Thread: 1:4 lie on TV tonight

Feminists must be getting really desperate as well as panicking..

We have master lowlife Ampersand, feminist apologist and agent provocateur doing his darkest to discredit and claim the higher ground..

This type of mangina is the epitome of all things that disgusts me and loathe, endlessly..

Why don't you just crawl back to where you came from..

Quote from Feckless

@BD....wrong is wrong, there is no arguing about that

THANK YOU! I was beginning to despair of finding even one person there willing to admit that.

(from my memory did Percy really give us a source?).

Yes.

But is there still anything to debate on this topic? It seemed to me we already debated every point of that study in detail? Or is that turning into a Rape & DV - Men vs Women topic?

Well, I'm male, so the debate on this thread hasn't been divided along strict men vs women lines, unless all the people here arguing with me is female. (It could be that I'm misunderstanding your question, however.)

I think debate is necessarily repetitive. That's the way it goes. Even when people have a weak argument, it's a very rare person who will drop a weak argument because it's outargued on just one occasion; usually if minds change at all, it's as a result of cumulative impressions gathered from dozens of occasions. (In my opinion, anyhow.)

Of course, you're an admin here, so if you ask me to stop posting, I'll stop immediately.

Quote from RebelliousVanilla

Just for calculation. In the US there are 150 000 000 women. If 1 in 4 is true, then 37.5 million women got raped. Which is bogus.

Rebellious Vanilla, I'm willing to respond to your post and attempt to rebut all the arguments you brought up. (Although to tell you the truth, I think I've already rebutted many of them earlier this thread.)

However, before I take the time to do that, I need reassurance that I'm talking to someone who is willing to be fair when considering opposing arguments. Otherwise, to respond to you would not be a good use of time. Towards that end, could you please comment on the specific, narrow issue I asked about in the post before yours?

Percy claimed that "Rather than asking a random sample of women about rape per se, as per normal for social research, Koss asked feminist magazine readers if they had ever experienced actions that she then classified as rape. A self-selected cohort of feminists who felt aggrieved responded." All the evidence -- including Christina Hoff Sommers, the source that Percy himself cited to support his claim -- shows that Percy's claim isn't true. (Hoff Sommers: "Koss and her associates interviewed slightly more than three thousand college women, randomly selected nationwide." )

What's your opinion on this specific, narrow question? Do you think that Percy was correct to say "Rather than asking a random sample of women about rape per se, as per normal for social research, Koss asked feminist magazine readers if they had ever experienced actions that she then classified as rape. A self-selected cohort of feminists who felt aggrieved responded," or do you think Percy was mistaken?

Quote from Barry Deutsch

Of course, you're an admin here, so if you ask me to stop posting, I'll stop immediately.

Everyone is allowed to post here as long as

Quote from Barry Deutsch

THANK YOU! I was beginning to despair of finding even one person there willing to admit that.

I find it kind of pointless though. For once it is hard (probably almost impossible) to convince people of something they do not believe in, and as we allow every opinion here I always tend to go with "people will draw their own conclusions". If member A says 2+2=5 he is wrong. If Percy said it is in this book and it is not he is wrong to. I do not know if you need others to confirm this.

Quote from Barry Deutsch

Well, I'm male, so the debate on this thread hasn't been divided along strict men vs women lines, unless all the people here arguing with me is female. (It could be that I'm misunderstanding your question, however.)

In a discussion between MRAs and feminists arcoding to my experience someone will bring DV and male rape victims up, especially when we were talking about that study. And quite honestly there is a piece on your blog about DV (a general one) that seems to be heavily outdated and in some parts simply not correct -> http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archive...equal-victims/

Quote from Barry Deutsch

I think debate is necessarily repetitive. That's the way it goes. Even when people have a weak argument, it's a very rare person who will drop a weak argument because it's outargued on just one occasion; usually if minds change at all, it's as a result of cumulative impressions gathered from dozens of occasions. (In my opinion, anyhow.)

Well like I said before, I doubt one is able to convince those who already made up there opinion. The ones who do not have an opinion yet reading this will draw their own conclusions.

