Feminists often complain, with considerable justification, that Men’s Rights Activists try to turn every conversation about women’s issues into a game of “what about the men?” You’re talking about female rape victims — well, what about the male rape victims?
The trouble with this strategy, from the point of view of the Men’s Rights Activists anyway, is that this little “gotcha” is much less of a “gotcha” then they’d like it to be.
In the case of rape, for example, feminists are well aware that men are raped as well: the “Don’t Be That Guy” ad campaign, which sent so many MRAs into hysterics, focused on male victims as well as female ones. The emergency room rape advocate organization that a friend of mine volunteers for provides advocacy for victims regardless of gender.
So many MRAs have started playing another game: trying to twist the conversation around in order to cast women as the villains. Rape is a bit tough for them here, since the overwhelming majority of rapists are male. So MRAs talk about the alleged epidemic of female false accusers instead. Or they change the topic entirely and make dead baby jokes (see my post yesterday).
Recently, MRAs have tried a new strategy, seizing on data from The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, a massive study conducted in 2010 under the aegis of the Centers for Disease Control, to claim that “40% of rapists are women.”
This is a claim repeated by numerous MRAs on numerous websites; see, for example, this post by A Voice for Men’s Typhonblue on the blog GendErratic. Here’s the same claim made into an “infographic” for the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Trouble is, this claim is flat-out false, based on an incorrect understanding of the NISVS data. But you don’t have to take my word for it: the NISVS researchers themselves say the MRA “interpretation” of their data is based on bad math. It’s not just a question of different definitions of rape: the MRA claims are untenable even if you include men who were “made to penetrate” women as victims of rape (as the MRAs do) rather than as victims of “sexual violence other than rape” (as the NISVS does).
I wrote to the NISVS for clarification of this matter recently, and got back a detailed analysis, straight from the horse’s mouth, of where the MRA arguments went wrong. This is long, and a bit technical, but it’s also pretty definitive, so it’s worth quoting in detail. (I’ve bolded some of the text below for emphasis, and broken some of the larger walls of text into shorter paragraphs.)
It appears that the math used to derive an estimated percentage of female rapists … is flawed. First, we will summarize the assertion and what we perceive to be the basis for the assertion.
According to the web links, the “40% of rapists were women” was derived from these two steps:
1) Combining the estimated number of female rape victims with the estimated number of being-made-to-penetrate male victims in the 12 months prior to the survey to conclude that about 50% of the rape or being-made-to-penetrate victims were males;
2) Multiplying the estimated percentage (79%) of male being-made-to-penetrate victims who reported having had female perpetrators in these victims’ lifetime with the 50% obtained in step 1 to claim that 40% of perpetrators of rape or being-made-to-penetrate were women.
None of these calculations should be used nor can these conclusions be correctly drawn from these calculations.
First the researchers clarify the issue of definition:
To explain, in NISVS we define rape as “any completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent.”
We defined sexual violence other than rape to include being made to penetrate someone else, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and non-contact unwanted sexual experiences. Made to penetrate is defined as including “times when the victim was made to, or there was an attempt to make them, sexually penetrate someone without the victim’s consent because the victim was physically forced (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threatened with physical harm, or when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent.”
The difference between “rape” and “being made to penetrate” is that in the definition of rape the victim is penetrated; “made to penetrate” by definition refers to cases where the victim penetrated someone else.
While there are multiple definitions of rape and sexual violence used in the field, CDC, with the help of experts in the field, has developed these specific definitions of rape and other forms of sexual violence (such as made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and non-contact unwanted sexual experiences). We use these definitions to help guide our analytical decisions.
Now the researchers get into the details of the math:
Regarding the specific assertion in question, several aspects of mistreatments of the data and the published estimates occurred in the above derivation:
A. While the percentage of female rape victims and the percentage of male being-made-to-penetrate victims were inferred from the past 12-month estimates by combining two forms of violence, the percentage of perpetrator by sex was taken from reported estimates for males for lifetime (a misuse of the percentage of male victims who reported only female perpetrators in their lifetime being made to penetrate victimization). This mismatch of timeframes is incorrect because the past 12-month victimization cannot be stretched to equate with lifetime victimization. In fact, Table 2.1 and 2.2 of the NISVS 2010 Summary Report clearly report that lifetime rape victimization of females (estimated at 21,840,000) is about 4 times the number of lifetime being made-to-penetrate of males (estimated at 5,451,000).
