It’s shocking what college men will confess to.
The University of North Dakota researchers asked 73 men if they would force a woman to have sex with them if there was no chance of being punished, and 31.7 percent said they would. When the researchers asked if the man being questioned would "rape" a woman if there were no consequences, however, 13.6 percent said they would.
Hmm. UND has about 15,000 students; if half are men, that means there are about a thousand amoral assholes wandering about who’d like to rape someone, and about 2400 who are willing to rape as long as it isn’t called rape. Anyone want to claim there is no such thing as a rape culture here?
The lesson is that you should send your daughters to the University of Minnesota, because I’m sure our students are not at all like those Dakotans. There’s a border and everything.
Yeah, but it’s ok because it’s not rape unless you’re wearing a hat that declares you as a rapist. All this “force someone to have sex with you” stuff is just redefining rape so as to demonise all men everywhere.
On a less using-humour-to-deflect-from-having-to-face-horrible-information note, it’s worth pointing out that 73 people is a very low sample, and they could’ve just found a disproportionately rapey section of the student body to interview… or a disproportionately unrapey section… oh hell. If it’s disproportionate either way, let’s hope it’s the former.
This is where I think a previous conversation about teaching consent comes in.
Not just making sure that boys and men know what consent LOOKS like, but also that they’re conditioned to look FOR it, and to value it.
The various examples of child soldiers around the world come to mind (as well as some religious extremists) – if you raise someone with a twisted value system, odds are their values will stay twisted unless a lot of effort is put into changing that.
And our society seems to reinforce that twisting more than it works to undo it.
As appalling as this is, there have been past studies which put the figure higher. From memory, there was a 1986 UCLA study in which 50% of the guys admitted they would force a woman to have sex; I don’t remember the figure where they called it rape, but it too was higher than 13.6%. So maybe there has been progress… or maybe the sample size is too small, and things are actually worse.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not. If men ever wonder why women don’t automatically trust them, just show them this.
Also:
I really hope that’s just how the reporter worded this, and that it’s not like that in the original. Rape always has consequences. Just because they fall mostly on the victim, let’s not erase them!
True, but at the very least it means there are literally 23 men on the UND campus who are willing to tell a stranger that they would force a woman to have sex, and 10 men who are willing to tell a stranger that, under “ideal” circumstances, they would be rapists. That is plenty disturbing on its own.
So half the men in this study admit to being evil, demented, and pathetic potential rapists, the only thing deterring them being the reasonable consequences visited upon them for their actions.
PossiblyProbably this percentage is representative (or pretty damn close) of the attitude of the male population as a whole. Appalling and disheartening, words fail.That is disheartening. It now makes me wonder what percentage of the population would do other horrible things if they thought there were no consequences to themselves for it – like how many would take an opportunity to kill someone if they could get away with it? Or torture someone?
The older I get, the more horrible people seem to prove themselves to be.
I’m curious to know what would be the response if they were asked about theft and murder.
A lot of our collective behavior is civil because there are consequences. Empathy seems to be just one part of our morality.
It’s a shame some people lack empathy, but at least the society has other means of protect itself.
It’s disturbing to contemplate just how many people are wired or conditioned to become aroused at the pain and suffering of others. I can’t force myself into that mindset, and trying to do so is genuinely upsetting.
Personally, even a hint that my prospective partner was unwilling would deflate my libido faster than a broken balloon. Consent, on the other hand, is very sexy (“Yes, yes, YES!”).
Well, from 0.5% to 1.5% of the population meet criteria for psychopathy, so that’s probably a good baseline.
And given that, I think it is disheartening that willingness to commit sexual violence seems to be so much higher. That suggests that it is not just psychopaths who are responding in this fashion.
This follows and confirms Lisak and Miller, which has been referenced and cited here so many times, I lost count years ago.
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/predator-redux/
@tulse, 6
Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way saying that this isn’t disturbing, nor, for the record, am I suggesting that the numbers oversell the problem (if anything, what I remember from other studies suggests it might be worse (though… this is based on memory, with no citation… so take it with a grain of salt)). I just don’t want to run out into the wider world with a 73 person study and say, “see?!” because that won’t go well.
But, yeah, the fact that we live in a world where people are willing to explicitly admit that they would do it if they could get away with it is particularly disturbing, and suggests that those who are so inclined actually do feel supported by their peers (I can’t imagine anyone being willing to admit to that if they weren’t confident that they had that support, even if they’re only technically admitting to a hypothetical willingness) which seems to be pretty much exactly the definition of rape culture.
What stands out to me is the stark discrepancy in the results depending on whether or not the word “rape” is used. Regardless of the actual proportions, we can divide up men into three categories. The A category is for the people who answered “no” to both questions. The B category is for the people who answered “no” only when the word “rape” was used. The C category is for people who answered “yes” to both. I think it’s probably possible to move men from the B category into the A category by educating them about consent and rape myths. By expanding the sphere of what these men think of as “rape”, we push them more and more toward the A category.
I have no idea how to push people out of the C category, but we can better deter those people by increasing the probability that rape will be punished.
I hope that’s true. Then again, that’s pretty much the intent of “No means no” campaigns, and I don’t know how successful they have been.
