You would think that it is normal for a mother to offer
advice and guidance to a daughter who is preparing to go to college. You would
think that a mother who takes her parental responsibilities seriously would
explain to her daughter that too much drinking is a bad idea, not only because excessive
consumption of alcohol is bad for her health but also because it makes her more
vulnerable to sexual assault.
If you were counseling your daughter wouldn’t you want to
teach her to avoid situations that might place her in danger?
If you think that this is perfectly unobjectionable, you don’t
know feminism.
Two days ago Slate’s Emily Yoffe wrote an article saying
that young women should not drink to excess. This would, she said, help them to avoid situations where they might be sexually assaulted. Most sexual assaults on campus occur
when the victim has drunk too much. Ergo, women can help protect themselves by drinking less.
Surely, Yoffe knew what she was going to face. She deserves
credit for telling the truth anyway.
Before you knew it, Yoffe’s example of responsible parental
advice had produced a feminist freak out. From Katie Baker to Amanda Hess to
Erin Gloria Ryan to Ann Friedman to Emma Gray the voices of contemporary
feminism rose up to denounce Yoffe for, they seemed all to believe, blaming the
victim and going easy on the male perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
If I may summarize it, they seemed to be reasoning that when
a woman is raped it is not her fault. True enough. Thus, any suggestion that
she might have avoided placing herself in a dangerous situation can make her
feel that she was at fault, and thus will impede her recovery.
Yoffe was saying that she wants her daughter to do
everything in her power, as an individual with free choice, to avoid being
raped. Feminists believe that her message circumscribes the freedom of young
women and tends to blame them when they are victims of sexual assault.
Feminists want to focus the maximum of outrage against
rapists. Any suggestion that a woman might have knowingly herself in harms’ way
diminishes their outrage.
You might ask yourself whether this outrage, directed
against men as potential rapists and abusers is likely to make said men more or
less likely to assault women.
And you might also ask yourself how many men are really
capable of rape. Of those who are, how many of them do not know that they are
committing a crime? Why would you want to teach all men that they are potential
rapists?
True enough, none of the feminists mentioned above says that
young women should go out and binge drink. Yet, they are in such high dudgeon
over Yoffe’s recommendation that one would easily forgive
a young woman for coming away believing that binge drinking was a way to assert
her independence and her liberation.
Apparently, feminists believe that liberation means that a
woman should be free to do as she pleases when she pleases how she pleases and
not to have to suffer any ill-effects. They
fail to see that freedom for responsibility is not the same as freedom from
responsibility.
Worse yet, Yoffe was suggesting that women, far more than
men, possess a specific vulnerability to sexual assault. It inheres in the
biology of sex. And she was taking account of the fact that women are generally,
significantly weaker then men.
If you take these realities into account, you will be
advising your daughter to exercise caution when imbibing alcohol. You will be
telling her to act responsibly.
For decades now, feminism has been telling women that
they are strong and empowered. Yet, when you tell women that they are strong
and powerful you are suggesting that they are invulnerable.
Yoffe’s feminist detractors did not specifically say it, but
they must have been seriously incommoded by her willingness to accept the fact
that a young woman is weaker and more vulnerable than a young man.
Let us not forget that some feminists, one of them Tufts
professor Nancy Bauer have publicly said that equality means matching a man
drink for drink and hookup for hookup.
If women are drinking more than ever it’s not because they
are following advice given them by men. Most young women today refuse to accept
any advice from any man.
While it is well known, as Yoffe documents, that women who
get very drunk are more likely to be sexually assaulted, it is also true that
women who choose to hook up, that is to perform consensual sexual acts with men they barely know often use alcohol as a psychic lubricant.
To return to the salient point, feminists are up in arms
about sexual assault, as they rightly should be, but they seem to believe that
the best solution is to prosecute rapists, thus to threaten men. Second best,
they assert, is to organize sensitivity training sessions to teach men not to
drink too much and to empathize with rape victims.
Unfortunately, the criminal justice system is not a very
effective deterrent. As Yoffe points out, only a very small number of sexual assaults
are ever prosecuted. The reasons are several, beginning with the pain inflicted
on female victims during trials, but the truth is, most rapists know that rape is a
serious crime and they do it anyway. For all I know, they get aroused by the
risk. Many rapists are predators who will attack the most
defenseless victim they can find. If they are true predators they will choose
victims who are less likely to be consciously aware of what is happening.
Predators and psychopaths develop an enhanced consciousness
of crime because they want to be able to do what they want to do without
getting caught.
As for sensitivity training, I posted a while back about the
ineffectiveness of anti-bullying sensitivity programs. It turns out that they
do little to decrease the incidence of bullying. In fact, they provoke more of
it.
Some feminists have been outraged to see that Yoffe does not
place as much onus on the behavior of adolescent males as she does on her
daughter. The reason might be that Yoffe does not have an adolescent son, but
it also might be that, as all men know, when a man’s binge drinking surpasses a
certain limit he will become, to be delicate, incapable of performing.
Be that as it may, telling people that an action is
grievously wrong and even felonious does not appear to have a very strong
deterrent effect. Threatening prosecution does not seem to prevent many rapes,
either.
Here’s another proposal: how about teaching men that they
have a manly duty to protect and defend women. Not merely in the most egregious
situations where a woman is in danger, but in the smaller gestures that signify
protectiveness. That might mean picking a woman up at home before a date; it
might mean escorting her home after a date; it might mean opening doors for her
and helping her to carry heavy packages.
It would mean behaving like a gentleman and treating women
like ladies.
One understands that such thoughts might provoke yet another
feminist freak out. Women are independent; they do not need men to protect
them; they can take care of themselves; they have taken judo classes.
Why not try to change the culture so that men are encouraged
to demonstrate more respect and more gentlemanly concern for women?
In the old days, before people became enamored of the
power of the state to solve all problems, if a man assaulted a woman he did not
have to answer to the court system. He had to answer to her brothers and her
father. They would have meted out swift and merciless justice.
A potential rapist would have known that the women he was
thinking of preying upon was not merely an independent, autonomous, strong,
powerful woman… she was the sister and daughter of some very, very strong and
very, very brutal men.
3 comments:
Stipulation: I infinitely Loathe & Abhor abuse, cruelty, exploitation of any female of every age and condition. I've acted upon that belief.
OTOH, when a drunk college boy has sex w/a drunk college girl w/mutual consent - why, logically, is HE always charged w/rape?
Queen Victoria would approve of Joffe and Company. Of course, she also didn't believe Lesbians existed, either.
Heh. How they would Hate the idea. -- Rich Lara
Stuart,
I know these feminists must exist with the kind of mindset you describe or you wouldn't be writing so eloquently about their sad, extreme positions.
However, in my admitedly sheltered world from Manhattan to Nashville and Jackson Hole, I know none---not one single one--of these strange, morally bankrupt creatures.
They are people with no moral compass of any kind and also too immature in their victim conscious for me to even worry about. The realities of life will bring some of these pitiful women to their senses. And others won't be so fortunate.
Life is an exercise in risk management. It's impossible to perfectly predict the behavior of men and women. Retaining control of your body and mind mitigates risk. Drinking to excess; consuming psychotropic drugs; etc.; increases risk.
Post a Comment