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A Culture of Rape
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Fresh from the media's trusty "Feminism is responsible for every evil thing that can happen to a woman or a man" files, is a new one: Feminists cause rape. That's the premise of an April 14 Wall Street Journal opinion piece headlined, "Ladies, You Should Know Better: How Feminism Wages War on Common Sense."
In a rehash of some of the oldest blame-the-victim nonsense, Naomi Schaefer Riley declared that, although sexual assault is bad ('natch), many women are bringing it on themselves by "engaging in behavior that is 'moronic'."
Upon learning that DNA evidence links Darryl Littlejohn -- the bouncer charged in the gruesome, high-profile rape and murder of graduate student Imette St. Guillen in New York -- to a prior sexual assault, Schaefer Riley's ultimate conclusion is not that American culture and law needs to find real solutions for punishing serial rapists or, more importantly, preventing men from perpetrating such criminal behavior in the first place. Rather, she declares that this brutal attack should serve as a cautionary tale for women, who should "use a little more common sense" lest they go out and get themselves raped.
"Ms. St. Guillen was last seen in a bar alone and drinking at 3 a.m. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan," Shaefer Riley wrote, and "more than a few of us have been thinking that a 24-year-old woman should know better."
If you're wondering who are these "more than a few of us" who'd look at a brutal assault such as the one against St. Guillen and think, "Wow, what a stupid dead girl," it's worth noting the company this Wall Street Journal opinion writer keeps. Her prior work on religion was financially subsidized by the John M. Olin Foundation, a right-wing foundation which -- before it closed shop -- placed hundreds of thousands of dollars into media programs designed to convince the public that feminists whine too much about rape, that date rape is a "myth" and that the Violence Against Women Act is unnecessary. (For example, Olin was a major funder of Christina Hoff Sommers' error-filled screed "Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women," a highly inaccurate, widely debunked polemic that nevertheless garnered a heap of press coverage about feminism's supposed failures.)
Now that we've played "follow the money" for a bit of instructive backstory, it's time to get back to the WSJ commentary, which wasn't content to blame just one victim for her own demise. After dismissively referring to the heated public debate surrounding the alleged gang rape of a 27-year-old North Carolina Central University student and exotic dancer as "much hand-wringing about the alleged rape of a stripper," Schaefer Riley writes that, since the woman didn't anticipate the possibility of being attacked and [didn't] refuse to work the Duke University lacrosse team's party, "A stripper with street smarts is apparently a Hollywood myth."
The trouble with this sort of drivel is not simply that it's insensitive and insulting to the victim and, indeed to all women -- it is -- the problem is that under the guise of advising women about ways they can keep themselves safe, Schaefer Riley promotes dangerous misperceptions about the nature of rape in American culture. While there's certainly something to be said for women (and men) to thoughtfully evaluate the social choices we make with an eye to personal and public safety, staying sober and staying home will never inoculate women against sexual violence.
Jennifer L. Pozner is a journalist, lecturer, and founder and executive director of Women In Media & News (WIMN), a national women’s media analysis, education and advocacy group. She can be reached at info@wimnonline.org.
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