BTW....and slightly offtopic...I was always wondering where the name Ampersand came from. Was it taken from the comic book "Y - The last men on earth"?

[quote=Feckless;168230]If Percy said it is in this book and it is not he is wrong to. I do not know if you need others to confirm this.[quote]

If people on a forum aren't able to admit to even an obvious, clear-cut case where someone they agree with has made an error, then it's less worth my time to post on that forum.

And quite honestly there is a piece on your blog about DV (a general one) that seems to be heavily outdated and in some parts simply not correct -> http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archive...equal-victims/

Well, that is an old piece -- it was written in 2002. If you want to tell me specifics that you think are not correct, I could look into it, as time allows.

BTW....and slightly offtopic...I was always wondering where the name Ampersand came from. Was it taken from the comic book "Y - The last men on earth"?

I'm a huge comic book fan (mainly of alternative/artsy comics), and I read and enjoyed "Y." But I was called "Ampersand" for many years before "Y" came along.

Truthfully, I just like the sound of the word. :-)

Quote from Barry Deutsch

Rebellious Vanilla, I'm willing to respond to your post and attempt to rebut all the arguments you brought up. (Although to tell you the truth, I think I've already rebutted many of them earlier this thread.)

However, before I take the time to do that, I need reassurance that I'm talking to someone who is willing to be fair when considering opposing arguments. Otherwise, to respond to you would not be a good use of time. Towards that end, could you please comment on the specific, narrow issue I asked about in the post before yours?

Percy claimed that "Rather than asking a random sample of women about rape per se, as per normal for social research, Koss asked feminist magazine readers if they had ever experienced actions that she then classified as rape. A self-selected cohort of feminists who felt aggrieved responded." All the evidence -- including Christina Hoff Sommers, the source that Percy himself cited to support his claim -- shows that Percy's claim isn't true. (Hoff Sommers: "Koss and her associates interviewed slightly more than three thousand college women, randomly selected nationwide." )

What's your opinion on this specific, narrow question? Do you think that Percy was correct to say "Rather than asking a random sample of women about rape per se, as per normal for social research, Koss asked feminist magazine readers if they had ever experienced actions that she then classified as rape. A self-selected cohort of feminists who felt aggrieved responded," or do you think Percy was mistaken?

Percy may very well have been mistaken in the assertion that the women interviewed were "sef-selected cohorts" (although I would like a response from him as to his chosen verbage before passing judgement). I do, however, believe you are correct that the Koss study interviewed random college women. That said, I consider the point a rather irrelevant one. The issue at hand is whether the Koss study can be considered accurate and valid. Asking women about their sexual experiences and then applying your own label to those experiences regardless of how the women themselves categorized them is not responsible and accurate.

Additionally, labeling sexual encounters rape according the feminist version of rape places vast numbers of consensual encounters in the rape category. If women felt uncomfortable, unsure, were intoxicated or in any way persuaded or pressured .....this is typically labeled rape by feminists. Koss worked very hard to twist consensual encounters into rape. Show me a study where a random sample of women are asked if they've ever been physically forced against their will to have sex and I will consider it a valid representation. Koss's study is not.

Quote from Barry Deutsch

If people on a forum aren't able to admit to even an obvious, clear-cut case where someone they agree with has made an error, then it's less worth my time to post on that forum.

And yet, you hosted such a predominantly feminist "forum", with a "special" disclaimer againt "contrary" positions-camouflaged under an umbrella of "a SAFE place" *, for years. Let's go to the Archives of disingenuous debate amongst those TWO "forums", perhaps also the "forums" those "debates" carried to-and-fro between as [i]reference and supporting evidence, shall we?

As far as I know, Anti Misandry isn't styled after American Jurisprudence, there's NO "...the serial "history" of the accuser shall NOT be admissible" (like alleged rape cases in SOME jurisdictions).

NO?
Can I just go back to my Wii.

*True cut-and-paste copy available in the archives here I believe, if not, I'm willing to re-do the "homework", AGAIN and reproduce it-eventually, unless Mr. Deutsch would care to reproduce a true copy, from BOTH of his "forums", himself.

Quote from Kim

I do, however, believe you are correct that the Koss study interviewed random college women.

