On Wednesday, May 18, the Washington College of Law Federalist Society hosted libertarian columnist Cathy Young to present a talk which she titled "Presumed Guilty? Rape, Feminism, and False Accusations."
Ms. Young is not a lawyer. She is a long-time columnist for The Boston Globe and Reason Magazine , libertarian publication extrodinare. Ms. Young has written extensively on both feminism and false rape accusations: here , here , here , here , HERE , here , etc. Her general premise seems to be that First Wave Feminism was a boon to women, but now that we can all get jobs and stuff, shouldn't we look out for the menz? I realize I am oversimplifying her argument, but I will get to the substance of her speech in a moment.
The Women's Law Association got wind of the event and staged an amelioration, during which we tabled the entire day of the presentation, distributed teal ribbons in support of survivors of sexual violence, passed out information regarding the myths of false rape claims, and urged any and everyone to attend the event well-informed and ready to question her position.
The tabling was an incredible success - I would estimate the turn-out to be approximately 35 students supporting the Women's Law Association and 10 students supporting the Federalist Society. The Federalists had kindly provided free Thai food, which we promptly ate ALL of. The students of the WLA dominated the room, lining the front row, standing in the back when the seats filled up. Pencils out, we were armed with notepads and the NDAA's newly released report regarding the reality of false rape charges. (Hint: the numbers are between 2% and 7%, just like the FBI, feminists, and the entire rational world has been claiming for years).
Ms. Young's speech was disappointing at best. Although she is not a lawyer, I was prepared for a libertarian, conservative onslaught of misinformation and misogyny. Instead, she provided us with a brief and helpful history of rape law and feminism and touched on Eugene Kanin's uncorroborated report from the 1990s that cited 41% of all rape charges as false. (Hint: He relied solely on uncorroborated police reports from a single small town).
Then she swung into that tried-and-true tactic: SCARY STORIES! Duke Lacrosse! That guy from Oregon! These kids from this random university! Don't these stories scare you!?
And it was then I realized that she had no chance. She had no chance against the staggering mountain of statistical data and legal thought that shows that there is NO DATA that indicates that false rape charges are brought at a higher rate than any other claims:
1) Rape survivors have no incentive to lie.
2) Police interrogation, hospital procedures, and trials are not experiences that people relish having to go through.
3) Cases where the defendant was acquitted or the survivor misidentified the defendant are NOT FALSE CLAIMS. If they were, the rate of false claims of every crime would sky rocket.
4) All evidence indicates that the vast majority of rape and sexual violence goes UN- and UNDER-REPORTED, not exaggerated.
The list goes on.
When Ms. Young finished speaking, she took a few questions from the audience. The WLA stepped up to the challenge with several pointed rational questions that poked huge holes in Ms. Young's logic.
1) Why do the Duke Lacross players deserve an apology from the same media that demonized R. Kelly's victims and never apologized?
2) Do you seriously think that the so-called "radical feminist" viewpoints that you cite are influencing judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys to not follow the bed-rock of American law - the presumption of innocence?
3) What is your point?
Because readers, she had no point. And that was the sweetest victory of all. That 35 people could sit in a room, armed well with research and feminist theory and know that this woman had no point at all.
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I'm actually surprised that false rape reports are as high as 2-7%, or that people would dismiss that as a low number. I mean, yeah, I guess its pretty low if you were expecting 50% or 90%, but somehow I thought it would be lower. Was she originally saying it would be higher?
I've heard claims online from anti-feminists that women use the threat of rape accusations against men to make them do what the woman wants. This argument has false rape reports being exceptionally high.
Also, 2-7% is right in line with all other crimes. It's about equal with how often things like robbery are reported falsely, so it's a number one would expect.
