Rape Hysteria by Faculty and Administrators, Part 4 / Misandry in Education

Among certain Feminists in academia, the definition of rape is being broadened to the point of absurdity, demonizing men and trivializing the experiences of rape victims. We will cover several such definitions in this post. It is important to understand this tendency, because when we begin to discuss rape statistics, we will find that many of the methodologies that ideologically-drive professors use when they find high a incidence of rape employ broad definitions that most reasonable people would not label rape.

On page 60 their book The Female Fear, professors Margaret Gordon and Stephanie Reiger define rape in this way: “The American dating system, which constitutes a primary source of heterosexual contacts, legitimizes the consensual purchase of women as sexual objects and obliterates the crucial distinction between consent and nonconsent.”

I hope that for most of us, no argument is needed to disprove such a statement. But let us explore it, to sharpen our critical thinking skills: contrary to what these professors assume, when it comes to dating, there is no guarantee of sexual services in exchange for the man’s payment. It is not like walking into a store and giving a cashier money in exchange for a good or a service which a man could legally sue for if he did not receive it. And if a man and woman did enter into an arrangement to trade sex for money, it would still the case that both parties still have a choice.

But what if professors Margaret Gordon and Stephanie Reiger are correct? What is to be said of the women who prefer men pay? Are such women rape apologists and rape advocates? And what if a lesbian pays for a date with a woman and later has sex with her? Is she also a rapist? According to these professors, no; this concept only applies to heterosexual dating. 

The professors also say on page 6, “Then there are the wolf-whistles, unwanted hugs and pinches – what the authors of one book call “mini-rapes” – which continually remind women they are vulnerable, sexual victims.” The authors they are referring to are Feminist Professor Andra Medea and Kathleen Thompson, who together authored the book Against Rape. To clarify, if you read their book, you will find they do not describe them as “mini-rapes” per se, but instead “little rapes.” Medea and Thompson rationalize defining such things as catcalls as “little rapes” by saying on page 50, “We have defined rape as forced sexual intimacy.”

This is a very broad definition, and it is not the legal definition. Intimacy, of course, can mean not just physical intimacy brought about through touch, but also emotional intimacy brought about through words. Under this definition, the woman who was raped at gunpoint is now classified in the same category of victimization as a woman who experienced the brief discomfort of being told she was attractive in an indecorous manner.

The idea of a “mini rape” does not end with the aforementioned authors, however. In a 1994 interview among Dr. Christina Hoff-Sommers and Camille Paglia, and Ben Wattenberg, who hosted a show called “Think Tank” at PBS. Dr. Hoff-Sommers says,

I interviewed a young women at the University of Pennsylvania who came in in a short skirt and she was in the Women's Center, and I think she thought I was one of the sisterhood. And she said, 'Oh, I just suffered a mini-rape.' And I said, 'What happened?' And she said, 'A boy walked by me and said, `Nice legs'. 'You know? And that -- and this young woman considers this a form of rape!

These are not the only Feminists in academia desperate to demonize men and trivialize the experiences of genuine rape victims by radically broadening the definition of rape. According to Feminist professor Liz Kelly of London Metropolitan University says on page 41 of her book Surviving Sexual Violence: 

Sexual violence includes any physical, visual, verbal or sexual act that is experienced by the woman or girl, at the time or later, as a threat, invasion or assault that has the effect of hurting her or degrading her and/or taken away her ability to control intimate contact.'

What is rape? Apparently, to professor Kelly, everything. She makes this more clear on page 350 of the book The Hidden Gender of Law, saying, 

There is no clear distinction between consensual sex and rape, but a continuum of pressure, threat, coercion and force. The concept of a continuum validates the sense of abuse women feel when they do not freely consent to sex.

Dr. Kelly is an extreme Feminist. But is she a marginal one? According to the website of Northumbria University, she is head of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University, the Roddick Chair of Violence Against Women, a Commissioner for the Women’s National Commission and one of two appointed experts by the European parliament to the European Union’s Gender Centre.” She is, of course, also a professor. She is also the author of a study which found a high prevalence of rape – surprise surprise. We will discuss how her biases influence that study later.

A somewhat similar statement is made by professors Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot on page 3 of their book Sexual Assault on Campus, where they clarify the terms they will use throughout the book: “Sexual assault is a general term that describes all forms of unwanted sexual activity."

