For a view of the Mac Donald article that dissents from the Lettre post,
check out my blog post- http://dankprofessor.wordpress.c...-relationships/
And for a critique of the Lettre post, check out-
http://dankprofessor.wordpress.c...-rape-rhetoric/
I am appalled that this piece of right-wing propaganda made it into the LA Times in the first place. The response,written by SAFER's Nora Niedzielski-Eichner, does an excellent job at exposing how the tired rape denialism argument has been repackaged over and over again by the same set of "culture war"-fueling right-wing institutions and, specifically, MacDonald's connections to these institutions.
Not only is this denialism argument old and discredited, it is part of a larger effort by right-wing organizations such as the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the Independent Women's Forum to delegitimize and combat feminist successes on campuses nationwide, particularly the rise of women's/gender studies departments, rape crisis centers, and other anti-violence programming. This is a longstanding strategy bankrolled by the top right-wing foundations (Scaife, Olin and Bradley, among others) and implemented, in large part, through a great deal of media savvy and a suspect ability to place even the most discredited propaganda in the pages of respected news publications.
Even the most minor of fact-checking endeavors would reveal MacDonald’s op-ed as not only dated, unoriginal and a complete rehash of numerous past efforts bankrolled by the same institutions, but also one that has been torn apart time and time again in a wide variety of forums. The Times owes its readers an explanation of how it is that think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute, with their old, discredited propaganda, have such access to their op-ed pages.
Check out the united bloggers’ responsesto this disgusting distortion.
What crap! Everyone in the sexual encounter bears responsibility; the drunk girl and the overeager frat boy. This is akin to dancing in the minefield and then crying when the bombs go off. You knew it was a minefield when you walked into it. You knew what could happen.
I'm no right-wing crank who thinks women should still be barefoot and pregnant or that their place is in the kitchen (or wherever the man tells them); I'm the father of a wonderful daughter who was brought up to be her own person and to demand that others respect her. Not to be the victim and to let her entire being be defined by what others might do to her.
She was taught that if she was asked to do something she wasn't comfortable with, to say no, and mean it. If she was indeed raped, to report it in the loudest and most immediate means possible. To me, her mother, the police, anyone. And if she didn't get satisfaction, yell even louder. But she was also taught to be responsible. That the care of her body and her person were ultimately her responsibility. Not to put herself in situations that might get out of hand. And to try to recognize those situations as quickly as possible.
Saying this does not absolve the frat boys of their egregious conduct. But if you stand on the train tracks, the train will eventually come by.
By equating every sexual pecadillo with rape, you diminish actual rapes and their victims. By putting both the enebriated soroity girl at a frat party and the working mother coming home from her job at 3:00 am on the bus in the same category, you diminish both. Every man who desires sex with a woman is not a rapist and every woman who consumes 6 Long Island ice teas and then heads for fraternity row is not blameless.
If you hold women blameless in every situation, then you rob them of their right to be called responsible adults. Equality for women means they get to make the same bad choices as we've always made; and live with the consequences.
I don't know if Ms. Mac Donald is funded by Bush or Hillary. And I really don't care. I do know she has rasied some valid points about personal conduct, which is what this discussion SHOULD be about.
Victimhood is really a waste of time and a dead end. As my daughter has said, "It's time for someone to put on their big girl panties.".
TomH
Thank God the recession is here.
We can finally move onto more substantive issues, like the systematic rape of working and middle class folks by dirty old Wall Street tycoons.
Truly the longest running, most abominable gang rape of all time
and continuing at this very moment.
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