B. An arithmetic confusion appears when multiplying the two percentages together to conclude that the product is a percentage of all the “rapists”, an undefined perpetrator population. Multiplying the percentage of male victims (as derived in step 1) above) to the percentage of male victims who had female perpetrators cannot give a percentage of perpetrators mathematically because to get a percentage of female rape perpetrators, one must have the total rape perpetrators (the denominator), and the number of female perpetrators of this specific violence (the numerator). Here, neither the numerator nor the denominator was available.
C. Data collected and analyzed for the NISVS 2010 have a “one-to-multiple” structure (where the “one” refers to one victim and the “multiple” refers to multiple perpetrators). While not collected, it is conceivable that any perpetrator could have multiple victims. These multiplicities hinder any attempt to get a percentage of perpetrators such as the one described in steps 1) and 2), and nullify the reverse calculation for obtaining a percent of perpetrators.
For example, consider an example in which a girl has eight red apples while a boy has two green apples. Here, 50% of the children are boys and another 50% are girls. It is not valid to multiply 50% (boy) with 100% (boy’s green apples) to conclude that “50% of all the apples combined are green”. It is clear that only 20% of all the apples are green (two out of 10 apples) when one combines the red and green apples together. Part of the mistake in the deriving of the “50%” stems from a negligence to take into account the inherent multiplicity: a child can have multiple apples (just as a victim can have multiple perpetrators).
D. As the study population is U.S. adults in non-institutional settings, the sample was designed to be representative of the study population, not the perpetrator population (therefore no sampling or weighting is done for the undefined universe of perpetrators). Hence, while the data can be analyzed to make statistical inferences about the victimization of U.S. adults residing in non-institutional settings, the NISVS data are incapable of lending support to any national estimates of the perpetrator population, let alone estimates of perpetrators of a specific form of violence (say, rape or being-made-to-penetrate).
E. Combining the estimated past 12-month female rape victims with the estimated past 12-month being-made-to-penetrate male victims cannot give an accurate number of all victims who were either raped or being-made-to-penetrate, even if this combination is consistent with CDC’s definition.
Besides a disagreement with the definitions of the various forms of violence given in the NISVS 2010 Summary Report, this approach of combining the 12-month estimated number of female rape victims with the 12-month estimated number of male victims misses victims in the cells where reliable estimates were not reported due to small cell counts failing to meet statistical reliability criteria. For any combined form of violence, the correct analytical approach for obtaining a national estimate is to start at the raw data level of analysis, if such a creation of a combined construct is established.
So you’re going to need to go back to the drawing board, MRAs.
What is especially distressing here is that the NISVS data could have been the starting point for a serious discussion of male victims of sexual assault by women, which is a real and often overlooked issue. Unfortunately, MRAs have once again poisoned the well by misusing data in an attempt to exaggerate the purported villainy of women and score cheap rhetorical points.
NOTE: A regular in the AgainstMensRights subreddit approached the NISVS researchers with this same question some months back. Unfortunately, the statement they got back from the NISVS contained an incorrect number. The statement I’m quoting here corrects this number and adds more context.
I can provide contact info for the NISVS representative who got back to me on this to any serious (non-troll) person who requests it.
So…you admit that you have no idea what this conversation has been about and that your contribution will most likely be irrelevant.
But you feel the need to say it anyway.
I propose we, from here on out, recall that Reynard has said this:
So…you admit that you have no idea what this conversation has been about and that your contribution will most likely be irrelevant.
But you feel the need to say it anyway.
Necro-trolls and first-trolls in a nutshell.
“It’s not numbers, any more than understanding Proust is just letters, it’s understanding the way the numbers stand in for things, and then manipulating the things”
You made me smile at that. The universe is math. Obsenely complex math, but math.
Know how to manipulate those things the right way and you can end up with desalinization, or the atomic bomb. Or, by Jove! This weird little device and system we’re currently using for communication! (I promise not to go Victorian Time Traveller right now, I need to feed myself, and puff)
I understand the idea of math, even if I can’t really do it.
You quite clearly get the principles, and really, I think you’re better at it than you give yourself credit for.
Aww…kitty is suckling my brother.
I know from type because I used to do journalism. I’ve done layout, and paste up. I’ve even set lead type.
Is that strange to you, Alex? O_o
I’m now mentally reading Alex’s posts in Hugh Grant’s voice. It almost makes them entertaining. Almost.