@drewvogel, 14
At the very least, if educating members of the B category about the nature and importance of consent converts them to category A, then cat C members won’t have cat B to hide behind. They won’t have the abundance of apologists ready to argue that “it’s not rape when…” or that “everyone would, given the opportunity and the balls,” and they’ll have very little support in society as a whole. Hopefully that alone would be enough to reduce the number of them willing to actually follow through on their desires, even if there’s no way to stop them having them.
That’s depressing. My Grandfather has an aviation scholarship named after him at UND. My grandmother is very well known in Grand Forks, ND and that particular area. I briefly considered going to University there… but … North Dakota.
It’s a low sample size, but disturbing enough that it merits doing the survey again with a much larger survey group to see how it holds out. If it’s still there after measuring a sample size of, say, 500 students . . . Jesus.
I guess if there’s any silver lining in this, it’s that educating men about what rape is seems to have results, if so many of them refuse to do rape stuff once they realize it’s rape.
Y’know, I’m not so worried about the sample size (73 is well above the threshold that will give you valid results) as I am about the sampling methodology.
If there’s serious sampling bias, even n=5000 won’t tell you anything about anyone other than the 5000.
So, let’s ask those same guys these questions:
1) Would it be okay if another guy forcibly had sex with your (sister, mom, other close female), knowing the perpetrator would face no consequences?
2) Would it be okay if another guy (including the female’s SO) “r–ed” your (sister, mom, other close female), knowing the perpetrator would face no consequences?
3) Would it be okay if a stranger (of the opposite gender to your sexual preference) forcibly had sex with you, knowing that person would face no consequences?
4) Would it be okay if a stranger (of the opposite gender to your sexual preference) “r–ed” you, knowing that person would face no consequences?
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Here’s the study itself. Standard WEIRD disclaimer should apply to it as it looks to be a standard survey of psychology undergrads for course credit. Surprisingly, the paper doesn’t cite the Lisak and Miller study.
The actual questions used were a subset of the the Attraction to Sexual Agression scale. Specifically, respondents were asked:
Respondents answered on a 5 point scale, with 1 being not at all likely and 5 being very likely. The researchers appear to have categorized anyone responding from 2 to 5 as having expressed “intentions to” either “force a women to sexual intercourse” or “rape a woman.” (See table 1)
Usernames! @ 20
No. Let’s not ask those questions. We should not base the worth of women on whether or not they have some sort of connection to men.
You can ask those sort of questions to women as well, with regards to racism. Not that I think my white aunts were all that racist, but I could have asked them what they thought about me, my sister and my mom if they showed racist attitudes.
If we assume 7500 men, then about 350-375 would be the correct sample size for a 95 percent confidence level , with a plus or minus five confidence interval. Still…even at 73 sampled, you get a confidence level of 80-90 percent, plus or minus confidence interval at about 10.
Once you get past about 40 samples with a population of 7500, you can say some stuff that holds water. There are a lot more creeps on campus, guaranteed, that’s what I’m sayin’.
These studies are a dime a dozen, to the point that they’ve stopped mentioning the questions they ask. They even have meta-studies on the subject.
…. huh, that could explain a few things.
In related news:
@marilove 23
I think the value in asking those questions is that it forces those people (the B and C classes) to consider that everyone is someone’s child, sibling, etc. It hopefully brings home the horror of those acts to the people that even considered them. It should also bring into focus to them that forcing sex IS rape. It should be part of a broader discussion though. Would you do X if there were no consequences (to you)? Would it be right for someone to do X to (you, your parent, child, sibling, etc) if there would be no consequences (to them)? Why did you have two different answers? Why is it ok for you to do X, but not ok for someone to do X to you? etc
I’m sure many of you have seen this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-ayQYe6oQ
Indeed the video is problematic in some ways as the girl is being objectified. Also it is not very scientific. However, despite this the makers of the video were trying to emphasize that little boys don’t want to hurt girls. To me it underscores that violence against women is not innate and UND rape culture stats are a manifestation of learned behaviors. So EPers, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I think we’re missing an important point. The questions posited that nobody would catch them and punish them, but we all know that God is always watching and will punish you in the afterlife, so that will stop all those rapists, right?
Grewgills #28,
I understand that the intent of those questions is well meaning, but they do contribute to rape culture. The problem with asking questions like “What if it happened to your mother/sister/daughter” is that it doesn’t promote empathizing with the actual victim at all. We don’t encourage men to see why rape is wrong because of what it does to the victim and how the victim’s rights are violated. We encourage them to empathize with their male relatives — as if they are the real victims because their property is damaged. It’s why men will enjoy watching movies like Taken, which look at sexual trafficking through the perspective of an enraged father, rather than spending 30 seconds trying to think about sexual trafficking from the perspective of people who are in sexual slavery.
This lack of empathy for actual rape victims is a huge part of rape culture. It’s why survivors get treated like shit. What happens to them doesn’t matter unless their male relative gets to be territorial and upset about it. The experiences of survivors are completely erased when we frame the discussion from the perspective of male relatives.
