Today was a huge day on Reddit.

Last night, a new Reddit Moderator had an extensive conversation with Shit Reddit Says members. Both on the thread announcing his new job, and over at the SRS Busines subreddit.

I woke up this morning to find that ViolentAcrez, creator of /r/jailbait and moderator of /r/CreepShots deleted his account. There is a rumor that this is because Gawker media is or was planning to write a story about him.

Around lunchtime (Eastern Standard Lunchtime) /r/Creepshots suddenly went private. There are claims that this happened because the subreddit’s creator “CreeperComforts” was coerced into doing so. I really don’t know what to make of this statement. It’s possible that it is exactly what it appears to be, or it could be a false flag attack.

Later in the afternoon, Jezebel published an article detailing the work of an anonymous women who is releasing personal information about men who posted to /r/creepshots. The website is a Tumblr called “Predditors.”

Then, sometime after I ate dinner and watched an episode of Doctor Who, /r/Creepshots was banned.

This doesn’t mean that Project Panda/Reddit Bomb is over. Reddit has not changed its policy to ban creepshots, and subreddits encouraging violence against women still exist. Already, many subreddits for creepshots have popped up and are filling up with posts and members.

The reason I’m a part of this project is because creep shots support rape culture. The men who are doing this say that there is nothing wrong with what they do, because if the woman is over 18, and they are not photographing her underwear, they are not breaking any laws. Furthermore, the argument goes, if a woman is out in public she should expect it.

It would be ridiculous to object to men looking at women, and I would never suggest it! I wouldn’t even object to men looking at pictures of beautiful sexy women on the internet! There’s dozens of places even on reddit itself where people post naked pictures of themselves for the whole world to admire. Go forth, and enjoy yourselves!

But, say the creepers,

“Creepshots are CANDID. If a person is posing for and/or aware that a picture is being taken, then it ceases to be candid and thus is no longer a creepshot. A creepshot captures the natural, raw sexiness of the subject without their vain attempts at putting on a show for the camera. That is the essence of the creepshot, that is what makes a true creepshot worth the effort and that is why this subreddit exists.

Actual text on now defunct /r/CreepShots sidebar.

To them, a woman’s consent is not wanted. Her participation spoils their fun. The entire creepshots mindset is the idea that a woman’s will means nothing, and that her body can and should be enjoyed without it. That’s rape culture. And that’s why I moderate /r/RedditBomb.

Update: This post has been edited since it was published. The “Predditors” Tumblr has been deleted.

Update 2: The Predditor Tumblr has been reinstated.

Update 3: A bunch of the creepshots subreddits have been shut down, but others still remain. Additionally, PIMA, who was a moderator of creepshots has been banned.

Update 4: Adrian Chen has published his piece revealing the identity of Violent Acrez.

If you use Reddit, you might have seen me around “Shit Reddit Says” and the related subreddits, which we sometimes call “The Fempire.” SRS is a community of people dedicated to social justice, and the main way we do this is by calling out racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, transphobic, classist, and otherwise generally shitty upvoted content on Reddit. The main subreddit is a place to both call attention to these comments and for people to mock them. SRS has its own sense of humor with lots of hyperbole and inside jokes about dildos and Lady Gaga, but it’s easy to catch on. Serious discussion takes place in the other forums.

In the past, presumably in response the users of SRS and others (notably Anderson Cooper) Reddit has shut down /r/jailbait, a subreddit where people traded sexually suggestive pictures of teenage girls, and has articulated a “necessary change in policy” which states:

At reddit we care deeply about not imposing ours or anyone elses’ opinions on how people use the reddit platform. We are adamant about not limiting the ability to use the reddit platform even when we do not ourselves agree with or condone a specific use. We have very few rules here on reddit; no spamming, no cheating, no personal info, nothing illegal, and no interfering the site’s functions. Today we are adding another rule: No suggestive or sexual content featuring minors.

In the past, we have always dealt with content that might be child pornography along strict legal lines. We follow legal guidelines and reporting procedures outlined by NCMEC. We have taken all reports of illegal content seriously, and when warranted we made reports directly to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who works directly with the FBI. When a situation is reported to us where a child might be abused or in danger, we make that report. Beyond these clear cut cases, there is a huge area of legally grey content, and our previous policy to deal with it on a case by case basis has become unsustainable. We have changed our policy because interpreting the vague and debated legal guidelines on a case by case basis has become a massive distraction and risks reddit being pulled in to legal quagmire.