There are two big problems with this statement. Can you guess which ones they are? The first is this: all forms? What all can fall under the general umbrella of sexual activity? Sexual misconduct in academia, for example, is a broad term that encompasses sexual assault and sexual harassment, the latter of which involves not physical assault, but something as simple as words and facial gestures. In academia, these can all be classified as forms of sexual activity.

The second problem, which might seem easy to pass over at first – and I ask for your patience if your initial reaction is to disagree - is the word “unwanted." I myself have had sex when I did not want to at first because I was preoccupied with something at the time, as well as types of sex that I did not particularly want to have, but I did it anyway to please my partner. Sexual assault is not sex that is unwanted per se, but sex that is nonconsensual. There is a critical difference between the two. 

Consent is also an element in our everyday lives apart from sex. Have people ever done things for their partners that they did not want to do, but then went along with it because it made their partner happy? A partner may not “want” to mow the lawn or go see their mother-in-law on their day off work, but may do it anyway. A person may not “want” to donate to charity, but may do so after a persuasive request is made. That does not mean that person’s money was stolen. Not wanting to do something and not consenting to do something are sometimes – but not always – the same thing. Language matters, and professors Bohmer and Parrot need to be more careful about how they use theirs, especially in the section of a book dedicated to clarifying the terms they will use throughout the rest of the book.

A statement which is hard to read without a double-take comes from professor Carol Sanger of Columbia University School of Law. She says in her article "New Perspectives on Rape" in the Los Angeles Times (April 25, 1991, p. B7):

Consent - agreeing to something - is usually not a hard concept to understand. It may at first appear more complex in the context of rape. One reason is simply its unexpected presence. There is no other crime defined in terms of consent. Only in rape is the victim asked, ‘Did you agree to it?’ Compare: "Did you agree to be punched in the face?" "Did you agree to be mugged? 

 

You heard correct folks: professor Carol Sanger truly believes that normal sexual intercourse is rape. But perhaps I am being too judgmental of her; perhaps, like professors Margaret Gordon and Stephanie Reiger, she only believes that heterosexual intercourse, as opposed to all intercourse, is rape, and that only men are rapists. Unfortunately, she does not clarify.

But how influential can a woman like Carol Sanger become in academia? According to her CV, which like many you can now find online, professor Carol Sanger has been a member of the Executive Committee at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender from the year 2001‑present, as well as a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Diversity Initiatives. In other words, she is a gatekeeper on whether or not research she deems acceptable gets published, as well as whether or not administrators should pay attention to the inequities in educational attainment among male students.

Far too many Feminists professors believe and act as if rape (or the desire to rape) is a normal part of male psychology. For example, Feminist professor Mary Koss, then from Kent State University - says, “Rape is indeed an extreme form of behavior, but one that exists on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture.” Professor Koss is the author of the infamous “1-in-4” statistic, which we will cover in an upcoming post.

In Professing Feminism, dissenting Feminist professors Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge summed up Feminist Professor Catharine MacKinnon’s perspective on rape by saying on page 129, “In a patriarchal society all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent.” 

While this quote is sometimes misattributed to MacKinnon, who is a professor at University of Michigan school of law, if we examine her work, we find that this description bears striking similarity to her views. First, in Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (page 176), MacKinnon says,  “This approach reflects men’s experience that women they know do meaningfully consent to sex with them…men and women are unequally socially situated with regard to the experience of rape.” 

She later elaborates on page 178: “Under conditions of male dominance, if sex is normally something men do to women, the issue is less whether there was force than whether consent is a meaningful concept.”

When it comes to deciding whether a rape has occurred, if consent is not a meaningful concept, and if force is not a meaningful concept, then what is? One might wonder, on what terms does such a Feminist determine whether a rape has occurred? We can triangulate this based upon her other statements. In her book Feminism Unmodified, she says, “Politically, I call it rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated” (page 82). 

Her statement is completely unqualified by any kind of context. One might ask: when must this “feeling” of “violation” occur for it to become rape? And what does “violation” mean exactly? Does professor MacKinnon agree with professor Liz Kelly that it could be “any physical, visual, verbal or sexual act that is experienced by the woman or girl”? People can feel “violated” by all sorts of things – both actions and words. And with the tendency of Feminists to define words in and of themselves as the equivalent of physical assault, we cannot assume that their meanings are as reasonable as we might otherwise be led to believe.

