Aspiring Economist treats the 1 in 4 claim as if it is about rape alone when, as the site he links to correctly says, it is 1 in 4 inclusive of attempted rape and rape. He or she attacks “women’s centers” when they correctly refer to the nature of the study’s conclusions. Bias, u has it much?
So, magdelyn, in what sense is David “standing by” the Koss study when he explicitly links to other studies measuring similar data?
Compare Mags:
with Koss’ actual findings:
From Alas, a Blog because why restate something so nicely stated.
“MRAL, that’s actually worse. You’re saying hateful things without even hating the people you’re saying them about?”
Actually, “Her fucking highness” and “gash” are compliments! Who knew! 😛
Also: for the love of all genderfuckery, peeps, when someone comes along and says “The person in that photo is not the gender you have labeled them as”, please double check *before* you make fun of them. I know “Is that a girl?” is a nasty game people play on 4chan for yucks, but that particular correction was more in the spirit of making sure someone’s preferred pronoun was being respected.
Also, if “boobs” always makes someone a girl, I better turn mine in… >.>
To finish my thought, it’s not like he says “and Koss’s study is definitely not at all methodologically flawed and is still exactly true for today’s population”. He was just correcting some misperceptions about the study.
Since it’s difficult to believe you have that much trouble with reading comprehension, I would suggest you say “I’d like to talk about Koss’s study…” rather than assume David has a certain stance–whatever you think that is–and launch an attack on that.
Well, let’s clear this up. David, you’ve written more than once about this Mary Koss study. Please tell us what you think of the veracity of the findings of the study, and of the study itself (that is the methodolgy). Thank you.
Hoff Summers? That’s about Mag’s speed. Watching her try to play gotcha is almost as pathetic as her passive aggressive defenses.
Well, I have both and I’m still a dude….catch my drift? Not everyone is cis…
Hey there are plenty of dudes with petite features and lets not get into gender policing based on how “petite” someone looks.
Woah, I didn’t catch that. As a slight guy with delicate features I resent being compared to an “it”.
gah quote fail!
gah double quote fail!!!
Maggie, I’d suggest you look at Alas, A blog’s posts on the Koss controversy, which deal in some detail with Christina Hoff Sommers’ half-baked critique.
I also suggest you take a look at this post on Feminist Critics, which looks in detail at Koss’ questionnaire.
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2008/02/29/has-anyone-here-besides-me-actually-read-koss-paper/
If something fits the legal definition of rape, yet the victim does not regard it as rape, it is still rape.
I think at this point the main issue I would have with relying on Koss’ study is simply that it’s quite old.
That doesn’t answer my question.
And nugganu goes on moderation. Two anal rape jokes in a row is really pushing it.
I’m not sure why “I do what I want and I’m OK” is supposed to prove anything as far as this topic is concerned. I’m bisexual and I’ve never encountered any sort of mistreatment from straight people as a result of my orientation. I’m not self-centered enough to think that means that gaybashing doesn’t exist, and I’m also able to recognise that there are reasons I’ve been spared (I live in San Francisco now, I came of age in London, I’m pretty femmey looking).
Also about the dude in the picture above…the reason I initially got shirty about someone asserting that he was a he was because I thought he might be a slightly butch young girl, and didn’t like the idea of butch girls being labelled as not-women, which happens a lot. I also assumed that the person standing behind him in the tights was male. And then when other people here started talking about it I had a weird moment where I realised how far outside the norm my experience with this sort of stuff and thus my way of looking at it is. I grew up in the goth community, so non-macho guys don’t register as unusual for me – I’ve mostly dated men who tend to borrow my clothes and makeup. Nowadays I work with a lot of bands where the guys are often delicate featured and eyeliner-wearing and women all over the word adore them for it, so the idea that delicate featured slightly femmey looking young man = it/nonperson never even occurred to me.
I’m sorry if my comment hurt anyone – I’m so used to being around people for whom it’s assumed that pretty, not very macho guys are very highly valued indeed that sometimes it takes me a while to code-switch back into mainstream society mode.
NEVER EVER refer to people and especially people who don’t fit society’s mold of how men and women “should” look as “it.” Just don’t fucking do it.