As of today, we have banned all subreddits that focus on sexualization of children. Our goal is to be fair and consistent, so if you find a subreddit we may have missed, please message the admins. If you find specific content that meets this definition please message the moderators of the subreddit, and the admins.

We understand that this might make some of you worried about the slippery slope from banning one specific type of content to banning other types of content. We’re concerned about that too, and do not make this policy change lightly or without careful deliberation. We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal. However, child pornography is a toxic and unique case for Internet communities, and we’re protecting reddit’s ability to operate by removing this threat. We remain committed to protecting reddit as an open platform.

However, much of this content still remains. There’s /r/creepshots, a forum where men post pictures focusing on women’s private areas that were taken in public, without the woman knowing. Some of these women appear to be underage. In addition, subreddits like /r/beatingwomen and /r/rapingwomen celebrate violence against women.

Project Panda: Reddit Bomb is an attempt to bring attention to the fact that these subreddits exist, and encourage Reddit to enforce its own policy.

Just as in Adam’s discussion of Big Think’s decision to hire Satoshi Kanazawa, it’s possible to support someone’s right to free speech without wanting to hand them a megaphone. I use Reddit, and I love it. I promote my blog there, I have met some great people, learned a ton about beer and even my hometown. But I feel uneasy being part of a community, no matter how big and varied that tolerates entire forums with hundreds of subscribers that encourage rape and brutal violence.

I decided to email companies that advertise on Reddit about my concerns. It’s a market based solution, and one was highly effective in getting Glenn Beck off of the airwaves without restricting anyone’s First Amendment Rights. So far, two of them have responded. Additionally, outrage over /r/creepshots has generated a ton of media coverage, including Jezebel, the Guardian, and the New York Daily News.

Reddit has made no official response yet, but already some of the subreddits in the initial press release have been taken down.

I have been made a moderator at /r/RedditBomb, the subreddit organizing this project. I’m excited to see what will happen next.

While in London, Adam and I had the opportunity to see a play at Shakespeare’s Globe, a replica of the building where Shakepeare’s plays were originally performed, rebuilt a few hundred yards from the original site. We saw The Taming Of The Shrew.

There’s volumes that could be and have been written about what Shakespeare meant to say about women (and men) in this play. The only thing I have to add is that he must have been either reacting to or parodying the reaction to recent gains in women’s rights/education/autonomy. Otherwise there’s not much of a point to it all.

The performance was excellent and hilariously funny at times. I did enjoy myself for most of the play, drinking cider under the stars and wondering if my experience was anything like those of people centuries past. (My basis for comparison comes from Shakespeare in Love and Doctor Who.)

The first thing that really broke my concentration was Act IV Scene V.

PETRUCHIO

Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHARINA

The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO

I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

He’s gaslighting here, and it’s icky to watch.

KATHARINA

I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIO

Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father’s house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!

HORTENSIO

Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHARINA

Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

But as it continued, an alternate dialogue, one from the novel 1984 began to play in my head.

‘Do you remember,’ he went on, ‘writing in your diary, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four”?’

‘Yes,’ said Winston.

O’Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.

‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’

‘Four.’

‘And if the party says that it is not four but five–then how many?’

‘Four.’

The word ended in a gasp of pain.

***

‘How many fingers, Winston?’

‘Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could. I am trying to see five.’

‘Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or really to see them?’

‘Really to see them.’

I’m don’t know if there’s been anything scholarly written about this. The only other reference I could find was in TV Tropes.

Orwell clearly isn’t making an allusion to Shakespeare, but the scenes to me are so strikingly similar, it gave me chills. I started thinking that Kate is Winston Smith.

In her final monologue she says:

I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.

And all I could see was the ending of The Stepford Wives:

Oh, God. Not Joanna!

At the end of the book and the 1975 film, the men of the town have killed all of the women and replaced them with robots.

I’m trying to keep in mind that The Taming Of The Shrew is a comedy, but there is something very dark under the surface. And I don’t think we can separate what we suspect to be Petruchio’s motivations from how we interpret Kate’s transformation. The play is almost a Rorschach for a person’s views of gender roles. My most generous interpretation is that they are playing a delightful D/S sex game. But if we are to believe that she is sincere, it’s not very funny at all.

Related post: The Stepford Wives Is Totally Anti-Feminist If You Don’t Understand It

This is a few weeks old, but I think it’s important to sort this out as the Presidential campaign season continues. Anderson Cooper interviewed Debbie Wasserman-Shultz on his show and claimed that she, “lied” when she claimed in fundraising letters that Mitt Romney does not support a rape victims right to get an abortion. His basis for this claim is that Romney has, in the past said that he thinks abortion should be legal in cases of rape, incest or when a woman’s health or life are threatened. However, he has also said many other things.