Professor MacKinnon also says in the same book on page 5, "Feminism is built on believing women’s accounts of sexual use and abuse by men.” So we know that, according to professor MacKinnon, there are two necessary conditions for a woman to have been raped. One condition is that if a woman feels violated – and again, we don’t know what “feeling” and “violation” mean exactly. And the other condition is that if she merely says she was raped, then she most definitely was.

MacKinnon’s statement that consent is not a meaningful concept is rather interesting considering Feminist politics. If, according to Feminism, “no always means no,” shouldn’t yes always mean yes? Consider this statement, which is very similar to professor MacKinnon’s, by Feminist law professor Susan Estrich says in her landmark Feminist book Real Rape, "Many feminists would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided” (page 318).

Similarly, professor Carol Pateman of UCLA says in "Women and Consent," published in Political Theory, volume 8, page 149: 

Consent as ideology cannot be distinguished from habitual acquiescence, assent, silent dissent, submission, or even enforced submission. Unless refusal or consent or withdrawal of consent are real possibilities, we can no longer speak of ‘consent’ in any genuine sense.

It is a fundamental element of the Feminist faith that a woman’s “no” always, inflexibly, and absolutely means “no;” even if it is said with a teasing and sarcastic tone by a woman who is at the same time pulling a man’s penis into her. But when a woman says “yes,” Feminist professors turn around 180 degrees and say that all of a sudden there are conditions and exceptions to treating the sexes equally - but here’s the catch: only when they disadvantage men and boys. I am not going to tell you what to believe in this regard – whether a “no” and a “yes” should always be interpreted as such. But I will advocate one thing that many Feminists in academia do not: consistent treatment between the sexes. If we hold one sex to a particular standard, we should hold the other sex to the same. And that essence of consistency is what true equality really is.

In these posts we make heavy use of quotations. And while certain isolated statements are alarming, there is a bigger picture in this series on misandry that I believe we must not lose sight of, which is this: the problem is not so much the singular or occasional questionable statements by certain faculty, administrators, and sometimes students. The real problem is the attitude behind it. 

As an example, professor Medea and Kathleen Thompson declare in their book Against Rape, “Rape is perhaps the foremost male fantasy in our society” (page 14). Is this a credible statement? Is it one that acknowledges the humanity and dignity of men and boys? According to these authors, the foremost male fantasy is not having a family – the dream of many young men. It is not inventing something that will change the world, a dream many men began when they started building with Legos as a boy. It is not saving the world, a theme which is featured in so many shows that men and boys like to watch; no, according to these academic Feminists, the primary male fantasy is rape. Is it more likely or less likely that how these Feminist professors feel about men and boys as a group will influence to what degree they treat men and boys fairly on an individual level?

When a university conducts a hearing regarding an accusation of rape or sexual harassment, the accusations are sometimes adjudicated by a panel of faculty and administrators. Ask yourself: looking back on the people and the stories we have covered in this series, if you were a male student attending a university and were falsely accused, or if you had a son or other male relative attending who was falsely accused of rape, would you want people with attitudes like these sitting on those panels deciding whether you or your loved one is innocent or guilty? I know I wouldn’t.

The professors we covered in this post are not marginal by any means. On the contrary; they occupy high-ranking positions in academia. Their works are influential and taught at the university level. They sit on committees where they decide what views on men and boys get published, what programs get funded, who gets hired and who gets fired. They write letters of recommendation to bring into the academic fold those whose views toward men and boys are similar to their own. They organize and preside over conferences, where they decide whose work is presented and whose career gets promoted. Their works are featured in anthologies and other scholarly publications; they make recommendations for public policy and have the ear of many administrators, committees, media outlets, and some government officials. 

And last but not least, they teach the next generation to adopt their attitudes toward men and boys. We will discuss their influence further in future videos and blog posts.

