New rule for 2012: No more ad campaigns and public service announcements targeted at women to teach them how to avoid rape.
I'm not entirely sure what ad campaigns she was speaking of and there were no examples of said media campaigns given in her piece but I'm sure they are out there. Somewhere.
Assuming that these ads are out there somewhere, has anyone actually asked what specifically is wrong with informing women on how to avoid being raped? Do we, for example, object to public service announcements that inform the public on how to avoid being robbed? or how to not be an inviting target of pick pockets? Do we object to advice given to those who have iDevices that perhaps they ought not have them out? Do we? If we do not, then why do we make a special exception for rape?
Let's continue with Ms. Maxwell's commentary so as to perhaps understand where she is coming from:
It’s not effective, it’s offensive, and it’s also a lie. Telling women that they can behave in a certain way to avoid rape creates a false sense of security and it isn’t the most effective way to lower the horrible statistics which show that 1 in 5 women will become victims of a completed or attempted rape in their lifetime. The numbers for African American women are even higher at nearly 1 in 4.
It's not effective? What's not effective? Giving advice to women on how to decrease the chances of being raped is not effective? Says who? What data actually supports this statement? None has been provided. I suppose we should just take Ms. Maxwell's word for it.
But lets take for example the young woman who is instructed by her parents to not take a drink from strangers. Doesn't this constitute "advice" on "how to avoid being raped"? And if she heeds such advice is she not now more empowered and therefore less likely to be a victim? If so, doesn't that mean that Ms. Maxwell's statement is demonstrably false?
Mind you not all advice is useful. For example people who wish to say that a woman ought not to have worn a skirt of a certain length or show a certain amount of cleavage is certainly out of order as we know that what is worn by a woman has little if any bearing on whether a woman will be victimized. However; just because some advice is downright silly and objectionable, it does not mean that all advice is useless. Therefore; it is best to discern useful advice from the weeds. But again, no such advice is listed for us to evaluate so we are left thinking that any advice given must be ineffective.
Ms. Maxwell then moves onto what she thinks will be most effective:
We need anti-rape campaigns that target young men and boys. Campaigns that teach them from a young age how to respect women, and ultimately themselves, and to never ever be rapists. In addition, we should implore our men and boys to call out their friends, relatives, and classmates for inappropriate behavior and create systems of accountability amongst them.
I see. So Ms. Maxwell's position is that young men and boys are not being taught not to rape.
I see.
I would hazard to guess that a good number of parents would object to such a characterization, but I'm not in a position to speak for them. But it certainly is curious that Ms. Maxwell would make such an assertion with no data presented to show that young men and boys are not being taught to respect girls and women. The actual interesting thing is the demographic she targeted in this discussion, Young men and boys. Statistics show that rape victims tend to fall into this category. It is not surprising because persons in this group, male and female alike, tend to make choices that are more likely to leave them vulnerable to being victimized and are very likely to succumb to peer pressure and other group dynamics in which people can do things they actually do not want to do. That includes women who have sex with males and then later have regret and claim to have been raped. Yes, it happens. Sadly.
On the point of "men and boys" calling out their friends, relatives and classmates, there is the large problem of simply not knowing. I cannot call out a friend's behavior if I do not know about it. The fact is that most rapes occur when the perpetrator and the victim are alone. They occur most by those who are trusted by the victims. In such a case, so called "good men" are nowhere to be seen. Worse yet, they can only act after the fact. I don't know about Ms. Maxwell, but I would prefer to not deal with after the fact.
In regards to inappropriate behavior. What constitutes "inappropriate behavior"? who gets to judge that. I don't drink. I may be of the opinion that getting drunk is "inappropriate" period. Someone else may not see it that way. I may be a "hands off" person in my interpersonal dealings, while someone else may be particularly physical. Who am I to determine who's behavior crosses the line? I don't have such authority. But I can act if a woman indicates without question that some man's behavior has crossed a line. But that would be giving women "advice" to speak up. Advice is apparently verboten.
Speaking of drinking, Ms.Maxwell gives us an example:
For so long all of our energy has been directed at women, teaching them to be more “ladylike” and to not be “promiscuous” to not drink too much or to not wear a skirt. Newsflash: men don’t decide to become rapists because they spot a woman dressed like a video vixen or because a girl has been sexually assertive.
I've already covered the total BS that is the "you shouldn't wear that" so I wont cover it again. However; to the "drink to much" point I would counter: what is the likelihood of a sober (or at least in control of herself) person being raped compared to one who is passed out, or falling out drunk? I'll actually answer this question later. Again, this is not to say that a drunk woman "asked for it", but as I said before, I would rather not deal with the aftermath of being vulnerable, than not advise my lady friends to not get so drunk that she is "easy pickings" for one seeking to victimize.
Speaking of drinking:
How about we teach young men when a woman says stop, they stop? How about we teach young men that when a woman has too much to drink that they should not have sex with her, if for no other reason but to protect themselves from being accused of a crime?
