Sunday, May 07, 2006

The rape charge as weapon

By Cathy Young

The notorious case of alleged rape at Duke University has an explosive mix of elements: gender, race, class, and charges of sexual violence. Three members of the school's lacrosse team, privileged young white men, are accused of sexually assaulting a stripper who is African-American. The facts of the case remain murky. According to media reports, medical evidence seems to support the woman's claim of sexual assault, but no DNA match to any team members has been found, and two of the accused may have an alibi. The police report suggests that the woman was initially picked up when heavily intoxicated. The other exotic dancer who was on the scene initially disputed the alleged victim's claims but then changed her story somewhat, and apparently made inquiries about profiting from her role in the case.

In the current trial by media, charges of a rush to judgment abound. Women's advocates and many others claim that the alleged victim is being smeared as a slut by a sexist culture which holds that an ''unchaste" woman who is raped must have been ''asking for it." (Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh charmingly referred to charges that lacrosse team members had ''raped some hos.")

Meanwhile, some say that the quick assumption that the players are guilty reflects antimale prejudice. Writes columnist Kathleen Parker, ''Reaction to Duke's sad chapter is but the inevitable full flowering of the antimale seeds planted a generation ago. Thus, we need little prompting to assume that where there's a guy, there's a potential rapist."

Feminism has achieved real and important progress in the treatment of sexual assault victims. A couple of generations ago, a stripper at a party with athletes would have been viewed by many as fair game. That this is no longer the case surely makes us a more decent society. But even some people who applaud this change believe that in some cases, the pendulum has swung too far. Many feminists seem to think that in sexual assault cases the presumption of innocence should not apply. Appearing on the Fox News show ''The O'Reilly Factor," Monika Johnson-Hostler of the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault declared that her role was ''to support a woman or any victim that comes forward to say that they were sexually assaulted." To O'Reilly's question, ''Even if they weren't?" Johnson-Hostler replied, ''I can't say that I've come across one that wasn't." Feminist pundits discussing this case, such as Wendy Murphy of the New England School of Law, exude an overwhelming presumption of guilt.

In some cases, activists have even protested what they believe is excessive coverage of false accusations of rape and innocently accused men. False charges do exist. FBI statistics show that about 9 percent of rape reports are ''unfounded" -- dismissed without charges being filed. This usually happens when the accuser recants or when her story is not just unsupported but contradicted by evidence. Some studies, including one by pioneering date rape researcher Eugene Kanin, put the rate of false accusations at one in four or even higher.

The results can be devastating. In 1996, Los Angeles police officer Harris Scott Mintz was accused of rape by a woman in the neighborhood he patrolled, and then by his own wife as well. At a pretrial hearing, the judge pronounced that he had no doubt about Mintz's guilt. Then, his wife admitted that she made up the charge because she was angry at her husband for getting in trouble with the law; subsequently, Mintz's attorneys uncovered evidence that the first accuser had told an ex-roommate she had concocted the rape charge in order to sue the county and that she had tried a similar hoax before. By the time the case collapsed, Mintz had spent five months in jail.

To recognize that some women wrongly accuse men of rape is not antifemale, any more than recognizing that some men rape women is antimale. Is it so unreasonable to think that a uniquely damaging charge will be used by some people as a weapon, just as others will use their muscle? Do we really believe that when women have power -- and there is power in an accusation of rape -- they are less likely to abuse it than men? As Columbia University law professor George Fletcher has written, ''It is important to defend the interests of women as victims, but not to go so far as to accord women complaining of rape a presumption of honesty and objectivity." If that's the lesson of the Duke case, then some good will have come of it after all.

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FEMINISM EBBING AWAY

After years of holding America a virtual hostage, old-fashioned radical feminism appears to be just about dead. But don't take my word for it. No less a feminist authority than Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist who has never met a Bush-or Bush policy-that she's actually liked, has all but written feminism's obituary in her book, Are Men Necessary? Dowd notes that feminism "lasted for a nanosecond, but the backlash has lasted forty years."

I would take issue with that statement. Feminism has been thwarting America's growth and vitality for years-but, finally, a number of women are rejecting it for the silliness it is. Dowd writes, "It's the season of prim, stay-in-the-background First Lady Laura Bush, not assertive two-for-the-price-of-one First Lady Hillary. Where would you even lodge a feminist protest these days?"

The signs of the decay of feminism can be seen far beyond Pennsylvania Avenue. In cities across the U.S., women are chucking the corporate world and embracing Barney's world instead. They have found fulfillment where their grandmothers did-in the home, raising their children, offering love and support to their husbands. Many do not consider domestic work a drudgery-rather, they see it as a comforting alternative to the 24/7 career life.