He sounds like Bernard Black to me, but without the wit.
This was originally humongous, and I’m going to have to cut it down. If you made a point to me and I didn’t reply to it and you wanted me to, I apologize.
>But the CDC isn’t feminism.
I never said it was.
>Oh yes, please do tell me how classifying “MTP” as rape will magically change
the number of men who have been victims if MTP violence?
It won’t, and I didn’t say that it would. I said, specifically, that acknowledging victims of MTP would change the “1 in 71” statistic. And if that happened, there’s a slim chance that people might pay more attention to male victims. That would help them, and it wouldn’t be magic.
>Really? Please, do tell how MRA’s have actually helped male rape victims
For one example, I’ve seen male rape victims tell their stories on the r/mensrights sub, and receive positive comments and links to supportive organizations. And we’re also trying to raise awareness that male rape victims exist. For now, until we have more members and more funding, there’s not much more we can do than talk.
>Aww, was our delicate widdle ears burned by the swear word? But don’t see any problem throwing out a slur against homosexual men? Then backtrack when called on it? Fucking fail.
You seem to believe that when you are directly and intentionally insulting to me, that’s less wrong than when I unintentionally offended someone by using a slur to show condemnation of that slur.
>Don’t have time to read the discussion you barge in on, but do have time to talk out your ass about that which you have no idea about, and make assumptions about the views of the commenters here? Fucking lazy, fucking arrogant and big ol’ fucking FAIL.
How can I barge in on an open public forum? And where have I made assumptions about commenters here?
I’m not insulted by your overuse of swear words. I just think it makes you look like a bully.
—
>Well, if you’re just looking for an excuse not to do anything to help men, I suppose you can just make shit up to pretend that the mean feminazi under your bed made you not do it.
Oh, I’m not saying we won’t do anything. I think it’s a great idea having an MRA rally to showcase myths about male rape. But don’t try to act like I’m “making shit up”. That’s a DIRECT QUOTE that was chanted by counter-protestors at an MRA event in Canada. It didn’t matter that some of the MRA speakers were women, or homosexual. The counter-protesters called the MRM those things without having heard a word of what was actually being said. And to be honest, I’m fine with that. I hope that when the MRA does more public events, more people show up shouting “Racist, sexist, anti-gay! MRA, go away!” because it makes them look ignorant and cruel. And we look good in comparison. In general, it seems like the more hatred I see directed towards the MRM, the more the mainstream media acknowledges our existence.
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>Keep beating up those straw feminists, Alex.
If you can prove me wrong by showing me instances of mainstream feminist articles or PSAs or awareness campaigns that treat male victims as equally deserving of help and compassion as female victims, then please do. I welcome it.
Because from my viewpoint, I am currently being told by feminists that all sexual violence is important to address. And that’s true. But when I think back on my own life experiences, the only time I can remember a sympathetic portrayal of a man raped by women is in a single Law & Order SVU episode. Other than that, if I’ve seen media where women sexually abuse men, it has been played as comedy. And every anti-rape ad I can remember has shown a world starkly populated by female victims and male monsters. Even if that’s what happens a majority of the time, surely that’s no excuse to *never* acknowledge male victims. Surely they deserve a minority of the attention instead of none. Like I said, it seems like a lot of people still don’t know that it’s even possible for a woman to rape a man. Feminism is in the best possible position to combat that ignorance. It has huge numerical backing, many organizations, government support, and more funding than the MRA could ever dream of. So, am I not seeing results because I’m looking in the wrong places, or are they simply not there?
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>And if you’d read it you’d see that it says 1 in 6~ women will be raped at some point in there lifetime.
I’m aware, but I was describing what the general public believes. The CDC study says 1 in 6, but I’ve seen 1 in 4 in a lot more places. Sorry if I wasn’t clear about that.
>No, genius, he was saying that he’s seen what went into the survey here, and that was a hell of a lot less data, and that, given the MRM track record on doing things, nobody would realize they haven’t the skills to handle that sort of data.
How can you make that assumption? How do you know there’s no MRA statisticians? Or that we couldn’t hire someone or some organization to sort the data?
—
>Bullshit. You will respond to that with, “I see you can’t refute me”. It’s one of the reasons dishonest actors tend to refuse to read comments, and why they come to threads which are older, they hope to get the last word and, “claim victory”.
