Political Correctness and The Campus Rape Myth

Heather MacDonald of City Journal wrote a compelling piece that shoots a hole in the accepted wisdom that one quarter (25%) of all college girls will be raped or be the targets of attempted rape by the end of their college years. She writes:

If the one-in-four statistic is correct—it is sometimes modified to “one-in-five to one-in-four”—campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No crime, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20 or 25 percent, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in America, was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants—a rate of 2.4 percent. The one-in-four statistic would mean that every year, millions of young women graduate who have suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience. Such a crime wave would require nothing less than a state of emergency—Take Back the Night rallies and 24-hour hotlines would hardly be adequate to counter this tsunami of sexual violence. Admissions policies letting in tens of thousands of vicious criminals would require a complete revision, perhaps banning boys entirely. The nation’s nearly 10 million female undergrads would need to take the most stringent safety precautions. Certainly, they would have to alter their sexual behavior radically to avoid falling prey to the rape epidemic.

The reality, she explains, is that this statistic is a myth promulgated by a campus rape industry that offers these bogus statistics and a serious dose of feminist victimology to cowed administrators in order to continue to garner funding for their projects. The studies suffer from seriously flawed methodology, and an inherent political bias against men.

I have heard this statistic going back to when I was in college and I remember thinking then that it was impossible. It would mean, likely, that one in every four men (assuming it wasn’t just a few bad apples) that I knew was a rapist. Maybe me. Maybe my best friend. Maybe the guy down the hall, or his best friend. Then, as now, I attributed the statistic, as MacDonald does, to the workings of political correctness gone insanely awry.

Political correctness increasingly dominates college campuses and curriculums in such a way that it stifles open and truthful discourse. Each substratum of cultural definition fragments the campus into ever-smaller factions that cannot be offended. Furthermore, the ambiguity of a lot of these new fields of study (porn studies, anyone?) allows for weak standards of scholarship to gain acceptance. It is a frightening state of affairs, and it seems to be getting worse.

Funnily enough, MacDonald’s article also covers the sex-positive movement on campuses and contrasts the two sharply to expose the hypocrisy and hollowness of the modern university education.

With such nonsense filling the heads of our brightest youth, is it any wonder that America is on the decline?

Obama’s Father’s Day Message

Barack Obama delivered an important Father’s Day message at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on Sunday. His call? Fathers need to step up and take responsibility for their children.

From his remarks:

“But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

This is a vitally important message for Americans to hear. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) website:

24 million children (34 percent) live absent their biological father.

Nearly 20 million children (27 percent) live in single-parent homes.

Children who live absent their biological fathers are, on average, at least two to three times more likely to be poor, to use drugs, to experience educational, health, emotional and behavioral problems, to be victims of child abuse, and to engage in criminal behavior than their peers who live with their married, biological (or adoptive) parents.

Children with involved, loving fathers are significantly more likely to do well in school, have healthy self-esteem, exhibit empathy and pro-social behavior, and avoid high-risk behaviors such as drug use, truancy, and criminal activity compared to children who have uninvolved fathers.

In particular, this is a crisis among blacks. According to a 2003 House Ways and Mean Committee report, a stunning 68% of black children were born to unwed mothers. 7 in 10! Just read the facts above and calculate the damage this is doing to the black community.

There are a lot of people who will find some reason to be offended by Obama’s speech. He’s attacking the victims, they’ll say, or, rather more likely, they’ll dispute the statistics (or the slant) in an effort to advance a political agenda. The bottom line is that this is an important message for all Americans. A lot of intelligent people might loathe parts of the “family values” lobby, but this is one area where that crowd is right. Fathers are important. Intact families are important.

And this was an important message; one that he should continue to espouse to all Americans until men begin to accept responsibility for fatherhood. I urge you to read his speech and pass it on. From Obama:

“We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.”

Why Men Won’t Commit II

It has become apparent that a number of women have read my earlier post, Why Men Won’t Commit, without fully understanding why their particular man won’t commit. Given that it is impossible to respond to each specific situation on this blog, I must write in generalities. I am providing what I believe is an honest assessment of male behavior.

Some women, however, are already past the position of the hypothetical young woman addressed in the first post. They are in a relationship; the man has, to some degree, already made a commitment, but they cannot get him to take the next step (whatever that may be).

My advice for women in this situation is: withdraw. If you are not getting what you want, pull back. Break up with him and tell him why. If you live together, move out. Make it clear that what you want cannot wait any longer. And if he won’t get on board, then you’ll set sail without him.

This will do one of two things.

1) He’ll freak out, realize what he’s got, and make the commitment you want.

Or,

2) He’ll let you go.

Number 2 sounds terrible, especially if you are in love with the man, but understand that you don’t want to have a deeper commitment with someone who doesn’t want to commit to you. If he’s willing to let you go, that means something. You should just take the hit - as hard as it may be - because, in the long run, you’ll have the opportunity to meet someone who will commit to you in the way you want.

Besides, the odds are that by making an ultimatum and following through on it, the man will comeback with an engagement ring (or whatever commitment you are seeking). We’re all creatures of habit and if you’ve made a man comfortable and given him a regular supply of sex, he’s going to miss that in short order.

By the way, it is perfectly okay to give him an ultimatum and call it that. If he resists because he “doesn’t like ultimatums,” he’s just trying to throw you off your game. If that’s his excuse for leaving you, then, trust me, you don’t want him anyway.

The last piece of advice I’ll give is that women have got to think of themselves as a golden prize, high on a pedestal. I don’t know if women ever thought of themselves this way, but I know they don’t now. Too many women suffer from incredibly poor self-esteem and men know it. They prey on it. You’ve got to convince yourself - fake it, if you have to - that most men are unworthy of you.

This is what men think when they first hit puberty. They can’t believe that women are actually interested in them. This is why teenage boys are such doofuses, why they don’t know how to act around girls, and why girls all think they are pathetic and weird.

But then, slowly, by degrees, the dynamic is inverted. As women make themselves more attainable and go to sometimes desperate lengths to do so, men realize that they’ve got power in the relationship. Soon, by the age of 25 or so, the dynamic has shifted and men hold the cards.

Don’t let this happen. You are now, as you were then, the holder of the power in the dynamic between men and women. And you should not accept any man who hasn’t earned you.

Men do fall in love. And they will fall in love with you. Make yourself seem above the fray and you’ll be the most coveted prize. It just takes discipline, self-appreciation, and a commitment to do right by yourself.

Men Will Be Boys

This piece from Kay Hymowitz in City Journal is about the extended adolescence of young men in our time. It’s heavy on pop cultural references and more than a little anecdotal, but it makes its point. Men are failing at becoming adults.

I’ve got my own theories about why this is happening, related to the visual impact and diffuse distribution of mass media along with the changed sexual mores of the last few decades. In any case, the piece is worth reading. The answer to the question, why don’t boys grow up, might just be because they don’t have to.