Rape Hysteria by Students, Part 2 / Misandry in Education

The University of Maryland is home to the Clothesline Project, which aims to empower victims of sexual assault by setting aside a space where they can write messages on t-shirts like “Every Day I Live Surviving Rape” and hang them up. And I have to say that this is actually a creative way for victims of sexual assault to have a voice, so I don’t disagree with the program in general; on the contrary, I would actually support it. What I do disagree with is that for 17 years students were allowed to use this event to accuse male students of rape by writing their first and last names on the shirts, and the male students who were accused – regardless as to whether they were innocent or guilty - were provided no platform with which to respond. An article on the WTOP Radio website tells the story:

 

A 17-year-old tradition is causing some controversy at the University of Maryland. “For the past 17 years, students have participated in a rape awareness program where victims and advocates against sexual violence hang T-shirts along a huge clothesline on campus. The program allows victims to turn their backs on the crime and have a voice. Some victims also write the names of their assailants on their shirts. But this year, university lawyers are instructing participants not to write names on shirts to avoid potential lawsuits.

"Of course in a form of protest, we still are going to hang the shirts [with the names on them]," says Khalifah, a UMd. student and member of the Student Advocates for Education about Rape. "This is just another way we're silencing sexual assault victims." The Student Advocates for Education about Rape group won't back down, Khalifah says. "If it means we have to go 60s style and do a boycott, and that's perfectly okay too," she says. Advocates plan to meet with university lawyers on Monday. Students will begin hanging the shirts on Oct. 11.

And an article in The Baltimore Sun says:

Linda Clement, UM's vice president of student affairs, emphasized that the campus would not seek to curtail individual student speech on campus, even potentially slanderous speech. But she said that as a formal sponsor of the event, the college had to consider its potential liability to people who might claim they were falsely accused. "It would be different if an individual were going to write something on a shirt and put something up individually," Clement said. "Then it would be free speech. But if it is an office sponsoring an event, I think we have to adhere to the law."

David Rocah, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said the university's response is understandable. "Unless they were trying to censor the students' own speech, I can see why they would want to disassociate themselves from speech where they could potentially be viewed as the publisher," he said. “In defamation cases, courts can hold the author and the publisher liable for false statements that injure a person's reputation. Because the university officially endorses the clothesline project -- and provides staff, marketing and other support -- it might legally be considered a publisher, Rocah said.

That argument provided scant comfort this week to some students, who said they felt betrayed by the administration, which has taken steps in recent years to make sexual assault victims feel more comfortable reporting their experiences. "The general consensus is we feel the university is protecting perpetrators rather than victims," said Angela Boos, a junior. Norcross vowed that the banned shirts from this and previous years would be hung on campus. "I don't know exactly what we're doing, but these shirts will be displayed somehow."

Some students said they suspect the reason the university has taken action this year is because at last semester's clothesline event, a shirt was hung accusing a prominent former athlete. University officials said they sought legal advice last semester after someone complained. "The university's position is not influenced by any one individual," said spokesman Millree Williams. In the basement of the Stamp Student Union yesterday, tables were laid out with paint, markers and old T-shirts for students to come in and decorate for hanging. Affixed to a painter's easel was a note reading: "For legal reasons, the University Health Center has decided that no shirt will be hung if it contains both first and last names of perpetrators and/or specifically identifying information. Hanging from a clothesline on the other side of the room were shirts designed this week, several with messages aimed not at alleged perpetrators of sex crimes, but at campus administrators. A white shirt read: "University Health Center administration = Office of the Perpetrator Advocate."

So for 17 years at the University of Maryland, and perhaps at other universities that adopted this kind of event, female students had the unquestioned and absolute power to publicly brand any male student they wanted as a rapist. Any woman who wanted to get revenge at their partner for breaking with her, or cheating on her, or disagreeing with her, or not wanting to go out with her, or not paying enough attention to them, or because he didn’t take the trash out, was allowed to do so. And how did they rationalize this? Because female vulnerabilities are more important than male vulnerabilities.

And here we also see what anyone who dares to speak up for the wrongly accused should expect: to be branded a rape apologist by those who do not care one bit about the needs and vulnerabilities of the wrongly accused. It’s important to note that university administrators did not start cracking down on this because they care about male students who might be wrongly accused; they did it because not doing so might be a legal liability for themselves. This is something that everyone should understand about university administrators: if you have a genuine concern about the needs of men and boys, they will help you to a point. But if you really want them to make structural change for male students that may be politically inconvenient, they will do nothing, until you play hardball by finding ways to make not doing something a liability for the administration. Their weak spots are the potential loss of public image and funding, which they generally classify as liabilities.

