I saw a week or so ago that Wendy McElroy has published a new book. Rape Culture Hysteria.
I admit that, because I’m sick unto death of social-justice pecksniffs, ivory-tower radicals, elitists who sneer down their noses at the rest of us while unable to navigate the real world for themselves, and the thuggish Melissa Click types who now personify academia (academia being the major home of rape-culture hysteria), my first reaction was to tune the book out even though everything Wendy writes is always worthwhile. Then I noticed the much more hopeful subtitle: “Fixing the damage done to men and women.”
Yeah, that needs doing. And Wendy is just the person to analyze the problem and suggest sensibly individualist solutions. Turns out the scope of this new book is wider than the title implies.
Here’s a summary provided by Wendy:
Rape Culture Hysteria: Fixing the Damage Done to Men and Women offers a comprehensive overview and debunking of the “rape culture” myth that has devastated campuses and is spilling into Main Street America. An ideological madness is grotesquely distorting North America’s view of sexuality. The book applies sanity to the claims that men are natural rapists and our culture encourages sexual violence.
Written by a libertarian feminist and rape survivor, Rape Culture Hysteria opens with a highly personal appeal to depoliticize rape and treat it instead as a crime. Victims need to heal. Politicizing their pain and rage is a callous political maneuver that harms victims, women and men.
Chapter One: The Fiction of the Rape Culture defines the “rape culture” and explains why it does not exist in North America. It glances back at how the fiction became embedded into society, especially in academia. Then it looks forward to an emerging rape culture trend that will deeply impact daily life: microaggressions.
Chapter Two: Intellectual Framework and Myth History of Rape Culture. The myth did not arise in an intellectual vacuum. In a straight-forward manner, Chapter Two explains the theories upon which the rape culture is based, including social construction, gender, patriarchy, post-Marxism, and social justice. It rejects three of the rape culture’s founding beliefs: rape is facilitated by society; men have created a mass psychology of rape; and, rape is a part of normal life.
Chapter Three: Dynamics of the Hysteria and Psychology of Rape Culture True Believers. The dynamics of rape culture politics are exposed through the behavior of its social justice warriors. A recent travesty is used to showcase those dynamics. On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone accused members of a University of Virginia fraternity of gang-raping a female student. The accusation was quickly revealed as untrue. The unraveling at U-Va. is a perfect vehicle to illustrate how rape culture dogma is maintained even when it is revealed to be untrue. The chapter discusses effective tactics with which to handle social justice warriors.
Chapter Four: Data, False and True. The rape culture myth is based on untrue and unfounded “facts,” which have been repeatedly refuted. Yet they lumber on as zombie stats, kept alive by those to whom the lies are useful and so are repeated like a mantra that drowns out contradicting evidence. This chapter examines of some of the more prevalent zombie stats such as “one in every 4 or 5 women will be raped in their lifetimes.” Where did the faux “facts” originate? What evidence, if any, supports them? Which stats better reflect reality?
Chapter Five: Comparative Studies and Surveys. This chapter compares and contrasts four of the most important, frequently cited studies and surveys on rape: National Crime Victimization Survey; National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey; Campus Sexual Assault Study; and, Uniform Crime Reporting Program. They are analyzed independently but also compared to each other, including major strengths and weaknesses. Lesser studies are also analyzed in passing.
Chapter Six: Harms of the Rape Culture. The gender war must end. Chapter Six offers in-depth analysis of the extreme damage it inflicts on innocent people, with emphasis on the damage done to victims of rape. Victims are a focus because rape culture adherents claim to be their greatest champions; the opposite is true.
Chapter Seven: Solutions to Rape Culture Hysteria. Moving Toward Sanity. We can fix this. This is the ultimate message of the book. Undoing the damage is not only possible but also within reach. The solutions offered range from radical suggestions, such as abolishing the Department of Education, to more modest ones, such as recognizing rape as a criminal matter to be handled by police.
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The print edition will be out in a few weeks. Kindle edition is available now.
Disclosure: I have not yet read the book. I absolutely plan to, and soon.
“The chapter discusses effective tactics with which to handle social justice warriors.”
– Could be a book idea itself.
