In 2006 there was huge negative fallout at Duke University for what turned out to be false rape charges made by a black stripper against three white LaCrosse team members.
In a “tragic rush to accuse,” the men’s names were dragged through the mud, their team’s season canceled, and their coach forced to resign. The signs above, “GIVE THEM EQUAL MEASURE,” and “CASTRATE,” were from one of multiple protests held at the Duke campus.
When the allegations were proven false, feminist and black extremist groups that had joined the rush to judgment were left with egg on their faces.
Still, liberal feminists maintained the offensive. Ms. Magazine wrote in 2011:
Do women lie about rape? According to Joanne Archambault, a former sex crimes unit supervisor, the answer is fairly simple: “[False reports] are not a problem. They happen, but they’re not a problem.” Research has shown that only roughly 2 to 8 percent of rape reports are untrue… a pretty small number to justify the climate of fear around false rape reports.
That same year liberal feminists conducted a “Rape is Rape” campaign: If a woman said she was raped, in whatever form that took, she was not to be doubted. Vice President Joe Biden, in typical form, took the mantra a step further, proclaiming, “Look folks, rape is rape is rape.”
In 2012, feminists succeeded in getting the FBI’s antiquated definition of rape changed, with which I don’t have a quibble.
But 2012 turned into a banner year for feminist exploitation of rape, when they were able to successfully seize upon inept rape comments by Republican candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock.
It was also the year feminists began overplaying their hand, by equating transvaginal ultrasounds as “rape” if mandated by the government but averting their eyes if they were mandated by Planned Parenthood.
Recently, feminist conversation and conjecture on rapes has begun breaking down, resulting infighting and confusion.
Inexplicably, abortion apologist Amanda Marcotte set the “rape is rape is rape” movement back a few paces several days ago by excusing a television character for lying that she got an abortion because she was raped. The character went further to publicly name her supposed attacker, about whom she had never filed a complaint decades earlier during their college years - Duke with a twist, now apparently ok with at least one notable feminist.
On the flip side, feminist Emily Matchar has gotten herself in trouble after writing a piece in the New Republic on February 26 about the Men’s Rights Movement, the group behind the poster, right, which is taking on the issue of false reporting.
In her story Matchar reported on a survey in which college students themselves believe half of all rape complaints are made up. She added:
But to totally ignore the issues that they raise does not further a productive conversation. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to talk about these issues in progressive or feminist circles, where discussions of sexual assault prevention can quickly degenerate into angry hyperbole and name-calling.
… a self-fulfilling prophecy…
https://twitter.com/EmilyMatchar/status/439054618400534528
Flash from the serious to the sophomoric, in which RH Reality Check editor-in-chief Jodi Jacobson had to apologize for retweeting this offensive rape ditty:
A responder to that tweet poignantly noted a reality that is apparently beyond the comprehension of liberal feminists who put politics above people. Pulling together a series of her tweets:
The poem is catchy, BUT… Some ? choose to carry their pregnancies to term, and some so conceived… are reading.
Just an appeal to consider how the language looks to those actually affected.
I am 100% pro-choice. And affected by the issue in question. The wording is hurtful.
Please consider how you’d feel if you or your child were called the term in that tweet.
What I’m saying is there are other pro-choice people with this conception history, who chafe at that terminology.
Feminists now find themselves in a circular firing-squad for taking the rape issue too far, too lightly, too realistically, and too unrealistically.
And I note this is but one of several fights – another current biggie is with African-American feminists – beleaguering the liberal feminist movement.
I don’t observe this infighting with any joy; the topics are tragic.
But perhaps in all this a way can be cleared for authentic egalitarians to effect positive change.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.