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As Rachel Maddow reports, Romney has gone back and forth on the idea of a health exception and also a rape exception. So if Cooper wants to say that Wasserman-Shultz is “lying” because she has only included Romney’s most extreme statements, he’s being obtuse. Language lawyering here is incredibly clueless when you consider the policy implications of even the most generous pro-choice interpretation of Romney’s position(s).

Wasserman-Shultz was correct in pointing out Mitt Romney’s support for personhood amendments, as it is in direct contradiction with his statement that he favors any exceptions at all. And she was also correct in tying him to his party’s platform. Cooper’s balking at this is nonsensical. If political party platforms are to be disregarded, then the parties themselves are meaningless. Does Anderson Cooper really think there are no policy differences between the two parties? How could that be possible? By rejecting what Debbie Wasserman-Shultz said about the Republican party’s official stance on abortion, Cooper is picking and choosing what statements he will and won’t hold Mitt Romney to. Why would someone do this? The only reason I can think of is that “Liberal Democrat Woman caught in lie!” is a bigger story than “Mitt Romney flip flops again.” That kind of intellectually dishonest pandering is a great disservice to viewers.

Beyond the obvious, what Andersoon Cooper is missing is that rape exceptions are bad policy by design and are pretty much written so that Americans in the mushy middle can sleep at night, but in reality don’t actually allow rape victims to get abortions. This is yet another reason why Debbie Wasserman-Shultz wasn’t lying. A country where only rape victims can get abortions does not exist on this Earth. As Jesse Taylor explains, such a policy is unenforceable and would not work at all. The same is true for health and life exceptions. They end with women dying horrible deaths from sepsis. In South America, for example, if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, the doctor cannot abort the pregnancy it until either the fetus dies or the fallopian tube ruptures.

Upon closer examination, the “exceptions” Cooper is insisting Mitt Romney advocates for don’t exist in reality, even when they are stated as a goal by politicians. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is right that Mitt Romney’s position is extreme and would take away women’s access to abortion in almost all cases. Anderson Cooper owes her and his audience an apology.

I don’t often disclose that I can occasionally be found watching reality television. I first started watching Tool Academy because of this withering critique of it in Bitch Magazine, but somehow I stayed a loyal fan through all three seasons. And while I knew there was something disquieting about the show’s sexual politics and the cartoonish way race relations were portrayed I didn’t give it much more thought than a few eye rolls. I didn’t expect a sophisticated or egalitarian view or sex, gender or racial politics from a VH1 reality show, so I didn’t bother getting upset. But maybe I should have.

Jenn Pozner’s book Reality Bites Back breaks down the dismissive argument that “it’s just television.” She not only critiques the harmful sexist and racist (and classist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist…) messages perpetuated by reality television, but she explains why it’s profitable for these shows to be made (constant product placement, to the point of surreality) and how networks consider themselves beyond reproach.

The things Pozner uncovers are truly shocking, even for people who are generally grossed out by reality television. For example, the women who auditioned for “Joe Millionaire” didn’t think they were trying out to win a marriage proposal from a wealthy man. They were told that they were going to a casting call for a Real World meets Sex and the City in Paris show. Instead they wound up fodder for water cooler gossip and national mockery for being “gold diggers.” This is unconscionable.

All hope is not lost, and Pozner encourages readers to take action and let networks know what kinds of programming they find objectionable and why, and what they would like to see more of on television. There’s an extensive appendix of resources for would-be activists, and an accompanying website with even more information.

What I liked most about this book was that while the issues of sexist and racist messages in reality shows are taken seriously to task, there’s still a genuine appreciation for the medium of television. Pozner isn’t telling us to kill our televisions, just that we should expect better.

In the aftermath of a getting banned from speaking because she used the word vagina in defense of abortion rights, I made a donation to Lisa Brown’s campaign. Term limits prevent her from running for the Michigan State Assembly again, but I am glad to support her campaign for county clerk.

During the controversy some claimed that she was not punished just for saying the word vagina, but for the content of the entire statement,

I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.'”

A powerful woman like Brown’s confident smack-down of Republican talking points probably stings rather harshly. It’s not just an awesomely snarky end to a political speech, but she is blatantly calling the bluff that this isn’t about controlling women’s sexuality, and in using the words that she did, she is refusing to acknowledge the illusion that this is not about sex. It makes sense that it would feel all the more humiliating to be talked to that way, which is why they lashed out like they did. However, the expectation that women will sit quietly while their rights are being taken away has no basis in reality, so I find it humorous how shocked many Republicans appeared.

