We’re told campus sexual assault is a massive problem across the country. We’re told that 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted while they’re in college. And we’re told we need to enact draconian policies right now in order to stop the epidemic.
So why then, if our country is facing a rape epidemic on par with war-torn Congo, aren’t the presidential candidates being asked about how they would solve the problem?
The candidates are asked every single debate about the Islamic State and how the United States can best fight terrorism. They’re asked about gun control and mass shootings. They’re asked about illegal immigration. But the alleged mass rapes on college campuses? Crickets.
Could it be because every rational person has realized that campus sexual assault is not the epidemic being reported in the media and by politicians eager to prove they support women?
The facts are that this is not an epidemic. To be sure, sometimes rapes occur on college campuses, and that is horrible, but they are (thankfully) relatively rare.
The 1-in-5 myth continues because of how easy the original source is replicated. If you broaden the definition of sexual assault to include everything from a kiss resulting from misread signals to forcible rape, then any action anyone deems objectionable will fall under the definition of assault.
And the “studies” cited by activists are merely self-reported surveys, and don’t even ask whether the respondents believe they were sexually assaulted. This question was asked decades ago, but stopped because it lowered the number of “victims” identified in the surveys.
It turns out, if researchers with an agenda are allowed to categorize women as victims, and not the women themselves, the numbers go up. The closest these surveys come to asking this simple question is by asking why someone who said they had received unwanted sexual contact didn’t report that contact. The overwhelming response (about three-quarters of respondents) said they didn’t respond because they didn’t think the contact was serious. This answer is observed in every survey touted by activists as proof of “rape culture.”
It could also be because when people start hearing both sides of sexual assault accusations, they see often see them less as “rape” and more as “he said/she said drunken hookups.”
That comes from accusers waiting months, even years, to report an allegedly traumatizing incident. These incidents are allegedly so traumatizing that the accusers need someone else — usually a feminist friend or professor — to tell them they had been sexually assaulted. In essence, people who want to believe in “rape culture” are convincing otherwise well-adjusted women that they are victims and should act as though they have post-traumatic stress disorder. I don’t know about you, but I think that is a cruel thing to do to a person.
The response from the federal government to this made-up crisis is to deny due process rights to accused students, allowing simple accusations to destroy the lives of innocent students. Due process needs to be curtailed in this instance, activists say, because women would never lie about rape and the justice system has historically been dismissive of women’s accusations.
Except, women do lie about rape, and colleges are creating a system where false accusations won’t just flourish, but will be encouraged because they “start a dialogue.”
If we were really facing an epidemic, then it would be important for the American people, especially young college women, to know how the presidential candidates would solve the problem. Of course, this isn’t an epidemic, which is why the debate moderators aren’t asking about it even though it is constantly being discussed in the media.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