@Toska
Most people empathize with and generally care about the feelings of (if not understand the feelings of) close family members and friends more than the public at large. The point in pushing those questions as part of a larger conversation is that it forces them consider those actions being taken against someone who they do empathize with or at least care about the feelings of. The reason most people would get mad about something happening to a close relative is that they care about the feelings of that person. I understand that some people are so far gone that they can only understand those questions in terms of someone did X to someone that is mine, but those people are so far gone that we’re better off removing them from society at large anyway.
When talking to males and trying to get them to empathize more then part of the discussion has to be from the male perspective if one wants to get through to them. Discussing it in terms of their relatives might provoke anger, but the discussion should then continue by examining why they are angry and move from there.
We certainly hope not. Numbers don’t lie, and these numbers are frightening.
When UVA realized they had a gang-rape epidemic on their hands, they shut down all frats. And rightly so. At what point will this country wake up and realize the whole entire college and university system is in the midst of rape and sexual assault epidemic? 20% of women being victimized, 30% of men being willing to rape?! How high do the stats need to climb before real reform happens?
Grewgills
1. empathizing with the male perspective is part of the problem, called toxic masculinity. They aren’t empathizing with the victims (including men) and still aren’t. They are male victims they could empathize with but no, it’s always “you have to see it from the male perspective and work from the frame that women are property and men are men”
2. You are not the first to bring this up and it.never.works. There’s always an exception for their property because they own good girls who don’t lie, not like those other bitches they hit it and quit it. Like women and abortions, the only moral abortion is their own and the only immoral rape is against them. Because their men and must protect their property, failure to do so is failing to be a man.
3. Even if, your strategy works, you’re propping up other parts of rape culture and toxic masculinity, so when we tear those down, they’d have to be re-taught again. Why not start with women and rape victims are people so empathize with them and it’s not all about the menz? That’s kind of HUGE to feminism and social justice issues.
4. You are re-framing an issue to benefit the oppressors, supporting the status quo and erasing the oppressed. How many times have we seen men come here using their women as shields and battering rams? “These rape stats are wrong, I’ve never known any rape victims and would never let it happen because she knows better than these sluts?”, “If this ever happened, I’d kill the bastard. Problem solved! Someone’s either lying or not doing their job.” and of course “My wife/gf has been raped (usually by an ex or as a child, IME) and she agrees with me, so there!” You are using women in their lives as props and tools, which is part of the problem. Because you’re continuing their line of thinking instead of challenging it and you’re harming those you’re claiming to help. Sound familiar? Perhaps it’s time to take a timeout and think about that?
Also, there’s a reason why women don’t tell people in their lives they’ve been raped, and the reactions and beliefs of those people is a big part of that problem. You’re being so overly generous to men, it’s ignorant.
Again, you are not the first to bring this up and there’s several illuminating threads on the issue that I’m trying to dig up now. I’ve never seen “Whatabout your mom/sister/SO” line of questioning work, but have seen the pushback against that line of thinking work. One thread I’m thinking of has scores of responses from men about what changed their minds.
Grewgills
1. empathizing with the male perspective is part of the problem, called toxic masculinity. They aren’t empathizing with the victims (including men) and still aren’t. They are male victims they could empathize with but no, it’s always “you have to see it from the male perspective and work from the frame that women are property and men are men”
2. You are not the first to bring this up and it.never.works. There’s always an exception for their property because they own good girls who don’t lie, not like those other b**ches they hit it and quit it. Like women and abortions, the only moral abortion is their own and the only immoral rape is against them. Because their men and must protect their property, failure to do so is failing to be a man.
3. Even if, your strategy works, you’re propping up other parts of rape culture and toxic masculinity, so when we tear those down, they’d have to be re-taught again. Why not start with women and rape victims are people so empathize with them and it’s not all about the menz? That’s kind of HUGE to feminism and social justice issues.
4. You are re-framing an issue to benefit the oppressors, supporting the status quo and erasing the oppressed. How many times have we seen men come here using their women as shields and battering rams? “These rape stats are wrong, I’ve never known any rape victims and would never let it happen because she knows better than these sluts?”, “If this ever happened, I’d kill the bastard. Problem solved! Someone’s either lying or not doing their job.” and of course “My wife/gf has been raped (usually by an ex or as a child, IME) and she agrees with me, so there!” You are using women in their lives as props and tools, which is part of the problem. Because you’re continuing their line of thinking instead of challenging it and you’re harming those you’re claiming to help. Sound familiar? Perhaps it’s time to take a timeout and think about that?
Also, there’s a reason why women don’t tell people in their lives they’ve been raped, and the reactions and beliefs of those people is a big part of that problem. You’re being so overly generous to men, it’s ignorant.
Again, you are not the first to bring this up and there’s several illuminating threads on the issue that I’m trying to dig up now. I’ve never seen “Whatabout your mom/sister/SO” line of questioning work, but have seen the pushback against that line of thinking work. One thread I’m thinking of has scores of responses from men about what changed their minds.
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(Sorry, PZ about the first attempt, I keep forgetting I need asterisks now. I’ll get it right next, promise. If I’m too slow or it gets approved, sorry everyone about the double post.)