[Of related interest:
“The Campus Rape Myth.”]
Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
No, 1 in 5 women have not been raped on college campuses
By Ashe SchowAugust 13, 2014 | 10:31 a.m.
Washington Examiner
Beltway Confidential
A shock claim that “one in five women on college campuses have been sexually assaulted” has been parroted by politicians — including President Obama — who are hoping to score points [with whom?] defending women in a supposed war against them.
But in reality, this claim is misleading at best.
It has been debunked multiple times, but apparently the paranoia it causes is just too good to let facts get in the way, so I am going to debunk it again.
The statistic comes from a 2007 Campus Sexual Assault study [i.e., conducted by the Bush administration!] conducted by the National Institute of Justice, a division of the Justice Department. The researchers made clear that the study consisted of students from just two universities, but some politicians ignored that for their talking point, choosing instead to apply the small sample across all U.S. college campuses.
The CSA study was actually an online survey that took 15 minutes to complete, and the 5,446 undergraduate women who participated were provided a $10 Amazon gift card. Men participated too, but their answers weren’t included in the one-in-five statistic.
If 5,446 sounds like a high number, it’s not — the researchers acknowledged that it was actually a low response rate.
“Another limitation of the CSA study, inherent with Web-based survey, is that the response rates were relatively low,” the researchers said. “Although the response rates were not lower than what most Web-based surveys achieve, they are lower than what we typically achieve using a different mode of data collection (e.g. face-to-face interviewing).”
Nineteen percent of women who responded to the survey said they had experienced some kind of sexual assault, either attempted or completed (12.6 percent reported attempted sexual assaults,13.7 percent reported completed sexual assaults and some women reported both).
But a lot of those responses have to do with how the questions were worded. For example, the CSA study asked women whether they had sexual contact with someone while they were “unable to provide consent or stop what was happening because you were passed out, drugged, drunk, incapacitated or asleep?”
The survey also asked the same question “about events that you think (but are not certain) happened.”
That’s open to a lot of interpretation, as exemplified by a 2010 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found similar results.
Like the CSA survey, the CDC survey had a low response rate and nonrepresentative sample. As Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute notes, “No one interviewed was asked if they’d been raped or sexually assaulted.
“Instead of such straightforward questions, the CDC determined whether the responses indicated sexual violation,” Hoff Sommers said.
The CDC survey also asked a question about sexual contact while “drunk, high, drugged or passed out and unable to consent.” The question did not make it clear that it applied only to instances of unwanted sexual contact.
“Now, 61.5 percent of the women the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010 experienced what the CDC called quote ‘alcohol and drug-facilitated penetration,’ ” Hoff Sommers said. “If a woman was unconscious or incapacitated, then every civilized person would call it rape.”
“But what about sex while inebriated?” Hoff Sommers continued. “I mean, few people [but all feminists!] would say that intoxicated sex alone constitutes rape, indeed a nontrivial percentage of all customary sexual intimacy — including marital sex — probably falls under that definition.”
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, who fact-checked the CSA study back in May, pointed out that similar studies from 1997 produced different results based on how the questions were worded.
He cited an NIJ fact sheet which noted that "researchers have been unable to determine the precise incidence of sexual assault on American campuses because the incidence found depends on how the questions are worded and the context of the survey."
And actual reported crimes are much lower. Bureau of Justice Statistics data indicate that in 2012 the rate of rapes and sexual assaults was 1.3 per 1,000 Americans ages 12 and up.
Even though the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network estimates that 60 percent of all sexual assaults go unreported, the difference between actual reports and the oft-cited study results is even greater, casting even more doubt on their veracity.
Nevertheless, eight senators are using that false statistic to push legislation aimed at combating campus sexual assault, and their bill calls for an annual online survey that would use methodology similar to the other surveys that have already been discredited as inaccurate or misleading. Criminologists James Alan Fox and Richard Moran warned Sunday in USA Today that this new survey would be harmful for all colleges.
“What makes this ill-conceived survey of such concern is that the results are to be publicly released, with rates reported for individual schools. This carries significant implications for admissions and retention rates, as it is based on data of highly questionable validity,” Fox and Moran wrote. “Indeed, flawed data are sometimes worse than no data at all.”
So far, of the eight Senate co-sponsors of the legislation, only Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have answered questions from the Washington Examiner about the bill's required annual survey, but their responses did not provide assurances that the surveys would be objective and nonpolitical.
The truth is, we don't know how many women have been sexually assaulted on America's college campuses, but legislation based on overblown statistics won't lead to safer campuses, just more fear.
vic • 2 months ago
Did you know that american universities are rape factories.
