"Do Some Feminist Professors Even Know What the Word 'Rape' Means?" asks the headline on David French's piece on a recent entry in Inside Higher Education.
The article in question was entitled "Surviving Rape Apologists in the Classroom." Penned by Anonymous,it reveals that the feminist professor almost can't distinguish being raped from reading a paper on rape with which she disagrees. As French notes, it is an essay "that truly has to be read to be believed."
The professor was teaching about the rape culture:
It was the middle of the semester, and we were covering rape culture. As any feminist instructor who has ever taught about rape culture probably knows, covering this topic is challenging for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes we encounter students who realize that they have been raped who come to office hours looking for resources. Other times, students learn that they have actually perpetrated rape and struggle to reconcile that with their images of themselves as “good people” and “not one of those (usually) guys.” And many feminist instructors, especially those who are women, know all too well what it is like to navigate the “mansplaining” of a few men students who would like to ardently deny that rape culture exists.
One male student opted to write a paper challenging the professor's view. It was a disaster from the get go:
He started by citing an example of a case he read in the news media in which a woman on a college campus raped a man and the institution responded poorly. However, I first felt a twinge in my spine when I looked up the source of his story and traced it back to a men’s rights advocacy group. “OK,” I thought to myself, “students use questionable sources all the time, often because they might not have the skills to distinguish objective journalism from something like an MRA group. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here and make a note of it for the next paper.”
But then the professor, apparently a rape survivor, read the paper and felt she was being raped all over again:
As I went over his paper, I realized that I was reading a paper that sounded word for word like something the man who raped me would say. And not only did this sound like something my rapist would say, this student fit the same demographic profile as him: white, college male, between the ages of 18 and 22.
. . .
I got up from my desk and went for a walk. I could not concentrate. I had plans to read a book later that afternoon, which were shattered by being thrown back into a pit of traumatic, fragmented memories by this student’s paper. I was furious at the fact that, as an instructor, I was expected to take his paper seriously, and scared of what he might do if he did not like his grade. Although I knew it was unlikely that this student would literally try to rape me, his words felt so familiar that I began having trouble distinguishing him from the man that did. Their words were so frighteningly similar that the rational-instructor side of my brain could not overpower the trauma-survivor side.
Let's hope Anonymous is receiving therapy.
But, as French points out, this article doesn't just show one professor's inability to distinguish reality from fantasy–it reveals a great deal about the rape culture that the Obama administration and feminists insist characterizes American college campuses. It also shows what happens when we define what was formerly regarded as a serious criminal act–rape–to be just about anything.
French observes:
[The professor is] claiming that thanks to feminist instruction, some students actually “realize” that they’ve been raped, while others “learn” that they’re rapists. This is extraordinary. Rape is not difficult to define — unless, of course you’re redefining it. And if she is describing people who “learn” that they’ve committed actual rape, why is she not calling the police? If she’s not calling the police, is she placing other women in danger?
After all, didn’t she just “learn” that a sexual predator is on the loose? Here’s a fundamental problem with campus “rape culture” arguments. On the one hand, campus feminists argue that colleges are in the grips of an extraordinary crime wave — with women at astounding risk of experiencing sexual violence. On the other hand, these same feminists will argue that it’s entirely fine if women choose to leave these crimes in the hands of campus tribunals – that people they believe to be actual criminals should receive academic discipline only, leaving them free to rape again. Do feminists want to take rape seriously?
Then they should define it according to the law and refer every single rape claim to law enforcement. But if they’re really talking about drunken hook-ups or radical new concepts of consent, then they should speak the language of morality and manners, not crime and punishment. Otherwise, they drain the word of its real meaning and contribute to the skepticism they so loudly condemn.
Anonymous' article also tells us a lot about what students get in the way of an education after shelling out large sums of money for it.