Is feminism running rampant on university campuses?

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I've linked a video of Janice Fiamengo, a University of Ottawa professor who is currently touring the circuit. She came to my town the other week and a feminist group tried to have the talk cancelled:

Men’s group contested - Queen's Journal

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFy0HMxsn4I[/youtube]

I think she brings up some good points. But I'm truly undecided on this issue. The one thing that is apparent is that the debate is heated.

Bunch of disrespectful brats.

If someone thinks that there is something wrong with women's studies, then it seems to me that the correct way to proceed is to look at the syllabus, and read the set material. Then, when you know what you're talking about, proceed with the understanding that we live in a pluralist society.

Last edited by Stannis on 03 Apr 2014, 6:34 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I suppose what I am undecided about is this "rape culture/rape culture myth" business. Fiamengo suggests that the amount of actual male sexual assault of women is not as great as is generally stated. She says men are often falsely accused and suffer physical attacks which are disregarded.
I can kind of see it both ways. Men are all "feeling the love" and women are all "look at me, I'm sexy" (Of course I"m completely generalizing here and expect to hear about it but;) you can see how it would be a recipe for disaster.

And then there's alcohol.

(I'm not sure if it's relevant but when I was in university I lived at home and hid in my childhood bedroom, so no parties, etc. for me.)

But I think men are made vulnerable by their intense desire at the age; or have I got that wrong?

Do you study women's studies? I was exposed to it a bit years ago, but I never got the syllabus.

False accusations are supposed to be relatively rare (I've heard about 2%, but that could be well off), but obviously they're no small matter.

Men do suffer more violent crime than women. That's often overlooked because it isn't rape. Also, college/university students tend to be the most politically passionate (if not active) people in society. If, as it seems, students are disproportionately likely to rape each other, then I guess it's more of an issue for those loud voices.

Then, finally, the "real" rape rate. "1 in 4" is a misrepresentation. That's the lifetime rate determined by a flawed poll (it counted sex that, in hindsight, you regret, as rape), and even that actually "only" found a little less than 1 in 5. The low rate presented in the video (iirc, 50 in 100,000) is also a poor estimate, probably, as it comes from asking people just if they have ever been the victim of rape. It doesn't define rape, so it depends on the victim's identification.

The "lifetime" rate of rape seems to be about 1 in 6 women. Annually, high estimates put it as 1 in 20. Come say about 1 in 30. Low ones at 2.86/100,000.

You seem to have led a sheltered life and didn't see all of the "colors in the light spectrum" when it comes to men. We may have hormones but we aren't just "vulnerable to intense desire". For many of us the desire was there but not even that intense.

Yes and no . . . I have a total absence of male family (absent father, no brothers.) So my sole experience is with men I have dated and I'm sure this skews my judgement.
And I always have trouble seeing the colours, not just with men.

Such a tricky thing to quantify . . . when you factor in non-reporting, false-reporting, differing definitions, feelings of guilt.

But not wanting the Men's Issues group to have a voice especially in an academic environment seems disingenuous. I really don't think that speaking about these issues will affect crime rates.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbjrocMgwpI[/youtube]Gender studies when ran by radical feminists.

Sadly the dating experience makes many people jaded about others because they weren't exactly looking for companionship in the best environment.

I was bored so I watched the video.

Anyway, I'm a man but I tend to side with women on most issues (have had bad experiences with men). I give this speaker a little more credit than usual since she is female.

I've heard that rape is underreported so her numbers are probably off base (wherever she got that number). While rape occurs against men I think it is safe to say that it is more of a problem for women, so I'm not really inclined to speak about it much.

Not sure what her point was. In some areas, men get treated more harshly, in other areas, women get treated more harshly.

One thing I hate is the expression "be a man." It's sexist, but that's another issue.

I think our society tends to reward manly men more than passive men. The ironic thing is some radical feminists paradoxically hold this view as well.

Why don't we just do away with feminism and treat each other equally? But feminism is there for a purpose. It's there as a reaction to oppression. I think the speaker is completely nuts for denying a reaction that is understandable. One of these yaars, feminism won't exist, but for now, until we become more civilized, it's here to stay. Plain and simple.

Exactly. Companies make more profit when they quietly pay their female employees less. GM promoted a woman to the head of the company just in time to take the fall for a manufacturing error that killed/injured a lot of people, which they tried to cover up. The bottom line is that when there are profits to be made by unjustly depriving a group of something, it's in that group's best interest to organize a resistance of some kind.

Socialised and affected hyper-masculinity, and illegitimate social hierarchies seem to be major areas of concern for aspies on these boards. Germaine Greer has written in depth about these topics.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvRZXj3TFNY[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-1eFXPszFs[/youtube]

I really like what she has to say, thanks Stannis.

Especially about "shared transgression" and it's use in male bonding. And also about how the involvement of women in the activities of society will change society for the better.

When some people try to speak their mind and other people harass and molest them, this is not a heated debate. This is not even a debate. This is just aggression.



Everything depends on how you interpret data. For example, false accusations are said to be relatively rare (around 2%) since this is the percentage of accusations that are proven false. If we used this same interpretation to establish the percentage of true rape accusations (to be proved), the result would be that only a 2%-3% of them are true.

Interestingly, this low ratio of convictions in rape is used as a "proof" of rape convictions being biased. In the case of false rape allegations, its low ratio, even though they don't involve conviction since it's not considered a crime and even though they're not investigated per se, is not considered a proof of bias but a "proof" of false rape allegations being rare. Ah, social sciences academy and numbers...



Those statistics are often very personal interpretations of data. Of course, original data and its further interpretations are rarely provided. For example, a common statistics about rape in lifetime (perhaps this one, who knows?) interprets that every woman who answers 'yes' to "have you ever had sex without desiring it?" have been raped. According to this question I would have been raped myself, since I have had sex with a partner who wanted it, even though I was not in the mood.