Thanks for telling me that Cathy Young has a history of sexism. I read a sexist article by her recently at RealClearPolitics in which she argues there is no need to have a White House Council on Women and Girls stating that it's women's fault that we earn less than me:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/a_lack_of_reality_about_women.html
I responded in the comments section with the following evidence to disprove that theory:
There is an excellent article that showed that when men become women their salary decreases by 30%
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2008/10/if_women_were_more_like_men.html
The study strongly indicates that sexism dramatically reduces women's paychecks. Here are other studies:
ARTS
A woman cinematographer was thought to be a man because she had a masculine first name, but when hiring managers met her and found out she was a woman they refused to work with her:
Joey Forsyte found that her first name got her interviews—only interviews. ‘I went for one interview, and the producer called me after it was over. He said, ‘I hate to tell you that until you walked in the door, this director was going to hire you.’ There have probably been a half-dozen times where somebody has called me to tell me that, which is a courageous thing to do because it’s not legal'
“The Underrepresentation of Women as Cinematographers: A Sociological Exploration” by Elizabeth Shimkus, 2006
http://libres.uncg.edu/edocs/etd/1256/umi-uncg-1256.pdf
SPORTS
The movie Dare to Dream shows that the U.S. soccer league wouldn’t let women have a national team and that men and women had to fight to allow women to get jobs like men at the league. When they finally got a team, they were given much less money than the men and traveled like paupers. When the women’s team sold 210,000 tickets a male reporter accused them of lying and were given much less TV time than men’s soccer. The team eventually sold out Giants stadium; not even the men’s Giants team the stadium was named after had ever sold out the stadium! So despite that they deserved respect and media attention the sports institutions and the media deliberately blocked girls and women from employment and progressing in their career.
Also women skiers are suing the Vancoover Organizing Committee for a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because VANOC is blocking women from competing in the 2010 Olympics.
“More skiers leap into 2010 women's ski-jumping lawsuit”, Damian Inwood, Canwest News Service, 3/6/09
http://www.timescolonist.com/More+skiers+leap+into+2010+women+jumping+lawsuit/1361912/story.html
POLICE
I read a study that found that the main reason women leave the police force is because they have been harassed by men.
Retired Police Chief Norm Stamper witnessed officers sexism against women and the devastating effect it had. He wrote of one woman who he saw in tears because she was so humiliated by the abuse. Stamper said male police officers are afraid of women because they fear women will perform better than them on admittance tests (“Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing” by Norm Stamper). On the job performance studies found that women police officers perform overall about the same as men and better than men in certain functions ("Women Police in a Changing Society" By Mangai Natarajan)
BLUE COLLAR EMPLOYMENT
Lois Jenson documented sex harassment at a U.S. coal plant, the men stated they didn’t want women to be hired and harassed them non-stop with pornography, sexual assault and brutality in order to make the women quit to leave more jobs for men.
“Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law” by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler
John T. Molloy, author of the “Dress for Success” brand of books, conducted a study that found that blue-collar men reacted negatively to photos of women in jeans but not to photos of women in business suits, which indicates they were hostile to women who compete with them for the same jobs
POLITICS
Many studies have found sexism in politics, especially by the media. For example, "The Feminist Reawakening: Hillary Clinton and the fourth wave" by Amanda Fortini Published Apr 13, 2008.
http://nymag.com/news/features/46011/
RELIGION
Women are been blocked from being ordained as priests and rabbis by male-dominated religious organizations.
ACADEMIA
The New York Times reported about a study where academics were asked to judge the research of people with identical résumés except the names of the applicant which was Ken, Karen or K. The academics always rated Ken as the best. This indicates that sexist people in academia unfairly hire more men than women, not based upon experience differences but because they believe men are superior to women.
Kathleen S. Matthews, the dean of natural sciences at Rice said, “The reality is there are barriers that women face. There are circles and communities of engagement where women are by and large not included.”
“Women in Science: The Battle Moves to the Trenches” by Cornelia Dean, 12/19/06
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/science/19women.html
And that doesn’t even include the sexist way girls are brought up. They are brought up to think they’re the inferior sex. They are encouraged to be less competitive and ambitious than boys. So even when women do choose lower paying jobs it’s often because sexist people convinced then that they don’t deserve more. And after we’ve been socialized to act inferior we’re hit again when we enter the workplace by blatant sexism. And apparently the worst sexism is by men who don’t want to work with women, don’t want to compete with women and will harass, humiliate, brutalize and refuse to hire us in order to keep us in an inferior social status. Cathy Young needs to get real and see that sexism, and especially men in the workforce, is the main reason women earn less. One more sad example of media sexism.