Brown’s thank you note below.

I’ve been a fan of the comedy musical duo Garfunkel and Oates since discovering “Pregnant Women Are Smug” on Cracked.com in 2009. I follow them on social media and went to see them perform live in New York City. I think they are hilarious and I really like the way they talk openly about sexuality, (See: Go Kart Racing – Accidentally Masturbating, and I Don’t Understand Job) and I think that “This Party Just Took A Turn For The Douche” is brilliant. They’ve addressed medical marijuana, the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the absurdity of opposition to same sex marriage. So I was disappointed that their latest song “29/31” is really retrograde and sexist. I wouldn’t mind Ricki’s ear-bleeding shrieks if it was at lest either funny or not degrading to women.

To preempt the criticism that I can’t critique this because I’m happily married, and my wedding occurred when I was 27, that’s missing the point. I love my husband, but being married isn’t the total of my identity or my life. My relationship is important, but I reject the idea that it’s the only thing important or special about me – which is exactly the point of this song – that a woman’s marital status defines her, that being single is cause for despair. and being married is true happiness and contentment. Neither is correct.

I could understand a song about “the one that got away.” There are people that live with regret about ending or sabotaging a relationship they wish they were still in, and that’s genuinely sad. But the point of 29/31 is that you should get married to a man – any man, because otherwise you will be all alone and your life will be over at 31. Getting married just for the sake of not being single is not a wise decision. Basing a relationship on fear of being alone isn’t healthy and is insulting to your partner. I don’t think any man would want to hear his wife say that she married him just because he was there. In fact, that exact sentiment was something Kate parodied in 2008:

So which is it? Marriage as an only goal is depressing and empty? Or marriage is your only goal or else you are worthless?

The other insulting thing about “29/31”, was that it assumes a man cannot love a woman once she is over the age of 33/34. Ricki sings,

In two short years I’m gonna be 33. Who the hell will want me then? I’m disgusting.

If a 33 year old woman is disgusting and unlovable, why get married at 29? Won’t your husband divorce you when you are 33 anyway? Because you are so “disgusting“?

I understand that women are fertile for fewer years than men are, but I think that women who want to have children are aware of this fact and plan accordingly. Women aren’t stupid. That’s why “Oops! I forgot to have children” is a joke. No one actually thinks like that.

I don’t know if I should be bemused of angry that Men’s Rights Activists are using this video as “proof” that feminism is “wrong.” When I put this question to Amanda Marcotte, she said,

That they’re pinning all their hopes on convincing women that they’re a slightly better option than never having sex again tells you a lot. MRAs see themselves as the McDonald’s you resort to when the restaurant is closed. Doesn’t sound like women are desperate ones here, I have to say.

On the positive side, Garfunkel and Oates recently performed at Dan Savage’s fundraiser for Washington United for Marriage. I’m going to make a donation, go reread, “How to be a fan of problematic things” and hope that their next song is better.

Darcy Burner said at Netroots Nation,

“I have exactly one ask for you between now and November, and that is: get women to vote.”

I got goosebumps because I knew I was being tasked with an awesome quest. But it’s also an incredibly difficult one. There are women in my life, intelligent, compassionate women who truly believe in progressive values. But whether or not they call themselves feminists or liberals, they also have the incorrect belief that everyone else thinks the way they do. A great example of this is Chelsea Handler’s “sexism is bullshit” comments. But I also see it in women with a lot less money and power than Handler.

A friend asks where I was on Saturday morning when the rest of the group had met for coffee. I explain that I was clinic escorting.

“What’s that?”

“Well, there are a lot of protesters at Planned Parenthood and I volunteer to be a part of a program to keep an eye on them, call security or the police if they break any laws, welcome the patients, and not let them get harassed or stopped from entering.”

“Oh…. Wait. People protest outside Planned Parenthood?”

“Yup. Sometimes they just quietly pray, but sometimes they are really obnoxious and nasty.”

“Huh… That’s so weird!”

And we will never speak of this again. Not because she’s lazy or wasn’t listening. It’s because in her worldview, what I just said was that I was trying to stop martians or microfungi from destroying the earth. The kind of misogyny that exists in our own community, or the power that Citizens United gave to the wealthy is something she doesn’t perceive or think about.