There is also some misinformation spread by the Clothesline Project that adds to the hysteria. You can go to their website and see for yourself. For example,“Silence means no.” So a woman who wants to have sex can nod her head, she can write it on paper, she can wink, lick her lips, smile, grab a man’s penis and pull him into her, he can be completely drunk and do nothing but say yes and she could be completely sober and make all the initiating moves, but if she doesn’t say “no,” he’s a rapist. This is legally incorrect. There’s no other way to say it; it’s just not the law. And according to this definition I’m a rape victim myself. And so is my dad, my brother and all my other male relatives.

Another problematic item: “When someone says they are a victim of false accusations, BELIEVE THEM! It is not your role to question whether a false accusation occurred. The fact is that false reports occur more often than other forms of false reports.”

The claim that false rape accusations occur no more often than other false reports has long been discredited by a legal scholar Edward Greer in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review. You can view the scholarship online HERE.

Whenever we automatically believe the accuser is a victim, we automatically presume the person accused is guilty until proven innocent. What if I walked around saying, “Whenever someone says they are a victim of a false rape claim, believe them!” Regardless as to whatever percentage of rape claims are false, is that right? Is that fair to the accuser? No. Neither the accuser nor the person accused is entitled to be automatically believed. They are entitled to be automatically considered. It really does all come back to treating people the way you would want to be treated, which is, by the way, equality. Do you want people to presume that accusers are guilty? No; so treat the accused the same way. To borrow their language, while it may be their role to advocate for victims of rape, it is not their role to suggest that men and boys should be guilty until proven innocent. And we should all find any implication that they are entitled to do so sexist and offensive.

At the end of this next article from the Baltimore Sun concerning the Clothesline Project, we hear of another problem at Rollins College in Florida:

The politics of the Clothesline Project - which encourages women to see themselves and other women as victims and to rage at the patriarchy - can unintentionally encourage young women to make spurious accusations. For example, during the 2005 campus-wide sexual assault awareness week at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., then-23-year-old Desiree Nall told police that she was raped by two men in a college bathroom. Fear and panic swept the campus as police initiated a manhunt for the rapists. Police noticed many inconsistencies in Ms. Nall's story, and one female police investigator stated that there was "no evidence to support the sexual battery complaint filed by Desiree Nall."

According to press reports, Ms. Nall, then the president of the Brevard County Chapter of the National Organization for Women, eventually told police that she was "not a victim of a sexual battery, as earlier reported in her sworn statements." Feminists' lack of concern over the harm caused by false rape allegations is evident in the fact that even today, Ms. Nall remains in the leadership of [the] Brevard County [chapter of the] NOW.

Something similar occurred at George Washington University. An op-ed in The Reading Eagle says,

 

Why would anyone fake a rape? A troubled conscience might have its reasons. That’s what Marian Kashani, 19, a sophomore at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., did. She not only lied about rape, she embellished her story with racist details. Kashani, a rape counselor who works on a crisis hotline, told a reporter for her school newspaper that she knew a white woman who was raped on campus at knifepoint by two black men “with particularly bad body odor.” When they were done, she said one of the men told the woman that she was “pretty good for a white girl.” A fake policeman backed up her story by phone.

There are goats aplenty in this sordid episode. Kashani is one, obviously. She insists she only wanted to bring public attention to [in her words] “the problems of safety for all women.” She got attention all right, but she’s less likely to contribute to the safety of women than to racial animosity and renewed skepticism toward women who cry rape.

An article in TIME magazine called, “When is it Rape?” tells us yet another story, and the motivations behind it:

A new twist in society's perception came in 1975, when Susan Brownmiller published her book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. In it she attacked the concept that rape was a sex crime, arguing instead that it was a crime of violence and power over women. Throughout history, she wrote, rape has played a critical function. "It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation, by which all men keep all women in a state of fear."

Out of this contention was born a set of arguments that have become politically correct wisdom on campus and in academic circles. This view holds that rape is a symbol of women's vulnerability to male institutions and attitudes. "It's sociopolitical," insists Gina Rayfield, a New Jersey psychologist. "In our culture men hold the power, politically, economically. They're socialized not to see women as equals."