A.G. – I personally favor aerial spraying and the use of controlled burns to reduce infestation,
It will be interesting to read the book, and Wendy is always a good read, but I don’t see any hint in this summary of the ultimate solution for the individual… Self ownership and self defense.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, most rape is part of very poor to utterly stupid decision made by the victim beforehand. While the rapist is, obviously, completely responsible for his/her behavior, the victim has a serious responsibility too – their own life and health.
Do not go stupid places, with stupid people, and do stupid things – like get drunk/high and naked – thinking that society or someone else will save you from assault of any kind.
For the same reason most of us would not likely want to walk down the back alleys of South Central Los Angeles at night, alone and unarmed especially…
Even with a surprise attack in a parking lot or one’s home, we all have a choice… remain a helpless victim or take full responsibility for our own lives and the risks we take, including learning how to defend ourselves and carrying a gun.
Claire, thank you very much for mentioning the book!
MamaLiberty, while the book is mostly about debunking the “rape culture” myth, rather than how to prevent rape, you might enjoy this passage from Chapter 6:
“A fourth way in which rape culture policies harm women and create victims is by discouraging the art of self-defense. It used to be a matter of common sense. People avoided walking down alleys at midnight in high-crime areas. They bolted the door behind them at night. They tried not to conspicuously wave hundred dollar bills in bars. They locked up Porsches parked on the street and did not pass out drunk in a stranger’s apartment. These practices greatly reduced their chances of being victimized in a dangerous world. The advice applies whether a person is male or female, white or black.
Learning self-defense, which includes tactics of prevention, used to be a sign that a person took responsibility for her own safety. Advising someone to act defensively used to be an expression of concern for the person’s well-being. Arguing for self-defense today, however, is called victim-blaming and it is viewed as a form of rape facilitation.”
Wendy goes on to argue that advocating self-defense is *not* victim-blaming.
– Brad (Wendy’s husband)
Thanks, Brad! I’m very glad to know that and look forward to reading the book even more now. Having done some rape counseling about 25 years ago, I have a very clear idea of the myths and how vile people make use of them, but it will be interesting to see how she brings all this together with real solutions.
Social Justice is about the destruction of history, heritage, ideas and belief which are to be supplanted with the glorious revolution. Make no mistake, this is a serious fight. Although the current actors are petty, post pubescent, intellectual and emotionally infantile crybaby’s, their handlers know exactly what the real goals are. Several stories here and there about taking down statues, banning flags, and changing the names of things are the early warning signs of statist control freak-ism – not scared children. This, like Gun Control is not about the object, it is about the control. It is right out the Marxist playbook, make light of it at your children’s peril.
I have an idea. Carry a weapon, if somebody tries to rape you, blow their head in half.
Vox Day has written a book (available on Kindle and, I believe, in dead-tree format) called SJWs Always Lie, about how to deal with Social Justice Warriors. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Vox, but he’s been in the middle of several kerfluffles with the SJW crowd, mostly in the Gamergate and Hugo fights. He’s no libertarian, but he knows how to deal with those maniacs.
MamaLiberty, thanks. I certainly will be interested in your feedback, given that you were a rape counselor years ago.
Back in the 1980s, when I took sexual assault advocate training, there were still pundits teaching “don’t fight back, otherwise someone could get hurt.” We got past that by the late ’90s, as we learned that those who did fight were less likely to be seriously injured and recovered faster.
Now we’re back to that? Sheesh.
And yeah, every time I left the house for a date Mom said, “Nothing good happens outside after midnight.”
But learning effective self-defense, both prevention and remediation, is empowering, and that’s the last thing the social justice people want in the groupthink.
Brad, if you want to send me a review copy, I’ll be glad to write in some depth and will post it at my blog too. An e-book copy would be fine.
You can find my email address at the bottom of this page: http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/?page_id=846
MamaLiberty, done. Thanks in advance!
I haven’t yet read the book (but would like to as well) — this, however, caught my eye:
“Chapter Four: Data, False and True. … such as “one in every 4 or 5 women will be raped in their lifetimes.” Where did the faux “facts” originate?”
I have no doubt that such is “in plan” (for those that survive the first days after the inevitable grid failure) — and, as others here seem to suspect — that is EXACTLY why those victims must be disarmed first…
The “rape culture,” IMHO, in a larger sense, isn’t really about what some evil men have done to some people for millenia so much as it reflects what “SJWs” fully intend to do to ALL of the rest of us.