Walk A Mile In Her Shoes

, Deborah Lambert, Leave a comment

Spring had barely sprung on the campus of Mississippi State University this year when some 400 pairs of high heels were heard clicking around the campus, according to mensactivism.org. They belonged to Mississippi State men, who were pressured to walk around campus wearing high heels as part of a rape awareness event, “funded by a $300,000 grant to the university under the Violence against Women Act.”

Fortunately, there were only four rapes on this campus from 2005 to 2010 – hardly an epidemic. Nevertheless, the grant money was used to flood the campus with preventive education information. In the campus bathrooms, for example, were flyers bearing the message that: “One in four women will be raped in their lifetime,” a much-repeated statistic of doubtful authenticity.

The annual routine of the men clickety clacking around in high heels for Rape Awareness Week is not unique to Mississippi State. It is replicated on campuses every spring from Hawaii to Wisconsin.

At Mississippi State, attendance at the event is practically mandatory. “The campus Intra Fraternity Council issued a Standards Requirement mandating at least 80% participation. Non-participants face revocation of their individual privileges and possible termination of their fraternity’s charter.”

It turns out that Rape Awareness Week is part of a massive national re-education program, which broadcasts the claim that “women are more likely to be victims of non-lethal partner violence than men.”  This contradicts the latest CDC figures, which showed “a 6.5% male victimization rate compared to 6.3% for women.”

At least one courageous blogger at falserapesociety.com strays from the politically correct mantra on rape and gets to the heart of the problem, noting that “If we want to curb sexual assault, we need to teach our young people the truth, but the truth doesn’t jibe with the current narrative that holds only one gender responsible for stopping it.”

“We need to teach both young men and young women that the alcohol-fueled hook-up culture is a disaster for too many young people,” she continues. “Unfortunately, the prevailing feminist mantra is for young women to ‘party like the guys,’ without bothering to go any further.”

However, the fact is that women experience much greater after-the-fact regret than men do. “Sometimes feelings of regret are translated into feelings of ‘being used,’ and sometimes feelings of ‘being used’ are misinterpreted or purposefully misconstrued as ‘rape.’”

 

 

Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.

If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.