We knew the Oscars would be filled with propaganda, but before the awards show even started, singer Lady Gaga pushed a debunked statistic to scare viewers and make her appearance more powerful.
Gaga was there to perform her Oscar-nominated song called “Til It Happens to You,” which appeared in the film “The Hunting Ground,” which features still more dubious statistics and accusations of campus sexual assault.
“It’s such an important song for me,” Gaga said prior to the awards show. “One in five women will be raped before they finish college.”
No, they won’t.
Even Vice President Joe Biden, who introduced Gaga for her performance, didn’t include the flawed statistic. People have either begun to omit that particular statistic or admit that it is at the very least controversial. Only those most dedicated to the myth still use the number.
The one-in-five statistic comes from self-reported surveys that adopt very broad definitions of sexual assault, to include pretty much anything anyone wants it to mean. They tend to feature small sample sizes and low response rates that even the authors recognize as not being nationally representative.
The biggest problem with the surveys, however, is that the women who were identified by the researchers as having experienced sexual assault don’t say so themselves. These surveys don’t ask the participants if they are the victim of sexual assault, because doing so drastically reduces the scary number used for headlines and arguing for more grant money. Instead, the researchers decide who answered affirmatively to a number of questions (did someone try to kiss you?) and labels those respondents as sexual assault victims.
When these “victims” are asked why they didn’t report, more than 70 percent of them say it was because the so-called “assault” wasn’t serious. So most of the women don’t even see it as sexual assault, but the researchers do because these types of studies make headlines.
Gaga certainly doesn’t know all this, or if she does, it doesn’t matter.
Joe Biden’s introduction was more reasonable. He left out the flawed statistics and spoke simply about fighting rape — something everyone can get behind. Obviously, he was there to tout the Obama administration and the “It’s On Us” campaign, which boasts lots of pledges to end sexual assault, but no evidence it has even reduced sexual assault.
America doesn’t have a “rape culture” problem. The continued indoctrination of young women that they have a substantial likelihood of getting raped in college is not only dangerous to young men who will be wrongly accused, but also to the young women who are being made to fear for their persons needlessly.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