This line of reasoning has led some women, especially radicalized victims, to justify flinging around the term rape as a political weapon, referring to everything from violent sexual assaults to inappropriate innuendos. Ginny, a college senior who was really raped when she was 16, suggests that false accusations of rape can serve a useful purpose. "Penetration is not the only form of violation," she explains. In her view, rape is a subjective term, one that women must use to draw attention to other, nonviolent, even nonsexual forms of oppression. "If a woman did falsely accuse a man of rape, she may have had reasons to," Ginny says. "Maybe she wasn't raped, but he clearly violated her in some way."

In what we will increasingly find to be a common theme, according to some Feminists, even when women commit criminal acts, they are never responsible for their own behavior; it is always a man who is to blame. It should be noticeable that there has been a change in the way some Feminists operate. They have come up with a new idea. Instead of going after people who commit sexual assault, they have decided to go after everyone who does not, with the presumption that they would rape, if they don’t get a memo about it. As an example, this poster says:

Sexual Assault Prevention Tips:

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone "on accident" you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

Posters worded just like this are springing up on university campuses. After they were posted around Union College, New York, an article appeared in the Student Newspaper titled “Helpful Tips for Men Won’t Help Raise Sexual Assault Awareness.” The author, Nick D’Angelo, says:

Appearing across campus have been signs and posters labeled “Helpful Hints for Men” in regards to sexual assault and rape. Such useful and effective anecdotes include “Don’t rape people” or “If you cannot stop yourself from raping people, ask a friend to stay with you in public.” At a time when the mission of effective organizations like SAHC [the Sexual Assault Harassment Committee] is to promote the seriousness of a serious issue, such frivolity is counterproductive and even irresponsible.

People are talking about the signs—but not about the awareness it brings to sexual assault crimes on campus. Rather, the conversation has been one of harsh criticism directed at an individual or group that makes a poor attempt at poking fun at a grave issue.

And why is this directed at all men? Are all men now to be viewed as potential rapists? According to this effort, the answer is yes. The maneuver is blatantly and unequivocally sexist.

The response often by Feminists to that their critics of these posters is that they just don’t get the intended message, which is that for years, the onus has been placed on women to take measures to reduce their chances of being raped, which they believe (correctly, in some cases) is stupid and sexist. What they don’t realize is that their critics do get the message, and in addition, they get an idea that some Feminists have a hard time getting, namely: that turning sexism around 180 degrees is not the same thing as eliminating it. And these non-Feminists have gotten another message that some Feminists have a hard time getting: the worst way to advocate that society should not do something is by doing it yourself.

And there are more signs posted around higher education with the same style of message - that all men are potential rapists. Here’s one at UCLA, posted by the group “Bruin Feminists for Equality:” And here’s another one:

“There’s nothing that should be offensive to people who aren’t rapists,” says one Feminist. Very well then. Let’s try a little role reversal and see if the Feminists come out ahead. What if a student were to walk around campus saying such things?

Hey blacks: if you see someone on the street, remember not to mug them? I mean I know it’s hard, you know – I know it’s part of the social construction of blackness – but hey, just try. Hey Muslims: if you a go into building, remember not to blow it up. You know, or a crowd of people. Whatever you are tempted to blow up today. Hey Hispanics, stop stealing. I mean I know, just as men are socialized to see women as their property, Hispanics are socialized to see Texas as their property since it declared its independence from Mexico. Hey women, stop lying about rape; not some women, just every woman listening – just stop lying about rape.

I mean the only ones who would get offended would be the blacks who commit gang violence, Hispanics who steal, women who lie about rape, and Muslims who blow up buildings, right? Somehow I doubt that. Again, treat other people the way you would want to be treated. Reverse the sexes, replace the sexes with the races, and if it does not sound like something you can justify, don’t do it. It really is that simple.

Does anyone seriously think that those who have the intent to rape will choose to do otherwise because an unattended piece of paper told them to do so? Even if we cannot all agree that this is sexist, I hope we can all agree it this is just not constructive. It doesn’t do anything - realistically - to prevent sexual assault; it just adds to the bitterness in the world, it alienates potential supporters, and it wastes an opportunity to make a better statement.

