I prefer the 4 R's:

Rape, Reading, Writing, and Rape

Besides my mediocre attempt at wit, this article holds several problems.

1. They trot out the "1 in 4" statistic again. This statistic purports us to believe that millions of women are raped on college campuses each year. The original study done by Mary Koss showed that of those who she claimed were raped, 73% said they weren't. A further 42% slept with their "rapist" again. Most didn't consider the situation important enough to report. As well, about 50% of rapes reported on college campuses were determined to be false allegations.

2. She calls the standard questions "What was she wearing?", "Was she intoxicated?", "Why did she go to the fraternity party?" victim blaming as if they are completely inappropriate questions to ask. Most especially, the question about intoxication is a very important one. Actually, quite often both parties are intoxicated, though only the man is blamed for the rape. A drunken hookup is either not rape or rape on two counts.

3. When Chris Brown beat up Rihanna, almost half of teens surveyed thought Rihanna was to blame. They wondered things like: "What did Rihanna do to upset the mild mannered Chris Brown?" Who do we imagine these teens will blame if they themselves become a victim one day?

If she wants to protect women, have her check the statistics. The most common relationship to suffer domestic abuse are lesbian relationships. Also, women are more likely to commit verbal and emotional abuse (men are more likely to commit physical and sexual abuse)

4. Violence against young women has become increasingly visible and acceptable in our pop culture. Our kids are fed a steady diet of music, video games, movies and television shows rife with violence against young women. A recent study by Parents Television Council found that while incidents of violence on prime-time broadcast television increased 2 percent from 2004 to 2009, there was a 400 percent increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims in that same time period!

So she's proclaiming in her whole article that girls are victims and she's upset that TV portrays it that way?

ArkAngel: I prefer the 4 R's:

Rape, Reading, Writing, and Rape

You said rape twice...

Schadenfreude ist die schoenste Freude: ArkAngel: This statistic purports us to believe that millions of women are raped on college campuses each year

If you'd made it to the second sentence you would have read this:

The finding: 1 in 4 college girls will be the victim of rape or attempted rape before they graduate

So saying the claim was 1 in 4 are raped is disingenuous. But I do agree that that figure (even if it includes attempted rapes) seems vastly inflated.

At the risk of getting beat to hell later today in the comments...

...I have found it hard to find any female who doesn't say they were raped at least once in their life, whether it happened or not. It has become this "instant pity party" thing to say.

Ladies: your own kind is making it so that rape isn't taken as seriously as you want it to be.

Rape of our young women is a staggering problem which receives little national attention.

Only if they're not white.

No Such Agency: Oh this thread will be good.

1. all women are whores and "rape" is just theft of services you would have paid for otherwise
2. femi-nazis tell women they've been raped to turn them into lesbians, when really it was just a friendly tussle with a guy who had totally been led on
3. what about the men whose lives have been ruined by false accusations? For every actual rape victim there are twenty women falsely accusing some guy who shoved them on the subway or wouldn't pay for dinner
4. rape is hot/funny because I saw it in an anime once
4. Evil Abraham Lincoln
6. Black Parka Man
7. lots of shiat you've seen before

There, I just saved you all the trouble of reading the whole sordid mess.

You don't own any guns, do you?

No Such Agency: There, I just saved you all the trouble of reading the whole sordid mess.

Hey, I tried to bring race into it.

Macular Degenerate: At the university where I work, they take sexual violence very seriously. They skip right over the "sexual harassment" training and go right for the jugular with sexual violence. The message is not man-hating either, which makes me feel good. The person leading this initiative is very up front about what is rape and what isn't - and "buyer's remorse" is certainly *not* rape. She is clearly in the minority.

Heh. My training at my university scared the crap out of me because of a section on "threatening posture" which said that if someone feels like you are looming over them or intimidating them bodily (without making contact) you could get in trouble for sexual harassment. I know that probably only happens if the person is being a really creepy douche, but at my height it gave me pause.

That's a lot of bounced checks.

This is an annual back-to-school story that scientific research labs of Ms. magazine first published in 1987. It has since been blown out of the water (new window).

Here's another alleged campus rape (new window) that didn't happen, that set the table for the Duke lacrosse team sureality.

So:

FTFA: "A recent study by Parents Television Council found that while incidents of violence on prime-time broadcast television increased 2 percent from 2004 to 2009, there was a 400 percent increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims in that same time period!"

... isn't that such a low percentage it would be reasonable to say there are other reasons for the 400% increase? I mean, I'm sure there were other things that more directly relate to the increase of violence, like the number of disrupted households, a general lack of responsibility from parents--

"Shocking, yes. Now as parents, we must act!"

... guess not.

/just got an e-mail from Campus Safety informing us that there was a rape in one of the dorms
//what the hell, class of '14?