According to data that the Obama administration is using for their propaganda, going to a university increases a girls relative risk of getting raped a hundredfold. ( that is X 100, not 100%... more like 10,000%). Bureau of Justice Statistics data indicates that in 2012 the rate of rapes and sexual assaults was 1.3 per 1,000 Americans ages 12 and up. assuming some rapes never get reported, I am rounding the 1.3 up to 2/1000. The administration claims that 1/5 ( 200 per 1000) college going women get exposed to rape or sexual assault while in college. So that makes the relative risk 200/2 = 100. Right? Consequently we can draw one of only and exactly three conclusions. 1. Don't send your daughters to college, if you do not wish them to be sexually assaulted. 2. No one in the Obama administration has even rudimentary math skills ( fools ?) or 3. They lie all the time ( knaves? )
P_Ang to vic • 2 months ago
You forgot to add that before it became a sin to tell the truth, they used to report that roughly 50% of reported rapes were actually consensual. Victimes would report intercourse as "rape" when the victim changed their mind about the encounter, felt guilty about the encounter, or decided there was some intrinsic value to filing a false report. I doubt that number has dropped much since we repeatedly refuse to go after females for filing false charges for rape, assuming that will "scare off" legitimate rape reports.
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iconoclast • 2 months ago
Clearly the answer is to stop sending women to college since it is so dangerous for them. Another approach might be to end co-education and institute sex-specific colleges with appropriate sex segregated dorms.
3
VictorErimita • 2 months ago
As Iowahawk quipped, the Regressive position apparently is that universities are hotbeds of sexual assault that everyone should have the opportunity to attend.
2
mistryla • 2 months ago
I'm thinking that sending my son to college would be just plain stupid. The risk for permanent damage is too high when compared with the marginal benefit.
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CiceroTheLatest to mistryla • 2 months ago
Have him complete his first two years in a local community college, then move on to a local four year to complete his BA or BS. And have him live at home, or at least off campus for all that time.
3
larryj8 to mistryla • 2 months ago
I'm thinking exactly the same thing for my three young grandsons. Perhaps this nonsense will be over by the time they're of college age but I wouldn't count on it. Odds are it'll be replaced by some equally absurd anti-male nonsense. The same thing is happening in the US military. I'm a veteran and so are both of my sons but given today's environment, I'd never encourage my grandsons to join the military.
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get2djnow to larryj8 • 2 months ago
It's pretty bad in the military. It would be some form of parental malfeasance to send a boy into the military these days.
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mistryla to get2djnow • 2 months ago
True, I'm glad that I retired when I did. If I could have done it sooner, I would have.
4
CiceroTheLatest • 2 months ago
The faulty, if not fraudulent, methodology used for these sexual assault "studies" is another example of the junk science (CAGW, anti GMO, etc.) used to gin up support for untenable policies.
4
DukeLax to CiceroTheLatest • a month ago
I believe that alot of these faulty and inflammatory statistics are coming from what Scientists call "SLOP" surveys.....Self selected opinion polls.
1
vic • 2 months ago
Did you know that american universities are rape factories.
According to data that the Obama administration is using for their propaganda, going to a university increases a girls relative risk of getting raped a hundredfold. ( that is X 100, not 100%... more like 10,000%). Bureau of Justice Statistics data indicates that in 2012 the rate of rapes and sexual assaults was 1.3 per 1,000 Americans ages 12 and up. assuming some rapes never get reported, I am rounding the 1.3 up to 2/1000. The administration claims that 1/5 ( 200 per 1000) college going women get exposed to rape or sexual assault while in college. So that makes the relative risk 200/2 = 100. Right? Consequently we can draw one of only and exactly three conclusions. 1. Don't send your daughters to college, if you do not wish them to be sexually assaulted. 2. No one in the Obama administration has even rudimentary math skills ( fools ?) or 3. They lie all the time ( knaves? )
14
P_Ang to vic • 2 months ago
You forgot to add that before it became a sin to tell the truth, they used to report that roughly 50% of reported rapes were actually consensual. Victimes would report intercourse as "rape" when the victim changed their mind about the encounter, felt guilty about the encounter, or decided there was some intrinsic value to filing a false report. I doubt that number has dropped much since we repeatedly refuse to go after females for filing false charges for rape, assuming that will "scare off" legitimate rape reports.
16
DukeLax to P_Ang • a month ago
"Became a sin to tell the truth".....In an Empire of lies, the truth becomes treason!!!
3
CiceroTheLatest • 2 months ago
The real solution to this problem is to take colleges and universities out of the law enforcement business completely. The rule should be, no criminal complaint, no rape kit, no rape. No criminal complaint, no visit to the ER, no sexual assault. Rape and other forms of sexual assault are too damaging to the victim to be turned into talking points for Democrat and other Leftists agendas.
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CiceroTheLatest • 2 months ago
Is this even an area we want colleges to regulate?
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get2djnow • 2 months ago
Feminists have taken over academia. In fact, all students in Whackafornia are required to take multiple courses as a form of indoctrination to feminism and multiculturalism.