While I completely agree with you, I think this particular case is just one of a quirk of grammar, not of any actual intent to refer to someone as an “it.” “It” often gets used to describe people when there’s an implied clause – e.g. “Who’s on the phone? If it’s my mother (who is on the phone), tell her I’m not home.” “Who’s at the door? Is it Bob (who is at the door)?” And, in this case, “if it’s a man (who is in the picture), he’s quite petite.” Given the “he” right after the “it,” it really looks like there wasn’t any intent to it-ify anyone, just that implied clause making “it” grammatically correct, if unfortunately-timed.
…okay, I’m done grammar-nerding now. (And, like I said, people actually calling someone “it” = awful.)
Maggie: I think Koss’ methodology was basically fine.What exactly is your critique of it?
Aside from the whole “but some of the survey takers didn’t think it was rape” issue, which I deal with above, there’s one other thing that critics go on about: There was one question in her survey about alcohol use that critics argue could be confusing to the survey takers, and critics have jumped on this to claim that this discredits her results. In fact, further research using Koss’ survey with that one question reworded to be crystal clear had very similar results to Koss’ original study. In other words, the potentially misleading question does not in fact seem to have caused any misunderstandings in practice. See here for more:
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2006/05/03/the-iwf-attack-on-rape-statistics/
Why don’t you go read the links I gave you, which deal in detail with all the standard critiques of Koss, and if you have any questions after that, well, I dunno, take them up with Koss herself, or write about it on your blog, or something.
I don’t know, I would think the grammatically correct sentence would either be, “if he’s a man” or “if she’s a man” (which wouldn’t really make sense) or even “if zie is a man”. It looks to me like “it” was being substituted for the pronoun of the person, and not used in the way you’re talking about, “is it my mother?” or “who is it at the door?” where the gender of the person is not being called into question.
Wow.
As a result of this thread, I have decided that I need to hire employees to do all of my work for me, so that I do not miss an epic party like this ever again.
I see the BAW’s showed up, with their “white women suck” routine. I actually met one of these guys IRL last week and it was… an experience…
“I see the BAW’s showed up, with their “white women suck” routine. I actually met one of these guys IRL last week and it was… an experience…”
Details, please?
I’m not afraid to jump the gun on that comment. People tend to call gender noncomformists “it.” I think snowy summed up nicely why I interpreted it like that. i’m not going to back down.
I don’t know, I would think the grammatically correct sentence would either be, “if he’s a man” or “if she’s a man” (which wouldn’t really make sense) or even “if zie is a man”. It looks to me like “it” was being substituted for the pronoun of the person, and not used in the way you’re talking about, “is it my mother?” or “who is it at the door?” where the gender of the person is not being called into question.
“If he’s a man” would be grammatically correct, too – it’s just a different sentence. I’m sleepy and probably explaining this poorly (and implied clauses are kind of complicated at the best of times), but “if he’s a man” just means “if that person is a man.” “If it’s a man” creates the implied clause “that is [doing whatever was previously referred to]” – “if it’s a man who’s on the phone,” “if it’s a man that’s in the car,” “if it’s a man who’s dancing the lambada,” whatever. Think of it this way: imagine the implied clause being explicit, and suddenly the gendered pronoun sounds WEIRD. “If she’s my mom that’s on the phone…” “He is Bob who is outside.”
In this particular context, either would have worked – “if he (that person being referred to) is a man…” or “if it’s a man (that’s in the picture)…” The latter choice ended up being awkwardly timed, since it’s in a discussion of the gender of the person in question, and since there ARE assholes out there who’d seriously call someone an “it,” and I totally understand how it could be read that way…but I’m 99.99999% sure it’s just a quirk of English grammar, especially given that the sentence was, “If it’s a man, HE is petite.”
I’m not afraid to jump the gun on that comment. People tend to call gender noncomformists “it.” I think snowy summed up nicely why I interpreted it like that. i’m not going to back down.
Urgh. I’m not suggesting you should back down, or that you were somehow “bad” for interpreting it that way – like I said, given the context and the existence of numerous assholes in the world, it’s an assumption that’s more than understandable. I just used to work as a copy editor, and so when a finicky grammar point ends up causing a misunderstanding between people who genuinely seem to be on the same side, I feel like I ought to try to explain where things went wrong. (And I’m seriously sorry if it comes off at all as cissplaining – I don’t dispute that I’m less likely to read “it” in a nasty way than some other people would, or that you have every right to read things your way. If anything, I’m grammarian-splaining. :-p )