I have another friend, really caring and funny and ambitious as hell. But she doesn’t vote. She says that whoever wins or loses has no influence on her life. I tried to change her mind during the contraception debate.

Elizabeth: So here’s a great example of how the government impacts your life – right now Congress is having hearing about whether or not health insurance must cover contraception, but they aren’t allowing any women to testify

Friend: Isn’t that illegal, not allowing women to testify?

Elizabeth: No.The chairman of the committee can decide who will testify at the hearing.

Friend: Oh. But men should care about contraception too. So…

Elizabeth: Well, I don’t think the consequences of not using contraception are in any way equal

Friend: Maybe a decision like that will change social norms. If it’s not covered by insurance then maybe more women will start actually asking for money from their partners to cover half. That would probably be a good thing.

Elizabeth: Right now the law is that insurance must cover the pill in 28 states. In the other states, women are shit out of luck, and this is a response to that

Friend: Men too, indirectly. I think a law like that would be nice but I don’t expect it to be passed.

Elizabeth: That’s why you should vote!

Friend: If I got involved with politics it would take up too much of my life. I’d rather just not be bothered. It’s a lot of hassle/stress that you are inviting into your life.

Elizabeth: But the money you pay for birth control pill co-pay is a real impact on your life.

Friend: Yes but you choose your battles. If it cost like $1000 then yes it would be a problem but by the time it gets that far, many other people get involved anyway.

She pretty much quoted Ever After. “I used to think that if I cared about anything I’d have to care about everything and then I’d go stark raving mad!”

Why do I care about this? Because 39% of single women don’t vote.

I know that a record number of women voted in 2008, and we might break another record this year. But women did not vote in 2010, and that’s one of the reasons why our Congress and State Legislatures have been taken over by anti choice radicals. Even if women come out to vote in 2012, they must do so every year for real progress to be made.

It’s the reason Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign created an entire project around getting women to vote. And it’s the reason Darcy Burner made it the point of her speech at Netroots Nation.

So how do we do it? How do we reach women who don’t read feminist blogs? PSAs during Major League Baseball and True Blood? Pamphlets in locker rooms and ladies bathrooms? Cocktail napkins at bars and coffee shops? And what should these messages say? How do we explain to women why they should do something they never do?

I’m not as discouraged about this as Adam is. I’m just completely baffled.

I haven’t thought much about the fact that I didn’t change my name after I got married since last December when my husband was annoyed by all of the holiday cards addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Adam Lee.” But there was a recent discussion on Reddit, started by someone who asked, “Straight males of reddit, do you expect your wife to change her last name when you marry? Straight females, do you have a problem with changing your name?” Reading through the comments, most of the men said either that they didn’t want to change their names, so they didn’t expect their wives to, or that it would be nice but not necessary. There were a few chauvinist outliers though. The women were much more divided, with many of them talking about how they look forward to changing their names when they get married.

One user responded,

I had an ex who I told I didn’t want to change my last name to his “when” we got married.

He made me listen to this wonderful song, in hopes of getting me to change my mind.

Somehow I was still not convinced to change my name. Then he did some other weird manipulative shit that was extremely transparent.

She got several upvotes and another poster responded that one of her ex-boyfriends had done the same thing. The song in question, Dierks Bentley, “My Last Name”

Lyrics fisked below.

I learned how to write it when I first started school,
Some bully didn’t like it, he said it didn’t sound to cool,
So I had to hit him and all I said when the blood came,
It’s my last name

If someone teases you about your name, you should hit them so hard they bleed.

Grandpa took of to europe to fight the germans in the war,
It came back on some dogtags nobody wears no more,
It’s written on a headstone in the field where he was slain,
It’s my last name

This was the part where I could feel my blood pressure in my face. Because there are people in my family who served in WWII, and apparently they don’t count because I don’t have a penis.

Passed down from generations too far back to trace,
I can see all my relations when I look into my face,
May never make it famous but I’ll never bring it shame,
It’s my last name

Daddy always told me far back as I recall,
Son, your part of somethin’, you represent us all,
So keep it how you got it , as solid as it came,
It’s my last name

Passed down from generations too far back to trace,
I can see all my relations when I look into my face,
May never make it famous but I’ll never bring it shame,
It’s my last name

Women have no pride in their heritage. Fuck you Dierks Bentley.

