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antifeminism mansplaining men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men playing the victim rape rape culture

James Taranto of the WSJ: Drunk women who are raped may be as guilty as their rapists

James Taranto, saying something annoying
James Taranto, saying something terrible

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto is probably the closest thing to an authentic Men’s Rights Activist there is operating in the mainstream media today, by which I mean he regularly puts forth “arguments” on gender issues that are breathtaking in their backwardness.

His latest, er, contribution to the gender debate? A column in which he suggested that drunk women who are raped on college campuses by drunk men are as guilty as their rapists. No, really. Here’s his argument, such as it is:

If two drunk drivers are in a collision, one doesn’t determine fault on the basis of demographic details such as each driver’s sex. But when two drunken college students “collide,” the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault. His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating factor for him.

Huh. I’m pretty sure we determine the victim of a rape not on demographics but based on WHICH PERSON RAPED THE OTHER PERSON. Much in the way we would charge a drunken person who shot another drunken person with shooting that person, rather than simply throwing up our hands and saying, well, they were both drunk, so no harm no foul, right?

For a longer take on the issue, check out this piece over on Media Matters.

Media Matters has also assembled a nice, and mercifully rather brief, media montage of some of Taranto’s other pronouncements on gender issues. See if you can make it to the end without pulling out all of your hair.

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wordsp1nner
wordsp1nner
10 years ago

Moar kitteh vids. Cuddle time:

and nap time:

takshak
takshak
10 years ago

@Shiraz “Women didn’t invent marriage.”

well, as fractally wrong as Taranto is, I’m pretty sure marriage wasn’t invented by either gender on their ownsome. Humans are highly monogamous *for a primate*, from the evidence.

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

@David,

I know that the WSJ has decent reporting, but I really think reading them reinforces the editorial content, even if you skip that part. That’s why I strongly believe everyone should stick to the Economist or whatever else is out there. Why validate Rupert Murdoch’s disgusting Randian worldview?

cloudiah
10 years ago

Wow. “Let’s figure out a way we can excuse all men of committing rape.” Okay, say MRAs.

Shiraz
Shiraz
10 years ago

Uh, takshak, may I introduce you to the Married Woman’s Property Act of 1870? before that, anything a woman owned became the property of her husband. Marriage was made beneficial to men for a lot of material reasons.

You posted this:

“Humans are highly monogamous *for a primate*, from the evidence.”

What are you referring to? And I never said people do not enjoy monogamy. I was responding to Taranto’s assertion that marriage was arranged to entrap men.

Bina
Bina
10 years ago

Next up: James Taranto mansplains his comments away, Warren Farrell-style: “I’m just trying to be the man of their romantic fantasies!” Millions of women back away from their screens, retching…

katz
10 years ago

Nice choice of screen cap.

takshak
takshak
10 years ago

@Shiraz: Like I said, Taranto is fractally wrong (just as wrong no matter what scale you look at it). I was looking at the entire history of the thing, which doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been used in lots of vile ways. Marriage is a product of that “natural” monogamy, IMHO, which is why I hazard that its invention was much more mutual, no matter what happened later.

& I’m a bit of a history wonk…. 19th c to me is almost current events 😉

takshak
takshak
10 years ago

Hmmm.. I think what the issue here is the word “invented”. I don’t think of “legally defined” (or re-defined), I tend to think more of the cultural continuum that leads to that

kittehserf
10 years ago

It doesn’t really matter who invented marriage: what matters is that it has equalled men owning women to a greater or lesser degree in so many cultures and across so much time. I’m struggling to think of any reversal of that situation, whatever filth like Taranto claim.

Shiraz
Shiraz
10 years ago

Takshak:

” Marriage is a product of that “natural” monogamy, IMHO, which is why I hazard that its invention was much more mutual, no matter what happened later.”

Tell that to Taranto, not me.

takshak
takshak
10 years ago

I know I can’t, kittehserf, it’s assfax.

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
10 years ago

Every time I hear about this James Taranto dude it’s because he’s been an unacceptable jerk beyond the paper. Like this: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/04/22/wsj-columnist-taranto-uses-gabby-giffords-injur/193712

I don’t think any self-respecting publication should have someone like this on their payroll at all. Ick infinity.

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
10 years ago

Er, beyond the pale. Don’t know why I substituted paper for pale in the phrase except my tired brain does odd things sometimes.

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
10 years ago

“You must have wondered at some point ‘Why Taranto isn’t married.”

Yeah, real stumper, that one.

kittehserf
10 years ago

I know I can’t, kittehserf, it’s assfax.

Ayup!

mildlymagnificent
10 years ago

Turns out David’s not the only who’s inspired to mockery by this clown. (And some of the comments aren’t too bad even though more concentrate on the dodgy climate “science”.)

http://climatecrocks.com/2014/02/11/meet-the-skeptics-james-taranto-of-the-wsj-in-a-charm-offensive/comment-page-1/#comments

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

What’s dodgy about the climate science? I’m not familiar with that particular blog, but I didn’t see anything bad there.

mildlymagnificent
10 years ago

Tarantula’s grasp of climate science is on a par with his grasp of human sexuality.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

(Breathes sigh of relief)

I was sitting there going “please don’t let someone I like turn out to be one of those people who doesn’t believe in climate change”.

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

But when two drunken college students “collide,” the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault.

Nice hetero-normalising there.

And, of course, many times when I’ve been drunk and just physically bumped into a penis owner, their pene has accidentally slipped into my vag. It can happen so easyily, as a vagina owner you have to be so careful, just walking down crowded streets sober to make sure you don’t collide with a penis owner. ‘cos these little accidents happen all the time. /Taranto bizarro world

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

And from Taranto’s column:

Winerip recounts one successful intervention that was more forthright:

Matt Martel [was on] a taxi ride home with a friend and a very drunk woman they’d met at a UMass party. “The two of them were touching, cuddling, it was obvious she was down for whatever,” says Mr. Martel, a junior. “She’d lost her inhibitions to the point that it really seemed like a good idea for her to go home with this guy she hardly knew.”
Mr. Martel got between them to take her back to her dorm. “I said, ‘Dude, come on, she’s hammered,’ ” he recalls. His friend was angry. “It was outright awkward,” Mr. Martel says. The next day the girl thanked him, but Mr. Martel didn’t take a lot of pleasure from it. “I could tell she didn’t remember what she was thanking me for,” he says, “but someone told her she should, so she did.”
The question arises here: Whom exactly did Martel save from danger? The answer is quite possibly both the young woman and his friend. Had she awakened the next day feeling regretful and violated, she could have brought him up on charges and severely disrupted his life. Both of them were taking foolish risks, and it seems likely that he as well as she had impaired judgment owing to excessive drinking.

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

Oops, posted too quickly. In this charming little tail of Matt intervening to prevent a rape, note that

His friend was angry.

and yet, according to Taranto

it seems likely that he as well as she had impaired judgment owing to excessive drinking

This story doesn’t reveal what you think it does, Mr Taranto. Through your bias prism, you see a male student being protected from accidentally incurring a false rape charge. We see a male student who knew exactly what he was doing being furious at being prevented from raping a vulnerable woman.

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating factor for him.

Not in any court case or media report I’ve ever seen, Taranto. Usually, in the real world:

His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating a mitigating factor for him.

FTFY

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

And it figures that Murdoch owns the WSJ. I despise that man with the deepest despision. *spits*