Last week, The Reflector published the often repeated statistic that 1-in-5 women are raped in college. The statistic was located in a graphic that cited the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This statistic is shocking, and has been touted by sources ranging from The Reflector to the President of the United States. That this graphic failed to cite is where this statistic originates, and I feel the need to correct the record.
The infamous 1-in-5 statistic comes from a 2007 Campus Sexual Assault study conducted by the National Institute of Justice. Writers for TIME magazine, Christopher Krebs and Christine Lindquist, directors of the 2007 survey wrote, “It’s likely you’ve heard some variation of the claim that 1 in 5 women on college campuses in the United States has been sexually assaulted or raped. Or you may have heard the even more incorrect abbreviated version, that 1 in 5 women on campus has been raped.”
The Reflector ran the latter “even more incorrect abbreviated version.” The important distinction here is this survey’s wording includes “forced kissing and rubbing up against you in a sexual way, even if it is over your clothes.” These actions could be constituted as sexual battery, but do not equate to rape. Of course, this remains an unacceptable behavior, but it is also irresponsible to categorize this as rape. And this is not semantics. In discussions as sensitive as sexual violence, language and word choice matters.Krebs and Lindquist go on to say, “First and foremost, the 1-in-5 statistic is not a nationally representative estimate of the prevalence of sexual assault.” This is because the web-survey had a low response rate and was only conducted at two universities. Each of the 5,446 participants received a $10 Amazon gift card. In summary, we have the directors of the survey that The Reflector cited directly refuting what the graphic claimed.
At any rate, this statistic is regurgitated primarily by those who attempt to drive the narrative that we live in a rape culture whose society preys on young female college students with no regard for any sense of morality. Fortunately, for those interested in the truth and for the modern female college student, there has been a far more representative study completed. In December 2014, the Department of Justice entitled Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females (1995-2013),states, “The rate of rape for students is 6.1 per 1,000.” This becomes 0.03 in 5, not 1 in 5. It is unsettling that this number is anything higher than zero, but the pursuit for justice should not be underwritten by wildly misleading and inaccurate statistics and certainly does not merit the society in which we live to be labeled as a “rape culture.”
The Reflector also referenced an incident at the Coachella music festival in which a man wore a t-shirt with the phrase “Eat, Sleep, Rape, Repeat” printed from top to bottom. The article read, “Don’t get me wrong, the massive disgust shown for this man’s attire gives me hope that not all people are comfortable with blatant acts of stupidity, but this just shows just how submerged we as the human race are in a rape culture.” I agree that wearing this shirt is stupid, but I’m not ready to cede this as evidence that we are steeped in a culture of rape acceptance because a single moronic, attention depraved loser decided to wear a shirt to a concert where all he wanted was attention created from the backlash. It is a step down the slippery slope to blame a collective group for an individual act. Even in this scenario, the article concludes the backlash against such a moronic shirt was far greater than the non-existent support.
The article continues, “We need to say no to victim blaming and the loose use of the word rape.” Here I agree wholeheartedly. This is why I totally object to the notion that “1-in-5 women are raped in college.” It recklessly drives a false narrative that contributes to the national mass hysteria on college campuses where due process is becoming a luxury and not an absolute right. This hysteria leads to chaos, confusion and mob justice. For example, google “University of Virginia and Rolling Stone.”
The conversation needs to shift away from bogus statistics and move towards the importance of reporting heinous crimes to police and prosecutors. The same study conducted by the Department of Justice concluded, “Rape and sexual assault victimizations of students (80 percent) were more likely than non-student victimizations (67 percent) to go unreported to police.”
It is important to note the distinction between unreported cases and cases that are unreported to the police. There is a difference between a report to a campus official and one to a policeman and prosecutor. Victims of sexual violence deserve the full range of law enforcement capabilities on their side when facing their assailant, and it is monumentally difficult for the perpetrators of these horrific crimes to be prosecuted when there is no corroborating police report. The victims of sexual violence deserve to have a targeted, refocused conversation.