So darlin’ if you’re wonderin’ why I’ve got you here tonight,
I wanna be your husband, I want you to be my wife,
I ain’t got much to give you but what I’ve got means everything,
It’s my last name, oh, it’s my last name

How about love? How about fidelity? Aren’t those the traits that make your name mean something. I was really hoping that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, but the YouTube comments section is chock full of women gushing about how their partner proposed to them with this song, or…I just felt my last meal lurch up into my esophagus…danced to it as their first dance as a married couple at their wedding.

I asked the poster if she had anything to add, and she was thinking along the same lines,

Its a horrible shit song. I think it perpetuates the importance of the man’s last name a lot. My last name, I want to give it to you. Its so important let me tell you about it.

But if his last name is so important to that guy, shouldn’t he realize that the woman’s last name is just as important? It seems like the men who like this song and use it as an argument for their spouse to change their last name seem to completely miss that the woman’s last name probably has all the same meaning as theirs. Just like how it is the man’s identity, it is the woman’s too. Why should she feel so proud to take on his identity, as if her’s was not that great?

Yeah, it’s a stupid, sexist song. And the airwaves are full of them. But the fact that men are using it to coerce women into changing their names is damn disturbing. I have heard of guys throwing temper tantrums over this issue, both the whiny and screaming type or the passive aggressive pouting type. I’ve read all the stupid MRA/PUA bullshit about how if she doesn’t change her name you shouldn’t have any wedding reception at all. But now I know men can rely on the pop music industry to support a tradition that serves no rational purpose as well.

For a palate cleanser, here’s the Tim Minchin video I think you should show any prospective spouse. If they don’t laugh, don’t marry them.

A few weeks ago I responded to a question on Reddit’s Ask Feminists board. The question was “How do we know when equality has been achieved, and feminism has accomplished its goals?”

One of the things I listed in my answer was “Rape would would be seen as an atrocity of the past like witch burning or slavery.” Two commenters took issue with this. They seemed to think I was proposing some kind of fascist state. I wasn’t. I was saying that in a feminist utopia, rape would not be commonplace. This could be due to several factors, but mainly I was thinking of better sexuality education and changes in cultural mores.

One commenter persisted.

It might be valid to say right now, the rights of the accused are given too much weight compared to the rights of the victim. But, if the goal is “no rapes” with no mention of the rights of the accused, the result may be problematic also. Some women will take advantage of any such system (very few, but not all sociopaths are male) and bring sympathy back to the accused. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if rape is eradicated at the cost of justice in the criminal court system (more innocents being convicted) that result is not an equilibrium that society will accept in the long run.
…
When feminist ethics says only one of those parties matters (the victim of rape, not the accused) then their analysis is incomplete.

Do you see how that works? In his mind, wanting to eradicate rape means wanting to get rid of the rights of the accused. I don’t see the connection, at all.

I responded

The point is that when feminists talk about rape, they are talking about rape. Not false reports of rape.

Talking about the rights of the accused, so as to prevent the punishment of an innocent individual is important. But it should not take the spotlight in discussions of rape.

Person A: Rape victims….

Person B: But what about the rights of the accused?

Person A: Rapists….

Person B: Don’t you mean alleged rapists?

This conversation goes nowhere. It’s as if feminists cannot address rapes that actually occur or talk about a hypothetical situation where a rape actually has occurred without always also addressing a parallel situation that was either just a big misunderstanding or where the woman was blatantly lying.

And yet he persisted.

The problem is, how do you distinguish between the two? Ultimately it comes down to a decision by some people with imperfect knowledge of what exactly occurred.

Do you see what he did there? I said that feminists need to be able to talk about rapes that occur. He insisted that we cannot, because even in hypothetical rapes of feminists own construction, they must consider that women are liars.

As frustrated as I was, I had a moment of clarity. I had always accepted arguments about “false accusations” in good faith. I thought that it was just simple misogyny that some people could not sympathize with a rape victim, but only with her attacker. Or possibly they are brought up by a person who was so repulsed by the idea of rape that they let themselves believe it was extremely rare as a way to comfort themselves.

But as the conversation above shows, it’s not just about those things. When someone enters a conversation about rape, and the only thing they want to talk about is the possibility that the victim is lying, they don’t want you to be talking about rape. They want to talk about how women are liars. Does any other conversation happen this way? When the Clean Water Act was proposed, did its opponents say that perhaps Federal Regulators, communities or private property owners would lie that their waterways were being polluted? (Hint: No.)

It’s no longer acceptable to suggest that rapists shouldn’t be punished or that their crimes aren’t a big deal. And so the conversation tactic of anti-feminists has shifted. Instead of denying that a rapist causes harm, deny that he exists at all in the first place.