Did I read correctly? So we're good with advising men to not deal with a drunk woman because he might find himself on the wrong side of the law, but advising a woman not to get drunk around men she neither knows or trusts is bad? Talk about blatant double standards. Is that what's good for 2012? And who are we to tell men and women how they prepare themselves for intercourse. A lot of men and women apparently need to be liquored up in order to disinhibit themselves. Who am I to judge someone who does that?
In regards to "'no' meaning 'no'".=, I'm all for it. The actual data shows that most of us men are for it. Here's the thing though, unfortunately there are a number of women (how large a population I have no idea) that seem to think that teasing a man is "cute". Where there is "no" and "maybe" and "well a little bit". Personally I think that men who encounter such women ought to leave (or have her leave). However; some of these encounters happen and once a "no" turns out to mean "try harder" or "keep trying 'cause I wanna see how much you'll beg for it" then every other woman that man meets after her, is in danger. Why? Because the mixed signals, particularly when young men and women are still trying to figure out what is what in the mating world, lead to the next woman's certain objection to perhaps be mistook for "try harder".
Again, not that I think it excuses the behavior of a man who does not adhere to the "no" rule, but as stated before I'd rather not get that call from the woman who, unfortunately ran into that man.
Ms. Maxwell then discusses what she calls a "culture of violence towards women":
The culture that allows men to violate women will continue to flourish so long as there is no great social consequence for men who do so. And while many men punished for sexual assaults each year, countless others are able to commit rape and other crimes against women because we so often blame the victim instead of the guilty party.
Culture that allows men to violate women? Really? Here in the US where Ms.Maxwell pointed out that 3 of 4 women (75%) will never be sexually assaulted or raped in her lifetime? How do you claim there is an at large culture of violating women with statistics like that? There are, in fact, sub-cultures in which violence as a whole is acceptable and therefore women in those circles (or who share geographic areas with such persons) are more likely than average to face such violence, but the statistic as provided by Ms. Maxwell simply does not support an at large "culture of violating women".
"Many" and "countless" are used skillfully by Ms. Maxwell to hide the fact that she has provided no data. You would be under the impression that there are men all over the place who are simply waiting for a woman to pass by so they can hop up on them. So since we need actual data so that we can move from conjecture and generalizations, lets look at some actual statistics.
A Harvard paper from 2002 entitled "Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending among Undetected Rapists"
Informs us of a group of 1,882 men out of whom 120 self reported acts that met the legal definition of rape. For you math heads out there that means of the group only 6% of the men self reported legal rape.
Furthermore the report showed that the majority, 80% of these men committed rapes on women who were "incapacitated" due to drug or alcohol use
Let's pause here for a minute. If we go back to Ms. Maxwell's position that it is "offensive" and "ineffective" to advise women to not get drunk, how do we reconcile such a position with the above fact? It seems quite clear that advising women to not get drunk or otherwise incapacitated would possibly reduce the incident of rape by 80%.
Eighty. Per. Cent.
Are we really going to be "offended" by such advise?
If we continue looking at the data we find that of the 120 men who admitted to having committed a rape, 76 (63%) of them had committed multiple rapes. These 76 repeat rapists accounted for 439 individual acts of rape out of 483.
Again for the math people, this means that 4% of the men interviewed were responsible for 90% of rapes.
In the paper we also find that 10 of these 76 had committed between 9-50 rapes per individual.
What did this paper state as their conclusion?
The evidence that a relatively small proportion of men are responsible for a large number of rapes and other interpersonal crimes may provide at least a partial answer to an oft noted paradox: namely, that while victimization surveys have established that a substantial proportion of women are sexually victimized, relatively small percentages of men report committing acts of sexual violence.
So if we take this report as being an accurate representation of of society at large (which has *not* been determined by any larger scale studies) it would be the case that the vast majority of men do not commit or condone rape. This means that, contrary to the assertion made by Ms. Maxwell, there is not an at large "culture of violating women". It would also be the case that a very, very small subset of actual rapists, relative to the overall number of males in the US population are actually responsible for 90% of rapes.
Given that the report also indicates that these men also engage in other interpersonal violence, that they do not care about being "educated" about rape or what constitutes rape. They, like all criminals, simply do not care about their victims or what society thinks is proper. This means that no amount of "educating young men and boys" will stop rapists from doing what they do any more than laws against theft stops the thief.
Since Ms. Maxwell is so concerned about violence though I think she and others who think like her may want to consider a recent study on domestic violence. If this study turns out to be statistically accurate across the US Population, Ms. Maxwell may want to direct her "education" recommendation towards women. the National Institute of Justice and the Department of Defense has found that:
Among males, 92% reported experiencing physical violence from a partner, while 6% said they experienced both physical violence and stalking.
Since the majority of these males would have been in relationships with women, it means that the vast majority of men in relationships, at least in Atlanta, are targets of intimate violence by women who apparently are under the impression that it is OK. Sounds to me that we actually have an at large culture of violating men on our hands.
Imagine that.