The Vagina Monologues is a play which is performed on Valentine’s Day, which campus Feminists have renamed V-Day, “V” standing for the words “violence,” “vagina,” and “victory.” There’s a dissenting Feminist that I greatly respect named Wendy McElroy. She is of the school called iFeminism, or Individualist Feminism, and had this to say about the Vagina Monologues:

Since 1998, V-Day events have been sponsored on university campuses across America. The stated purpose is to raise awareness. In reality, V-Day embodies the same double standard and dishonesty that has characterized most feminist pronouncements for decades.

Consider the politically correct centerpiece of the V-Day events: "The Vagina Monologues," the award-winning play by radical feminist Eve Ensler that features women who literally represent vaginas that speak out in a series of monologues.

The play is meant to decry rape and other violence against women. Yet, the original performances of the play and the published book eulogize lesbian "rape" of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman who plies her with alcohol. The pedophile section is entitled "The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could" — Coochi Snorcher being the nickname of the little girl's genitalia. Her vagina's tale of seduction begins, "She gently and slowly lays me out on the bed..."

After becoming more graphic, the little girl gratefully concludes, "I'll never need to rely on a man."

Both by statute and by feminist definition, the "seduction" scene is rape. Nevertheless, the Coochi Snorcher declares,"...if it was rape, it was a good rape."

Such idealization of child molestation would have created a firestorm of outrage if the offending character had been male. But the molester was female, so "The Vagina Monologues" won an OBIE Award on Broadway and noted actresses clamored to be included in the cast. When the New York Times reported the buzz about Ensler, it called her "the Messiah heralding the second wave of feminism."

However, audiences probably won't hear the Coochi Snorcher speaking of "good rape" in the 2002 performances. In past years, some sections of "The Vagina Monologues" have caused embarrassment to the organizers and university officials who have backed V-Day performances. The script has been changed.

One of the alterations: the 13-year-old vagina omits the more inflammatory passages.

In 2000, when Georgetown University's Women's Center sponsored a performance of the Vagina Monologues, the conservative Robert Swope — a regular contributor to Georgetown University's student paper, The Hoya — brought the Coochi Snorcher to national attention.

In The Hoya, Swope wrote, "why is rape only wrong when a man commits it, but when it's by a woman committed against another woman, who just happens to be 13-years-old, it is celebrated and a university club sponsors it?"

Swope was abruptly fired from The Hoya. Accounts of his dismissal appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Salon, National Review, the Washington Times, and the Weekly Standard, among others.

So instead of thinking about love and intimacy on Valentine’s Day, students are now told to think about partner violence and rape. Doesn’t make for a very romantic day. In fact, it kind of ruins the idea of having a day set aside for thinking positive thoughts about relationships. But such is a Feminist holiday. I know that when it performed at my campus, I really didn’t feel like doing anything with my partner at the time.

So the age of the girl who had sex with a lesbian was changed from 13 to 16, which, by the way, is still statutory rape in many (if not most) states.

Now remember that the intent of this event (supposedly) is to advocate against sexual assault. After all, that’s why the “V” in “V-Day” stands for violence. And this play made it to production as a full group effort, and performed all around the US, for years, before the age of the girl who had sex with a lesbian was changed from 13 to 16 (which, by the way, is still statutory rape in many - if not most - states) and before the 13-year-old girl stopped saying “if it was a rape, it was a good rape.”

And again, and as always, we have to ask: how does what we are seeing in help victims of sexual assault? And if it is not about helping victims of sexual assault, what is it really about?

Feminists certainly don’t mind making a public display of vaginas and making sure that everyone sees them. But what happens when a few Harvard students do the same? An article in the Harvard Crimson tells us:

When a few members of the Harvard crew team decided to build a snowy representation of the male anatomy on Feb. 11, they never imagined it would be so hard to keep it up. The 9-foot snow phallus, constructed in Tercentenary Theater, was torn down just hours after its erection. But its impression still sparked an intense debate, from dining halls to dorm rooms, over the appropriateness of public displays of genitalia. Even The Economist magazine weighed in on the discussion, offering the destruction of the sculpture as evidence of American prudishness on its usually staid pages.

But women’s groups on campus have led a chorus of complaints against the snow penis, arguing that such a display is demeaning to women. “It was offensive because it was pornographic,” said Amy E. Keel ’04, who said she and her roommate “dismantled” the giant snow penis. “As a feminist, pornography is degrading to women and creates a violent atmosphere,” she said. Keel said that her personal experience as a rape survivor makes this statue even more uncomfortable to observe. “Men think they have the right to force that on you,” she said. “It’s a logical extension.”

