Here is one statistic that has always bothered me:
"One in four college women have survived a rape or attempted rape."
This just seems so intuitively wrong. How could the rate of victimization be so high? If this statistic is true, the situation is even more dire than it may appear.
If we assume that roughly 75 percent of female undergraduates have sex while they're in college (the actual number may be even lower), this would mean that 1 out of every 3 sexually active college women has survived a rape or attempted rape.
Why, then, is the reported rate of victimization so low? How do we account for this enormous disparity? (See these crime statistics from Rutgers University for a representative example.)
I can think of only two explanations. Either the rate of under-reporting is astoundingly high, or the "one in four" statistic is dramatically overstated. Perhaps some combination of the two.
Unsurprisingly, many advocacy groups have uncritically adopted the "one in four" statistic, insisting that it proves the rate of under-reporting is well above 90 percent. For years, these groups have argued that "one in four" points to a "rape epidemic" on college campuses, requiring enormous and ever-more-expensive resources.
But from a policy perspective, isn't important to know whether the scope of the problem is actually as large as these organizations claim? Knowing the scope of the problem means knowing how to properly allocate resources.
The more I read, the more I suspect the "one in four" statistic may be bogus . . .
Update: I should add that I do believe that many rapes go unreported. The issue, in my mind, is the scale of the under-reporting and the methodology employed to measure that scale.
I highly doubt that the scope of under-reporting is as large as many advocacy groups claim, and I think that many of the studies that are used to investigate this question suffer from serious design flaws.
If nothing else, we should all acknowledge that statistics on rape are some of the most complex statistics out there.
Update II: I think this is the key point:
[T]he most serious indication that something was basically awry in the Ms./Koss study was that the majority of women she classified as having been raped did not believe they had been raped. Of those Koss counts as having been raped, only 27 percent thought they had been; 73 percent did not say that what happened to them was rape. In effect, Koss and her followers present us with a picture of confused young women overwhelmed by threatening males who force their attentions on them during the course of a date but are unable or unwilling to classify their experience as rape. Does that picture fit the average female undergraduate? For that matter, does it plausibly apply to the larger community?
As the journalist Cathy Young observes, "Women have sex after initial reluctance for a number of reasons . . . fear of being beaten up by their dates is rarely reported as one of them."[22] Katie Roiphe, a graduate student in English at Princeton and author of The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus, argues along similar lines when she claims that Koss had no right to reject the judgment of the college women who didn't think they were raped. But Katha Pollitt of The Nation defends Koss, pointing out that in many cases people are wronged without knowing it. Thus we do not say that "victims of other injustices--fraud, malpractice, job discrimination--have suffered no wrong as long as they are unaware of the law."[23]
Pollitt's analogy is faulty, however. If Jane has ugly financial dealings with Tom and an expert explains to Jane that Tom has defrauded her, then Jane usually thanks the expert for having enlightened her about the legal facts. To make her case, Pollitt would have to show that the rape victims who were unaware that they were raped would accept Koss's judgment that they really were. But that has not been shown; Koss did not enlighten the women she counts as rape victims, and they did not say "now that you explain it, we can see we were." Koss and Pollitt make a technical (and
in fact dubious) legal point: women are ignorant about what counts as rape. Roiphe makes a straightforward human point: the women were there, and they know best how to judge what happened to them. Since when do feminists consider "law" to override women's experience?
7 comments:
Rapes and attempted rapes ARE drastically under reported. This stems from a lot of reasons: the women sometimes blame themselves, saying they should have done more to prevent it, they most likely know their attacker (date rapes are more common than being raped by a stranger) and don't want to confront them again, they want to avoid what is usually a humiliating trial where the defense attorney will point out every detail of her sex life and ask questions about how much (if any) alcohol she was drinking, how short her skirt was, or how low cut her top was. Not to even mention the likelihood that if she reports the rape, goes through the intrusive exam for the rape kit, and goes to trial- her attacker might not even get convicted. Then she has put herself in the public eye with no result.
Rapes are under reported because of a messed up criminal justice system, a culture of "she must have asked for it" thinking, and the fact that most women want to just forget it ever happened and/or they blame themselves for it. In fact, some women might not even know what happened to them could be considered rape.
I'm usually skeptical of statistics myself, but in this case I could definitely believe this to be true.
I believe that rapes are under-reported. But I don't believe they're this under-reported. And I think the methodology used in many of these studies is seriously flawed.
I also don't believe that the criminal justice system is bias against the accused in cases of rape. Jury members may be bias -- as they often are -- but the laws are certainly written in favor of the accuser.
Rape shield laws in most states prevent defense lawyers from examining the accuser's sexual history. On the other hand, federal rules of evidence allow prosecuters to examine the sexual history of the accused.
Many prominent defense attornies like Alan Dershowitz have savagely criticized these laws, arguing that they are clearly unconstitutional. The law is supposed to be bias in favor of the accused.
Having said that, I understand your point. I realize that many women who have been victimized do not want to prolong the experience. I do believe that rapes are under-reported. But there is not good way to balance the rights of the accuser against the rights of the accused.
*attorneys
Since when do feminists consider "law" to override women's experience?
I think there is an interesting tension in a lot of feminist communities, owing to the fact that a lot of feminists are heterosexuals, and that almost all women who are feminists have men in their lives they love, respect, and are deeply committed to - and that many feminists recognize that women in general are in the same boat.
And so a weird balancing act in daily life takes place. Rape is a fairly simple definition that morphs into something incredibly complex in the 'real world'.