But what has brought about this seismic shift in American life? Feminism may, in fact, be responsible. Young women have seen the fallout from feminism and, as a result, they want no part of it. Public opinion polls generally show that younger women flinch at the thought of being called "feminists." They may have been raised in the broken homes spawned by the nation's divorce culture, and they don't want their own children to suffer the fate that they did. In essence, they suffered parental loss early in their lives because their mothers were rarely home long enough to be a nurturing force. Instead of tugging on their mothers' apron strings, they were left to tug on the telephone cord that connected them to their working mothers' offices. They felt a distance from their mothers that no amount of therapy could adequately address.

In one noteworthy case, a poll commissioned by Faye Wattleton, former head of the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood, showed the generation gap which feminism caused. Wattleton asked women whether keeping abortion legal was a major concern, and they said "no." Years of Planned Parenthood's preaching about the alleged necessity of abortion-on-demand have failed to convince the younger generation, who realize that sisters, brothers, cousins, friends, and potential mates are missing because they were aborted by their misguided mothers. Younger women tend not to see abortion as a right-but rather as a profound wrong.

South Dakota's recent decision to ban virtually all abortions demonstrates that radical feminism's clarion call to kill the unborn is no longer being heeded. The U.S. Supreme Court-which has its share of pro-feminist holdovers-may still claim that abortion should be the law of the land, but elected representatives in South Dakota have proven that it doesn't have to be. Recent national public opinion polls also show quite clearly that Americans support legal abortion in only rare circumstances-in fact, most people believe it should be banned in 99 percent of all cases. Feminist icon Molly Yard, who was marching for abortion well into her golden years, must be turning over in her grave.

Young women simply don't relate to Eleanor Smeal, Gloria Steinem, and the other "founding mothers" of the modern feminist movement. They see such women as out-of-touch, angry, and unfulfilled. They admire women who can keep a household together under trying circumstances. They may have iPods and Blackberries, but they still believe in the value of hearth and home. And they definitely believe that men are necessary.

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The Food Police Go to the States

When we think about the men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to craft our Constitution, we usually picture the greatest men of their age, putting aside self interest and struggling to shape the blueprint of a nation. This is a worthy and honorable portrait and in many ways, an accurate one. But too often we forget that there were concrete events that provided the impetus for their gathering, and many related to commerce. The pre-Constitutional national government had proven completely inept when it came to managing affairs between the states, and merchants found it increasingly difficult to conduct business as a result of the myriad of often-conflicting state laws and regulations. Large states were able to impose their will on regions or even the whole country.

Today, we're starting to see a similar development in the world of food. Having failed to achieve any of their objectives at the federal level, food police groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest are turning to the states. And they're finding willing allies, especially in California, where trial lawyers and Attorney General Bill Lockyer have embraced their cause with gusto. Under a 1986 initiative called Prop 65, companies doing business in California must put warning labels on products that MIGHT contain a chemical that the state thinks COULD be a carcinogen or reproductive toxin. The fact that the chemical has been shown to be safe to humans in laboratory tests is irrelevant. So are the health benefits of the food or drink that must carry the label.

The list of "dangerous chemicals" contains more than 1,000 substances. And until recently, California assigned new chemicals to the list not by the scientific method but by lottery. Each chemical was assigned a number, which was then matched against that day's drawing in the California lottery. When a chemical's number came up, it magically became "dangerous."

Once a chemical makes it on the list, the trial lawyers take over. They can sue any company they suspect has a listed chemical in one their products. The companies almost always settle, and the trial lawyers cash big checks. The more important impact, however, is that these settlements, no matter how frivolous the complaint, force the companies to go back and reformulate their products - not just for California, but for the whole country. And if California ever forced a company to put a warning label on a product, the same warning label would have to be added to the product nationwide. Otherwise, the company would face lawsuits from trial lawyers in all fifty states.

Unfortunately, California isn't alone. The New Mexico legislature is currently considering a bill that would require warning labels for products containing aspartame, or ban it outright. Aspartame, of course, is the primary sweetener in diet soft drinks and a range of other beverages. New Mexico's campaign against aspartame comes in spite of a recent announcement from a federal panel of experts that the substance is perfectly safe. Needless to say, it also ignores consumers who enjoy diet soda and choose it as a healthier alternative to high-sugar, high-calorie drinks.

No single state should be able to impose its will on the whole country - especially California and New Mexico, states that are famously out of step. Fortunately, there's a bill before Congress to restore sanity and stop the food police and the trial lawyers in their tracks. It would do for food warning labels what's already been done for nutrition labels, agricultural products and the like - establish one clear, national standard and preempt state laws like Proposition 65. It's called the Uniformity for Food Act, and it recently passed the House. Now it's waiting for Senate action. Here's hoping they get busy. Otherwise, it won't be long before food packages have more disclaimers than drug commercials.

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