For all intents and purposes, she did. (Technically speaking, it was a representative sample, not a random sample. I can explain the technical difference if anyone wants, but it's an irrelevant difference for our purposes.)

The issue at hand is whether the Koss study can be considered accurate and valid. Asking women about their sexual experiences and then applying your own label to those experiences regardless of how the women themselves categorized them is not responsible and accurate.

Why not?

Let's say that a stranger in a public place approaches me and threatens to hurt me unless I hand him my wallet. Frightened, I hand him my wallet, even though I'd prefer to keep my wallet.

Later on, you're surveying people about crime. I describe the experience to you, but say "I'm not sure it was definitely a robbery."

Maybe I'm not sure if it's legally a robbery when no actual violent force was used. Maybe I'm unclear on the definition, and I've mixed up "robbery" with "burglary." Maybe I don't want to think of myself as a victim. For whatever reason, I don't want to say "yes, it was definitely a robbery."

My question to you is: Do you count it as a robbery in your survey?

I don't know what your answer is. But I know that every single large-scale crime survey in the US, including the ones designed by the federal government, would count that as a robbery in their survey. Because what crime surveys measure is how much crime occurs, not whether or not citizens understand what legal terms mean, or are willing to define themselves as a crime victim.

Koss' procedure -- surveying people about the events that occurred, not about how they label the events -- is absolutely standard research procedure in this area. So if she's wrong, so is virtually every crime survey conducted by the US government and most professional researchers in this area.

Furthermore, what about the cases where women identified what had happened to them as rape, but Koss didn't classify it as a rape, because it didn't meet the legal definition of rape? Do you think she should have counted those incidents as rape?

If women felt uncomfortable, unsure, were intoxicated or in any way persuaded or pressured .....this is typically labeled rape by feminists.

Koss' survey did not label any event as "rape" merely because a woman reported feeling uncomfortable, unsure, or was "in any way" pressured or persuaded. (Certain, particular methods of pressure, like force or threat of force, were counted, but not "any" method of pressure). So you're simply mistaken about all that.

It's true that there was one question relating to intoxication, which was worded too ambiguously. However, removing the results of that question did not significantly alter the results of the survey, so the survey cannot be dismissed for that reason.

Show me a study where a random sample of women are asked if they've ever been physically forced against their will to have sex and I will consider it a valid representation.

I assume you'd also want to include not only cases of physical force, but also cases of threat of physical force, correct?

Here are two studies conducted by the federal government:

• The NIJ/CDC “National Violence Against Women Study” found that 14.8% of American women experience a completed rape at some time in their lifetime. A typical rape-defining question was worded like this: “Has a man or boy ever made you have sex by using force or threatening to harm you or someone close to you? Just so there is no mistake, by sex we mean putting a penis in your vagina.”
• The Department of Justice’s Sexual Victimization of College Women study included a sub-study in which college women were asked about lifetime incidence of rape (most of the study asked about rape since the beginning of the school year,which isn’t directly comparable to Koss). 10% of the women interviewed reported having been raped at some point in their lifetime. Rape was defined as “unwanted completed penetration by force or the threat of force.”

So by your own admission, other studies found that considerably less women were affected when asked straight questions - than the results for Koss' 'study'.

Barry, you push for people to be 'reasonable' with you, but your own forum and most feminist forums ban/moderate/delete/etc. reasonable arguments. Why would you expect to be treated with civility when you can't muster that yourself and refuse to push other feminist forums to behave similarly? Hypocrite, much?

As for your robbery analogy, mine I think is a little closer to the reality:

"Did you willingly hand over your wallet to a man after consuming any (small or large) volume of alcohol or drugs?

A feminist not too long back asked me if it would be a crime that someone stole my truck keys and drove off with it. I say yes, that would be a crime.

But, if they asked me for the keys and I willingly handed the keys over, after only consuming a small amount of drink (or even large, after all, I still know full-well what I'm doing no matter how pissed-up I get) - that surely is not a crime and certainly not theft.

Simples, see.

Ah, re-ignited.