There are a whole bunch of those (stupid, IMO) FML things - which may be true or false, because of the nature of the site - that list boyfriends having sex with their girlfriends while the girl is asleep and without her knowledge or prior consent. On paper, that is rape. In her head? When it's someone she loves? Maybe she wouldn't qualify it as such. Maybe she sees it as a violation of her trust, but she doesn't want to put the word 'rape' out there - because she loves the guy.
And that's the tension in feminism - privileging women's voices is key, but recognizing how power dynamics and how male-female interactions, ones we almost always have, make some judgements... tainted. No one wants their boyfriend/father/friend/etc. to be a rapist. A lot of people shy away from that, because we make rapists out to be monsters when they're really just people - people we know, and maybe some that we love.
It also depends on what we count as the consent. "No means 'No'" has been around, but a lot of the time it feels like "No means No" is actually a jumping off point toward, "Can I get her to say, 'eh'?" Which is why I like the reimagining of it that "Yes Means Yes", both as a phrase and a book gives. Affirmative consent as being the high water point, instead of the nebulous absence of "no". Because that's what trips up a lot of women: "I didn't say no loudly enough, I didn't say no enough, I didn't say no at all. I was scared, but maybe he didn't know I didn't want it, even though I was laying there like a fish."
Also, I agree with Emily.
I think Latoya Peterson's Not Raped is a good explanation piece, too. At least partially.
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/21/original-essay-the-not-rape-epidemic/
I certainly think it's possible for a person to be raped without that person acknowledging the crime. But in this study we're talking about three-quarters of the alleged 'victims' denying that the 'rape' occurred. That, at least, means that we need to investigate further.
There are many other problems with the 'one in four' statistic. In order for a study to be reliable, the results must be reproducible using the similar methodology. But the results of this survey are rarely consistent. That points to flawed methodology.
Maybe we can't accurately measure the scope of rape victimization, but that just means that we don't know. It doesn't mean that the 'one in four' figure should stand.
Latoya Peterson's account is heart-wrenching, but I don't know what to do with anecdotal evidence like this. I've read a lot of heart-wrenching accounts of men who were falsely accused of rape, too.
The issue of consent is very thorny, but many college students (males and females) seem to believe that certain non-verbal cues communicate consent more clearly than verbal cues.
Latoya Peterson's account is heart-wrenching, but I don't know what to do with anecdotal evidence like this. I've read a lot of heart-wrenching accounts of men who were falsely accused of rape, too.
Here's the thing:
A lot of women I know have had some interaction with the not rape phenomenon. A lot of it in my group of home friends is more of the kind Peterson herself experienced. I've had more than one guy say pretty much the same thing in the vein of "I can do anything I want to you".
I have never known a guy who has been falsely accused of rape. I've only ever known one guy who was accused of rape. It was statutory, and he was convicted.
The rate of rape convictions is also abysmally low, so the amount of women who experience things like the not rape, or even rape itself, is rather high. Meanwhile, statistically, false accusations of rape are not higher than any other crime. They're not lower, but they're not higher either.
So while men are falsely accused and sometimes convicted of rape, and while that is very wrong and nothing I would brush under the rug, I do think that it is a much smaller percentage than the amount of women "not raped". Meanwhile, the amount of women actually raped but who's rapes never make it to trial, the amount of women who are actually raped but who's rapists are never convicted, is pretty high.
Both of those issues need to be addressed.
The second thing is that I wasn't trying to offer some statistical evidence, but an example of a phenomenon that makes "rape" something that doesn't happen to me unless it fits an almost Hollywoodesque, masked man in the shadows criteria, this "not rape" thing did.
The issue of consent is very thorny, but many college students (males and females) seem to believe that certain non-verbal cues communicate consent more clearly than verbal cues.
Which is a problem. Leaving aside the fact that I have - because of my natural exuberance - been kissed at parties where I most certainly did not want to be kissing, the whole "Your lips say no but your body says yes" thing is a very large problem. Because it doesn't really matter if your body is jazzed up for some action. If you are saying no, there is typically a reason.
I certainly think it's possible for a person to be raped without that person acknowledging the crime. But in this study we're talking about three-quarters of the alleged 'victims' denying that the 'rape' occurred.
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't investigate the study further. We should, if for no other reason than if 3/4s of women really are denying what happened to them is rape, then obviously attempts to explain what rape is are woefully poor. And if some of those 3/4s really weren't raped, then that should definitely be demonstrated as well.
What I was pointing out was that although the last line of your second edit article is a pithy response meant as an 'a-ha' style zinger, it is simplifying a conundrum feminist communities have been wrestling with. One of those being the tension I highlighted.
You said, "The rate of rape convictions is also abysmally low, so the amount of women who experience things like the not rape, or even rape itself, is rather high. Meanwhile, statistically, false accusations of rape are not higher than any other crime. They're not lower, but they're not higher either."
The rate of false reporting is highly disputed. There are certainly many who question the two percent figure. The fact that the rate of convictions is low does not prove that the actual number of rapes is high.
You said, "What I was pointing out was that although the last line of your second edit article is a pithy response meant as an 'a-ha' style zinger, it is simplifying a conundrum feminist communities have been wrestling with. One of those being the tension I highlighted."
I agree with you. But I don't think Sommers was going for a pithy zinger. She was pointing out the fundamental contradiction that makes makes this study design so questionable. It's something that feminists have to grapple with -- they can't just choose to ignore women's experiences when doesn't suit their purpose.
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