If you don’t comment at all, I have nothing to reply to. True or false?
And please don’t make assumptions about my motives. It’s frighteningly easy for it to go from “I think these are your motives” to “it’s a fact that your motives are…” I’ve already said explicitly what my motives here are. If you want to say otherwise, then just call me a liar directly.
>So, it’s nice to know you are upfront about being a weasel, and that you aren’t here in good faith.
Wow. I had actually written that last paragraph before seeing this one, and I couldn’t have asked for better proof. You make assumptions about me, then treat those assumptions as if they’re fact. And as if I’ve already agreed to them! Don’t you dare lecture me about good faith when you use tactics like this.
>More evidence of your bad faith. One person says, “keep the old method”, while you admit to four tell you to pull your thumb out and read the comments. Her you listen to (because it makes your life easier, or you otherwise want to, and because you can use her as a stick to beat others with), those who were being substantive, you ignored.
You say I ignored her, when I addressed AT LENGTH the substantive points she made. I’ve done my best to respond to people’s substantive arguments here. It’s not good strategy to lie when the proof is still visible.
Also, how is the formatting of my replies relevant to the CDC or rape victims or anything that we’re actually talking about? I reply like this because it’s more compact than having big blocks of floating white text; there, that’s my motivation.
>You are ignorant of things you refuse to read, such as the comments here (and not just in this thread), where you would see feminists talking about male rape
People talking in blog comments is different than mainstream media sources treating male rape as either comedy or nonexistant, and feminist organizations not challenging that even though they have the resources to.
>The people shouting at that rally were anti-facsists, not feminists.
Then why did they chant “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re feminists, we’re fabulous”? They explicitly self-identified as feminists.
>Your problem is we aren’t doing the one thing you really want… kissing your ass and telling you how important you are, just because you are a man.
…Um. I categorically deny that I want any of that.
>When a group goes around saying, “don’t be that girl” and implying that women who make accusations of rape are “date rape is just buyer’s remorse they are making it harder to focus on men who are raped; because they are encouraging men to rape, which means efforts to look at victims have to take a back seat to focusing on preventing men from perpetrating rapes.
If you really believe that the amount of people who have those opinions has such a massive effect on our culture as a whole, that they should be blamed first instead of centuries-old gender roles and decades-long, well-funded feminist campaigns focusing almost-solely on female victims, then there’s nothing I can reply to that.
>And the MRM is all over making men think rape is just, “drunk sex”.
That is a lie.
>Feminism (contra the MRM) is working to minimise rape, across the board.
What concrete actions has feminism done to minimize male victims of female sexual violence?
>“Don’t be that guy” was aimed at men; in a specific sort of way, but it was also about teaching people to spot the signs of a rapist.
Then why were none of the rapists in the posters women? You go on to say that men will be able to spot these behaviors in women too. Don’t you think it would be easier for them if the posters showed women exhibiting those behaviors? Or maybe if the title of the campaign hadn’t heavily implied that rape is a male behavior? I think you’re defending the indefensible.
>But you, you are high on the horse of your moral indignation, and to busy getting off on “taking the fight to the feminists” to actually look at what they are saying
I’m sorry, but what you say to me is not as persuasive to me as a lifetime of observation showing me that feminism focuses almost-solely on female victims. Have you ever heard the phrase “Actions speak louder than words?”
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So…you admit that you have no idea what this conversation has been about and that your contribution will most likely be irrelevant. But you feel the need to say it anyway.
Yes, that’s accurate. Sometimes I comment just for my own sake. I would imagine many people do. I don’t expect or demand anything from anyone else here.
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>Is that strange to you, Alex? O_o
Yes, that is strange to me. Honest answer.
—
>How the hell is “fuck off” on the same level as a slur?
I used a slur to demonstrate how it’s used to hurt people. My use was trying to show the word’s ugliness and my disapproval of it. I directed it at no one. Whereas “fuck off” was directed at me personally. In my opinion, an insult is always worse than a neutrally-used bad word, because of the intent to hurt someone.
—
Also, I find it kinda interesting that I sound British to two of you. I’m not trying to. I’m actually from Michigan.
“How can you make that assumption? How do you know there’s no MRA statisticians? Or that we couldn’t hire someone or some organization to sort the data?”
I’ve seen their ability to recruit a logo designer, and that is far easier than working with the size data sets the CDC produces. You’re talking a six figure salary statistician working for little to no pay. Good fucking luck with that.
