The belief that universities are hotbeds of sexual violence is fuelled by inflated statistics that are widely repeated as the gospel truth. For example, the widespread claim that one in five female students is sexually assaulted comes from the Campus Sexual Assault Study, a survey of more than 5,000 U.S. university women. Like many such studies, it stretches the definition of assault to the breaking point. The vast majority of the incidents it records involved alcohol. But the vast majority of the women who reported these incidents did not believe they had been raped ? even in cases that involved penetration. Two thirds of the women didn?t think these incidents were serious enough to report to the authorities. (Journalist Cathy Young has analyzed this study in detail and written at length about it.)
The consequences of this phony rape scare are troubling. On some U.S. campuses, due process has been thrown out the window. Men accused of sexual assault are deemed guilty until proven innocent, and some have been expelled. Even the Obama administration has weighed in, announcing a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. California is considering legislation that would codify the doctrine of ?affirmative consent? on campus. Universities everywhere are busy setting up more task forces, awareness sessions and sexual-violence response teams, while demonizing the allegedly toxic jock culture of male athletics.
The manufacture of ?rape culture? is a triumph of ideology over substance. It has inflated a serious but uncommon threat into a crime wave. It infantilizes women, strips them of their agency and treats them like Victorian damsels in distress. As for those armies of would-be rapists lurking in every shadow ? they?re your sons, your grandsons, your nephews and your brothers. I used to think the war on men was an exaggeration. I don?t think so any more.