If you want your sons to get an education without the risk of being charged with some form of sexual harassment, there aren't many choices. Online courses are increasingly attractive.
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TheOldMan • 2 months ago
I read somewhere that the 1:5 rate implies that the avg college campus is 400 times more dangerous for sexual assault than Detroit. Of course if you dumb down sexual assault to some guy you don't like asking you out, then you can goose the numbers quite high. My advice to my sons is 1) only date non-college campus women and 2) always keep your cellphone on record from the moment you meet to the moment you separate.
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DukeLax • 2 months ago
I was reading the other day that more American women are being raped on college campuses everyday...than in war torn Somalia...Its just these women are not coming forward.
3
firejack007 • 2 months ago
It's been my experience with incidents on campus that a extremely high % of both men and women are intoxicated on weekends and evenings. When you're intoxicated, you do things that you normally wouldn't do. So, in a way I guess you can say many women rape themselves. I'm sure there are cases where a woman is so intoxicated that she's near unconscious and guys have taken advantage of it. They want a 'morning after' rape (to replace guilt) just like they like to have a morning after pill. They plain don't want to admit that while drinking they said 'yes' or went along with it. They take no responsibilities. Just like Sandra Fluke, they want someone else to pay for it.
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Chance Boudreaux • 2 months ago
Why would any male want to go to college anymore? Better head to trade school until feminists ruin that.
9
Flo • 2 months ago
Remember when the heavy league Feminist in charge to impose these laws got her own son falsely accused and she was desperate because she knew best how much biased against men these laws are, she made them. Her best excuse was that she never thought women would abuse a law meant to protect them. Oh my... women would never ever abuse anything or anybody. You have to be a Feminist to believe your own fantasy.
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tonysprout to Flo • a month ago
When gov't gives a citizen or group of citizens unquestioned power over another, there will be corruption and abuses.
2
Greta Quist • 2 months ago
Isn't it tragic that anyone is raped, period?!
Stop bickering about the numbers...
Among the greatest failures have been parents who failed to teach and model VIRTUES AT HOME, before these teens left the nest to run afoul of mutual- and self-respect. The tragic loss of discipline, patience, honor, integrity, reverence, modesty, chastity surrounds us, and Good Character is first and foremost in the hands of parents!
3
scott mclelland to Greta Quist • 2 months ago
its not bickering its about being opposed to fear factories , its about laws and rules brought in that punish irrespective of guilt to such an extent colleges are being sued now , the numbers matter
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Funcuz to Greta Quist • a month ago
So don't talk about it ? Well, here's a stat for you : the overwhelming percentage of child abuse is committed by women. Now let's bring out a bunch of laws to punish mothers. No more spanking. No more "creative" punishment. In fact, no punishment at all since there's an epidemic of women beating children. What does it matter if you gave the child a tap on the behind or a tire iron tune-up ? What's important is that we're going to treat every single case of a woman "abusing" a child as tantamount to attempted murder. Then we're going to see to it that the mothers don't have the opportunity to defend themselves against the charge and we're going to make it so easy to convict them of child abuse that we won't have enough computer memory to fit all the names of female child abusers on any hard drive in existence.
Numbers don't matter after all. The tragedy is that there was one child anywhere who was murdered by his or her mother.
4
Isaac T. Quill • a month ago
I have to wonder why Gender Studies Students and Paid academics such as professors can't do basic research and homework?
"Rape culture is a concept of unknown origin and of uncertain definition; yet it has made its way into everyday vocabulary and is assumed to be commonly understood. The award-winning documentary film Rape Culture made by Margaret Lazarus in 1975 takes credit for first defining the concept."
Blackwell Encyclopaedia Of Sociology, 2007, Page 3791 - http://goo.gl/9sEkWi
The film - http://youtu.be/RwdVENIVaJY
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DukeLax • a month ago
The systematic stripping of college males constitutionally guaranteed due process rights....is the battle of our time. One of the main factors in the stripping of guys due process rights...is the unfortunate fact that American law enforcement has been accepting federal pork bloating dollars to use "protocol perversions and semantics games".....in order to manufacture rape statistics that are no where near reality.....AT ALL!!!!
1
Do they count Channon Christian, Eve Carson, and Lauren Burk?
ReplyDeleteDavid In TN
They surely don't count Channon Christian and Eve Carson.They may have counted Lauren Burk, because Courtney What's-his-name kidnapped her on campus, but that would be inadvertent. What they're really interested in counting is false rape accusations against innocent white men.
ReplyDeleteSexual assault according to how I understand it might even include an off color joke what it is called or some sort of sexual suggestion provocative only in the ear of the beholder. NOT RAPE as that word RAPE normally, commonly, and ordinarily understood.
ReplyDelete