Still is.
Reynard: How can I barge in on an open public forum? And where have I made assumptions about commenters here?
Asked and answered.
The counter-protesters called the MRM those things without having heard a word of what was actually being said.
Or, yanno, they might have read what they had said in the past.
Take an example, I don’t need to go to a Sarah Palin, or a David Duke rally to know what they are.
As to the rest, and what we think feminism ought to do (i.e. what we would do at such a rally)
Asked and answered.
If you can prove me wrong by showing me instances of mainstream feminist articles or PSAs or awareness campaigns that treat male victims as equally deserving of help and compassion as female victims, then please do. I welcome it.
Asked and answered.
How can you make that assumption? How do you know there’s no MRA statisticians? Or that we couldn’t hire someone or some organization to sort the data?
Have you seen what AVfM did to get a logo?
Do you know how much work, time, and money, it takes to crunch the data in a study the size of the CDCs? I have a pretty good idea. I’ve designed a study, (a small one) of about 12 questions.
I got about 60 respondents. It took me the best part of a week to draw out my conclusions; and I wasn’t required to be rigorous.
If you don’t comment at all, I have nothing to reply to. True or false?
False.
If you want to say otherwise, then just call me a liar directly.
Oh, I’m sorry. Fuck. I thought my opinion of you was plain. I see I overestimated your wit.
I think you are a liar. That you aren’t engaging in honest argument, and that given half a chance you will try to twist the words of those who disagree with you. Let me see what I said before.
Ah…, yes, here it is, I called you a liar in the first comment I made to you… so, asked and answered.
That you think I can’t read motivation from several thousand words of reply… well as I said, I overestimated you. I’ll try not to do that in future.
I’m sorry, but what you say to me is not as persuasive to me as a lifetime of observation showing me that feminism focuses almost-solely on female victims. Have you ever heard the phrase “Actions speak louder than words?”
Yes, I’m looking at your actions here. They are revealing.
Have you ever heard the words, “confirmation bias”?
That is a lie.
It’s not (and before you demand evidence to support my denial, it’s been asked and answered)
…Um. I categorically deny that I want any of that.
Of course you do.
What concrete actions has feminism done to minimize male victims of female sexual violence?
Asked and answered
Then why were none of the rapists in the posters women?
Asked and answered
I don’t expect or demand anything from anyone else here.
Liar.
@Alex
You haven’t read the thread and yet you seem determined to debate the CDC report, the Toronto rally, the Edmonton DBTG poster campaign, feminism and rape in general, all at once. Some focus might help.
I was imagining the swearing scene in The King’s Speech.
Oh gods yes, that scene! 😀
FORNICATE!
Aww, poor widdle Awex. Guys! I’m bullying poor widdle Awex with my fucking f-bombs.
Yeah, as for the rest of that wall o’ text? Asked and answered.
Alex, dude. Brevity is the soul of wit. If you can’t be bothered to read the thread then at least be succint in your attempts to restate topics that have already been addressed.
This is me avoiding PHP, because I have NO IDEA wtf is up and am going to have to patch together one of the core themes and mine until it breaks to figure it out.
Good news is that I can do it locally and not make a mess all over the Borg.
Things way more interesting than this guy — doesn’t look like nearly all 20 fry have survived, but I’ve got a couple ones nearly big enough to graduate to big kid food!
What do baby fish eat?
RE: Alex Reynard
I think it’s a great idea having an MRA rally to showcase myths about male rape.
LOLZ. You seem to think that the MRM actually CARES about male rape survivors. As one of them, I have seen no such indication — and I have challenged MRAs previously to show it.
It didn’t matter that some of the MRA speakers were women, or homosexual.
Dude. Gay people can be homophobic. Women can be sexist. The chant had plenty of problems — which we discussed in another thread — but your complaint is still wrong.
Yeaaaah, it’s amazing how many people don’t realize this. But then, I’ve spent waaaay too much time up to my eyeballs in the g0ys and Cockrub Warriors of Mars.
“What do baby fish eat?”
In the wild, itty bitty algae and trolls…no wait, I mean planaria and similar tiny organisms. In a tank, fry food. It’s powder. First few days after they hatch, cories anyways, still have yolk sacs they feed off of, after that I’m fond of hikari first bites.
Alex, what concrete actions has the MRM done to minimize female victims of male sexual violence?