I pointed out this wasn't true, and asked Percy for his source. Percy claimed that his source was the book Who Stole Feminism?, by Christina Hoff Sommers. Barry

Do not be lead astray by Barry's mendacious assertion. I did NOT claim Hoff-Summers as a scource. I referred to her as supporting evidence of criticism. Ms Magazine and its Koss-manipulated data is the source.

It is a typical feminist ploy to suggest that someone said something that they did not.

Also do not be lead astray by Barry's other mendacity and sleight of hand with his suggestion that Koss conducted a survey of 6000 students. That was an entirely different study. It was not the source of Ms magazine's claim of 1:4. And I have already spoken about the standard of University survey. Add to that the aganda of the lead professor, already shown by her own mendacities to be as bogus as a two bob note and you can draw whatever conclusions you may.

Ms magazine commissioned Koss to do a survey THROUGH the magazine. The Ms magazine statistic of 1:4 is what I talked about. It was from the responses of the self-selected respondents, all feminist fellow traveller readers of the magazine that the 1:4 was manipulated into existence.

It has been quoted ever since.

THAT is what I am criticising.

I care not a jot for whatever other studies Koss may have conducted at any other time. They are irrelevant to the point about the Ms magazine. But, good try at deflection, Barry. Why don't you cite Koss's studies of gerbils next.

As for any other study by Koss that finds this or that on the subject, If I had the flu I would not go to a Doctor who had already killed 25 patients by unecessary amputations of legs. Koss is a menace to academic integrity.

Quote from Barry Deutsch

Let's say that a stranger in a public place approaches me and threatens to hurt me unless I hand him my wallet. Frightened, I hand him my wallet, even though I'd prefer to keep my wallet.

Later on, you're surveying people about crime. I describe the experience to you, but say "I'm not sure it was definitely a robbery."

Maybe I'm not sure if it's legally a robbery when no actual violent force was used. Maybe I'm unclear on the definition, and I've mixed up "robbery" with "burglary." Maybe I don't want to think of myself as a victim. For whatever reason, I don't want to say "yes, it was definitely a robbery."

My question to you is: Do you count it as a robbery in your survey?

I don't know what your answer is. But I know that every single large-scale crime survey in the US, including the ones designed by the federal government, would count that as a robbery in their survey. Because what crime surveys measure is how much crime occurs, not whether or not citizens understand what legal terms mean, or are willing to define themselves as a crime victim.

Of the 1/4 of women Koss considered victims of rape, only 1/4 actually considered that experience rape. 11 percent did not feel victimized in any way, 49% labeled their experience "miscommunication", 24% of the 1/4 called their experience rape and 14% thought a crime had been committed, but not rape.

There is no further information on the 76% of the 1/4 that Koss put forth as victims of rape. Miscommunication could easily suggest that 49% of the women didn't think the men were even aware they didn't want to have sex.

14% felt there was a crime committed. but not rape. Once again, there is no further explanation or information. The crime the young women referred to could have been a myriad of situations and events.

Koss' survey did not label any event as "rape" merely because a woman reported feeling uncomfortable, unsure, or was "in any way" pressured or persuaded. (Certain, particular methods of pressure, like force or threat of force, were counted, but not "any" method of pressure). So you're simply mistaken about all that.

It's true that there was one question relating to intoxication, which was worded too ambiguously. However, removing the results of that question did not significantly alter the results of the survey, so the survey cannot be dismissed for that reason.

Three of the five questions in Koss's study referred to threat or physical force. The other two were,

"Have you had a man attempt sexual intercourse (get on top of you, attempt to insert his penis) when you didn't want to by giving you alcohol or drugs, but intercourse did not occur?"

and

"Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs".

An affirmative answer to either question was considered rape.

In 1993, Koss and Co conceded that "for the sake of discussion it is helpful to examine what happens to the prevalence figures when these instances are removed." According to Koss and Cook's revised estimates once the ambiguously worded questions regarding alcohol and drugs were removed, "the prevalence rate of rape and attempted rape declines by 1/3."

I assume you'd also want to include not only cases of physical force, but also cases of threat of physical force, correct?