Women’s Studies Lecturer Diane L. Rosenfeld, who teaches Women, Violence and the Law this semester, said that the implications of the snow phallus go beyond the legitimacy of the statue’s presence. “The ice sculpture was erected in a public space, one that should be free from menacing reminders of women’s sexual vulnerability,” Rosenfeld wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

She said the snow penis follows a long line of public phallic symbols, including the Washington Monument and missiles. “Women do not need to be reminded of the power of the symbol of the male genitalia,” Rosenfeld said. “My guess is that they are constantly reminded of it in daily messages.” A discussion about feminist perspectives on the statue, sponsored by the Radcliffe Union of Students, will take place Tuesday night in the Adams House small dining room.

You see folks, sexual imagery is only pornographic when it is displayed by men. And not only is displaying an inanimate representation of male genitalia pornographic, it is by extension an advocacy of rape.

Why is it important to spend time talking about misandry by students? A post at the Community of the Wrongly Accused gives us a good answer:

When colleges go looking for students to serve on committees to discuss changing sexual assault policies, who do you think volunteers? Here's a hint: it ain't a starting running back on the football team. In fact, it's rarely anyone who wears a jockstrap out of necessity on a regular basis. It's generally a true believer feminist who thinks that there is an overarching "rape culture" on campus. She believes that school needs to be made safer for women. And she sees no need to balance policies designed to nab rapists with policies to protect innocent men from being punished with the guilty--"rape culture" already provides too many protections for both the innocent and the guilty, she believes.

Harvard is looking to revise its sexual assault policies, and has appointed student representatives to a special committee charged with reviewing current policies. Samantha A. Meier ’12, was one of the appointees to the review committee. Is Samantha Meier representative of the student body?

Meier believes this is an “opportune time” for Harvard to take a look at its own sexual assault policies.  She hopes to discuss changing the definition of consent used by the school. "Under most legal definitions, forced sexual intercourse can be considered rape or sexual assault only when the victim said 'no' or was incapable of doing so due to the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to Meier.  Meier said that she and other students on the committee hoped to push the University instead toward an 'enthusiastic consent' model, in which an incident can be called rape in the absence of affirmative agreement.

[By the way, “Enthusiastic consent” means exactly what it sounds like: that a man who has sex is guilty of rape if his partner was not “enthusiastic” enough in her participation.]

“The only people who lose out in this model are the rapists,” said another student, who also was selected to serve on the committee. “We all care a lot about these issues,” Meier said, “and we want Harvard to care about these issues and take them seriously.”

Who is Samantha Meier? She's a sociology "concentrator" who has taken a number of Women, Gender, and Sexuality classes. She's even organized and moderated a feminist blogger gathering at Harvard.

Are Samantha Meier's views typical of Harvard students'? I sincerely doubt it. "Enthusiastic consent" is unworkable as either a legal standard or an official university policy. It would punish men with expulsion, in all likelihood, even if actual consent -- agreement to proceed with a sex act -- were present so long as such consent wasn't sufficiently "enthusiastic." Men and women, of course, do not carry "enthusiasm meters" into the bedroom, and to punish young men (and, yes, young men are the prime target) for not conforming to an artificial and politicized construct that would be fairly impossible to gauge borders on the barbaric.

Until men -- and women -- of good will realize that they have a right, indeed a duty, to participate in the public discourse on these issues even though their views don't fit the preferred narrative, every sexual assault initiative will be steered by persons who want to re-engineer male conduct to fit a feminist ideal.  They will be steered by persons more concerned with engorging the definition of sexual assault by constricting the definition of "consent" than insuring that sexual assault policies don't punish the innocent with the guilty. It is time for men and women of good will to inject themselves into the public discourse, and push the extremists and ideologues to the side.

And also, at some point, we have to go beyond addressing these things individually and as they appear – at which point it is already too late - and start naming, exposing, and confronting the attitudes and culture in academia that creates and reinforces it. These students are not just randomly waking up one day and deciding to do these things. Where are they getting this attitude of indifference and hostility to men and boys? We will discuss that question in our next video/blog post, when we talk about misandry in the form of rape hysteria by faculty and administrators.