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Feminist statistics skew issues By Arrah Nielsen
"â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦feminist theories should be political tools, strategies for overcoming oppression in specific concrete situations. The goal, then, of feminist theory, should be to develop strategic theories --not true theories"â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦but strategic theories.
--Feminist scholar Kelly Oliver in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy
Feminists are good at many things: hysterical exaggeration, parroting bogus statistics and promoting ridiculous productions like The Vagina Monologues. However, facts are not their forte.
The claim that on
in four college women will have been raped is a frequently repeated feminist factiod. It's chanted at Womyn Take Back the Night marches across the country, and a similar statistic appeared this summer in The
Kansan. The one in fo
ur figure is based on a flawed, 16-year-old Ms. Magazine study by Mary Koss. While only 3 percent of Koss' respondents reported that they had been raped, she expanded the definition to include consensual, non-coerced sex. Seventy-three percent of her rape victims didn't actually consider themselves to have been raped, and 43 percent of the rape victims in her study went on to date their rapist. Either Koss' respondents were remarkably compliant victims or they weren't raped. If women's groups are so eager to listen to women they should listen to women when they maintain that they haven't been raped.
According to a 1997 Justice Department-funded survey of female college students, 1.7 percent of female college students per year are victims of rape. A companion study us
ing differently phrased questions found a 0.16 percent rate of completed rape. The U.S. Department of Education's study of reports to campus police, which included both on and off campus offenses, found l
ow
rates also --1,800 forcible sex offenses at 6,300 colleges. The KU Public Safety Office reports similarly low findings, with only one reported rape in 2003.
Because rape is often unreported, the previously-mentioned studies may underestimate the problem. Let's assume, as the July 28 Kansan claimed, that 75 percent of rape victims do not report their attacks to authorities. If you triple the 1,800 figure it would still work out to less than one rape per school.
If feminist's statistics on rape are exaggerated, their figures on anorexia are even more so. In Revolution from Within, Gloria Steinem wrote according to the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association about 150,000 females die of anorexia each year. Naomi Wolf repeated the same statistic in The Beauty Myth as did Joan Brumberg in Fas
ting Girls. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, there were 42,643 fatal car accidents in 2003.
Clark University philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers called u
p the
American Anorexia and Bulimia Association only to find out that the 150,000 figure referred to 150,000 sufferers, not fatalities. We were misquoted explained its president, Diane Mickley. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the annual number of deaths from anorexia is around 1,000. With such wildly inaccurate statistics, it's no wonder feminists are arguing that girls should take more math courses.
Feminists' efforts for victimized women are admirable, but that does not entitle them to float bogus statistics. I have two questions for my feminist sisters who would probably like to burn me alive if they're reading at this point: If the situation facing American women is so dire, why exaggerate facts? And if feminism is so liberating, why are they such an angry bunch?
Feminist statistics skew issues By Arrah Nielsen
"â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦feminist theories should be political tools, strategies for overcoming oppression in specific concrete situations. The goal, then, of feminist theory, should be to develop strategic theories --not true theories"â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦but strategic theories.
--Feminist scholar Kelly Oliver in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy
Feminists are good at many things: hysterical exaggeration, parroting bogus statistics and promoting ridiculous productions like The Vagina Monologues. However, facts are not their forte.
The claim that on
in four college women will have been raped is a frequently repeated feminist factiod. It's chanted at Womyn Take Back the Night marches across the country, and a similar statistic appeared this summer in The
Kansan. The one in fo
ur figure is based on a flawed, 16-year-old Ms. Magazine study by Mary Koss. While only 3 percent of Koss' respondents reported that they had been raped, she expanded the definition to include consensual, non-coerced sex. Seventy-three percent of her rape victims didn't actually consider themselves to have been raped, and 43 percent of the rape victims in her study went on to date their rapist. Either Koss' respondents were remarkably compliant victims or they weren't raped. If women's groups are so eager to listen to women they should listen to women when they maintain that they haven't been raped.
According to a 1997 Justice Department-funded survey of female college students, 1.7 percent of female college students per year are victims of rape. A companion study us
ing differently phrased questions found a 0.16 percent rate of completed rape. The U.S. Department of Education's study of reports to campus police, which included both on and off campus offenses, found l
ow
rates also --1,800 forcible sex offenses at 6,300 colleges. The KU Public Safety Office reports similarly low findings, with only one reported rape in 2003.
Because rape is often unreported, the previously-mentioned studies may underestimate the problem. Let's assume, as the July 28 Kansan claimed, that 75 percent of rape victims do not report their attacks to authorities. If you triple the 1,800 figure it would still work out to less than one rape per school.
If feminist's statistics on rape are exaggerated, their figures on anorexia are even more so. In Revolution from Within, Gloria Steinem wrote according to the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association about 150,000 females die of anorexia each year. Naomi Wolf repeated the same statistic in The Beauty Myth as did Joan Brumberg in Fas
ting Girls. According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, there were 42,643 fatal car accidents in 2003.
Clark University philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers called u
p the
American Anorexia and Bulimia Association only to find out that the 150,000 figure referred to 150,000 sufferers, not fatalities. We were misquoted explained its president, Diane Mickley. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the annual number of deaths from anorexia is around 1,000. With such wildly inaccurate statistics, it's no wonder feminists are arguing that girls should take more math courses.
Feminists' efforts for victimized women are admirable, but that does not entitle them to float bogus statistics. I have two questions for my feminist sisters who would probably like to burn me alive if they're reading at this point: If the situation facing American women is so dire, why exaggerate facts? And if feminism is so liberating, why are they such an angry bunch?