Here are two studies conducted by the federal government:

• The NIJ/CDC “National Violence Against Women Study” found that 14.8% of American women experience a completed rape at some time in their lifetime. A typical rape-defining question was worded like this: “Has a man or boy ever made you have sex by using force or threatening to harm you or someone close to you? Just so there is no mistake, by sex we mean putting a penis in your vagina.”
• The Department of Justice’s Sexual Victimization of College Women study included a sub-study in which college women were asked about lifetime incidence of rape (most of the study asked about rape since the beginning of the school year,which isn’t directly comparable to Koss). 10% of the women interviewed reported having been raped at some point in their lifetime. Rape was defined as “unwanted completed penetration by force or the threat of force.”

The average of the two studies you've sited is 12.4% of women reporting having been threatened or forced to have unwanted sex. This number is hardly the much touted 1 in 4. However, this number still fails to take into account the fact that women lie about rape.

The following comes from 'False Rape Accusations May Be More Common Than Thought' by Wendy McElroy,

This week I stumbled over a passage in a 1996 study published by the U.S. Department of Justice: Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial.

The study documents 28 cases which, "with the exception of one young man of limited mental capacity who pleaded guilty," consist of individuals who were convicted by juries and, then, later exonerated by DNA tests.

At the time of release, they had each served an average of 7 years in prison.
The passage that riveted my attention was a quote from Peter Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck, prominent criminal attorneys and co-founders of the Innocence Project that seeks to release those falsely imprisoned.

They stated, "Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing. Specifically, FBI officials report that out of roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases since 1989, about 2,000 tests have been inconclusive, about 2,000 tests have excluded the primary suspect, and about 6,000 have "matched" or included the primary suspect."

The authors continued, "these percentages have remained constant for 7 years, and the National Institute of Justice's informal survey of private laboratories reveals a strikingly similar 26 percent exclusion rate."

If the foregoing results can be extrapolated, then the rate of false reports is roughly between 20 (if DNA excludes an accused) to 40 percent (if inconclusive DNA is added). The relatively low estimate of 25 to 26 percent is probably accurate, especially since it is supported by other sources.

and

"Forty-one percent of all reports are false."

This claim comes from a study conducted by Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University. Kanin examined 109 rape complaints registered in a Midwestern city from 1978 to 1987.

Of these, 45 were ultimately classified by the police as "false." Also based on police records, Kanin determined that 50 percent of the rapes reported at two major universities were "false."
Although Kanin offers solid research, I would need to see more studies with different populations before accepting the figure of 50 percent as prevalent; to me, the figure seems high.
But even a skeptic like me must credit a DNA exclusion rate of 20 percent that remained constant over several years when conducted by FBI labs. This is especially true when 20 percent more were found to be questionable

According to these studies, one could confidently suggest that 20-40% of all rape accusations are false. Obviously, among these false accusations we would see instances of women who were actually raped but accused the wrong person. Still, if one was to err on the side of caution and assume 20% of rape accusations are fabricated, that would take the averaged number of actual rape victims from 12.4 to 9.9%.

Quote from Percy

Do not be lead astray by Barry's mendacious assertion. I did NOT claim Hoff-Summers as a scource. I referred to her as supporting evidence of criticism.

Here is your post in which you cited Hoff-Sommers as the source. Here's what you wrote:

Quote:
Rather than asking a random sample of women (right) about rape per se, as per normal for social research, (right) Koss asked feminist magazine readers (right) if they had ever experienced actions that she then classified as rape. (right and right) A self-selected cohort (right) of feminists who felt aggrieved responded. (right)

As for the rest that you call half-truths and distortions, please show where. I give an arguement; you assert.

My source was noted: Christina Hoff-Summers' in her book "Who Stole Feminism?", in which Mary Koss admits the fabrication. What is yours?

You clearly claimed that your source was Hoff Sommers' Who Stole Feminism?

However, if you're no longer claiming that Sommers supports that claim -- which would be smart of you, since she doesn't -- then let's have your new claim.

Ms Magazine and its Koss-manipulated data is the source.

What issue of Ms Magazine are you referring to?

Also do not be lead astray by Barry's other mendacity and sleight of hand with his suggestion that Koss conducted a survey of 6000 students. That was an entirely different study. It was not the source of Ms magazine's claim of 1:4.

The most common source of the 1:4 claim (which, don't forget, includes both completed rape and attempted rape -- the number is about 1:8 if you mean only completed rapes) is Koss' survey of 6,000 students. Again, you don't have to take my word for it -- Hoff Sommers says the same thing in Who Stole Feminism.

Ms magazine commissioned Koss to do a survey THROUGH the magazine. The Ms magazine statistic of 1:4 is what I talked about. It was from the responses of the self-selected respondents, all feminist fellow traveller readers of the magazine that the 1:4 was manipulated into existence.

I don't think this study exists at all -- and even if it does, it's certainly not the source of the famous 1 in 4 statistic that Hoff Sommers, Warren Farrell, and many others have criticized. The study they cite in those books, is the study I've been discussing on this thread.

However, if the study you're talking about does exist, please give a complete citation for it. (Note that I provided a citation for the study I'm discussing earlier this thread.)

Quote from Kim

There is no further information on the 76% of the 1/4 that Koss put forth as victims of rape.

70% of the alleged rape victims in Koss’ study resisted by physically struggling with the man, and 84% tried to reason with him to no avail. The large majority reported having sex when they didn’t want to due to force or threat of force.

(If you cut out the question about intoxication, then 100% of them reported having sex when they didn’t want to due to force or threat of force.)

If someone tells me that she had sex with a man when she didn't want to because of force or threat of force, even though she physically struggled and tried to reason with him, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that might be rape.

Three of the five questions in Koss's study referred to threat or physical force. The other two were,

"Have you had a man attempt sexual intercourse (get on top of you, attempt to insert his penis) when you didn't want to by giving you alcohol or drugs, but intercourse did not occur?"

and

"Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs".

An affirmative answer to either question was considered rape.

You're not being accurate. An affirmative answer to the former question was considered "attempted rape," and an affirmative answer to the latter was considered rape.

In 1993, Koss and Co conceded that "for the sake of discussion it is helpful to examine what happens to the prevalence figures when these instances are removed." According to Koss and Cook's revised estimates once the ambiguously worded questions regarding alcohol and drugs were removed, "the prevalence rate of rape and attempted rape declines by 1/3."

If you're going to quote Neil Gilbert, you should credit him.

Anyhow, that's true -- removing the intoxication question lowers the attempted rape figure to 8% from 12%, and the completed rape figure from 16% to 11%.

Concentrating on the completed rape figure, does the difference between 16% and 11% matter for policy? The main point of Koss' study -- which is that there was a lot more rape happening than official figures at the time indicated -- is proven by either figure. (Since you're a reader of Neil Gilbert, you know that he said that the debate was between people who thought the number was around 1 in 10, and those like Gilbert who thought it was about 1 in 1000. That large difference -- not the relatively tiny difference between 16% and 11% -- was what the debate at that time was about.)

Also, in 1999, researchers re-ran Koss' study, but reworded the supposedly ambiguous questions about intoxication, in order to remove ambiguity. The re-worded question made no difference to the results. Contrary to what Gilbert and others have been assuming, the women surveyed didn't misunderstand the question. (Which is no surprise, really -- in the middle of a bunch of questions about rape, the subjects naturally took the question about drugs and alcohol to also be about rape.)

(Schwartz, Martin D. and Molly S. Leggett (1999), “Bad Dates or Emotional Trauma? The Aftermath of Campus Sexual Assault,” Violence Against Women 5(3): 251-271.)

The average of the two studies you've sited is 12.4% of women reporting having been threatened or forced to have unwanted sex. This number is hardly the much touted 1 in 4.

You're mistaken. You're comparing a number for completed rapes (12.4%) with a number that combines attempted rapes and completed rapes (the "much touted 1 in 4"). That's obviously an invalid comparison to make.

Koss' number for completed rapes was either 11% or 16%, depending on whether or not you include the results from the disputed questions about intoxication. That's in the same general range as the more recent studies.

According to these studies, one could confidently suggest that 20-40% of all rape accusations are false. Obviously, among these false accusations we would see instances of women who were actually raped but accused the wrong person. Still, if one was to err on the side of caution and assume 20% of rape accusations are fabricated, that would take the averaged number of actual rape victims from 12.4 to 9.9%.

There are a lot of problems with these figures -- you're taking the extreme outliers and treating them as if they were moderate figures. The best-done studies of false rape reports have found that between 2% and 8% of rape reports made to police are false.

Quoting an article in St. John’s Law Review:

To illustrate, when the Portland, Oregon police department examined the 431 complaints of completed or attempted sexual assault in 1990, 1.6% were determined to be false. This was in comparison with a rate of 2.6% for false reports of stolen vehicles.


Similarly, Sgt. Joanne Archambault of the Sex Crimes Division of the San Diego Police Department routinely evaluated the rate of false reports over several years and found them to be around 4%.

In 2008, the FBI reported an unfounded rate of 5.4% for forcible rapes. However, because “unfounded” does not mean “false,” the actual “false” number would be lower than 5.4%.

So the studies you're choosing are, to put it mildly, highball estimates, and contradict what studies with more rigorous methodology have found. I'd argue that Kanin (the study I'm most familiar with) uses some very dubious methodology.

* Putting those problems aside, however, and taking Kanin at face value, the way you're using these statistics shows that you don't understand what Kanin and other researchers said.

Kanin claimed that women who lie about rape do so instrumentally. According to the study, these women aren't lying for the fun of it, or because they like lying. They're lying for an alibi, or to explain a pregnancy, or in some cases for revenge.

None of that applies to a survey. So I don't think you can logically use Kanin's and similar studies to claim that of course 20% of women must be lying on surveys. What's the motivation? A girl lying to a parent to explain being out all night or being pregnant has a motive to lie, because the parent has authority over her; the same thing cannot be said about a woman filling out a survey.

* Also, you're ignoring the very real possibility that the recent surveys are underestimating rape prevalence in some ways. For instance, they ask only about rape through physical force or threats; they don't ask about rapes through the use of knock-out drugs, or sex with people who are unconscious due to drugs or alcohol. Maybe not asking about that is justified, but unless you believe that rapes like that never, ever happen, you have to admit that not asking about them brings up the possibility of underestimation.

* You're also ignoring that Koss' study included questions intended to catch liars. A random subsample of women who reported incidents was re-interviewed weeks later, to see if they'd give the same answers -- the point being that if a significant portion of interview subjects were making up bullshit on the spot, they wouldn't be able to remember the same answers weeks later. (The subjects weren't warned ahead of time about this). What she found was that the answers for almost all the women stayed the same.

* And my final point is: So what?

I mean, what if the "real" number is 9%, or 12%, or 14%? They're all in the same general range. And they're all too high.

Quote from Barry Deutsch

Well, that is an old piece -- it was written in 2002. If you want to tell me specifics that you think are not correct, I could look into it, as time allows.

I started writing a blog about that one yesterday. To be true, I read that one months ago and wanted to write an answer, but always decided to do this tomorrow, or next week etc. Anyhow, as you said yourself this is a monster of a post and my answer will need a few days (being a normal chump that has to balance work, family and writing huge blogposts about DV ), statistics have to be looked up etc. I was especially fed up with the "Why it matters part" or the mispresentation of Straus opinion on feminists (he doesn´t critisize feminist, too. He critisizes them all the time almost exclusively) I will post it here and you can read it, if you like. Before I forget, you can help me with one factoid:

In contrast, data from battered women’s shelters show that up to 490,000 women use shelters each year

It certainly doesn´t help that you mashed all sources together at the end of the post so one can not really find out where that factoid is from. I tried to research that number but really couldn´t find anything about it. Worse, as far as I understood statistics from shelters they usually just do snapshot data, asking what happened on one day each year. But well you might be able to tell me more.

Quote from Barry Deutsch

I'm a huge comic book fan (mainly of alternative/artsy comics), and I read and enjoyed "Y." But I was called "Ampersand" for many years before "Y" came along.

Truthfully, I just like the sound of the word. :-)

Damn, I could have sworn. Say is "Y" worth reading even for the antifeminist kind of guy that comic seems to have a cult following.

Quote from CaptDMO

Can I just go back to my Wii.

Amen....