Advertisement
www.latimes.com/news/opini...87489.story
NEWS FEATURES, political commentaries and institutional reports incessantly berate the sexual excesses of modern teenagers. "Reports of young studs 'playing rape' … during recess, of 9-year-old sexual harassers and fifth-grade rapists and sodomists have become too common to pass off as simply anomalous," wrote conservative Manhattan Institute researcher Kay Hymowitz. The progressive Media Education Foundation, which distributes educational videos, warned in "Deadly Persuasion" of "widespread and increasing violence against women" by young men incited by brutal, misogynist popular culture and corporate advertising.
Evidence supporting the claims of rising teenage sexual violence is seldom offered. Commentators instead ask, given today's salacious ads, slutty preteen styles, women-hating rap lyrics, MySpace.com, designer porn and binge-drinking orgies, how could young people not be "hooking up" more randomly, more violently and younger?
Yet crime reports, victimization surveys and public health measures consistently reveal something else: large declines in the percentages of young women reporting violence against them, especially sexual attacks, and of young men committing rape and other violent offenses. [CONTINUED]
---
Why is rape in the US on the decline over the past 3 decades?
NEWS FEATURES, political commentaries and institutional reports incessantly berate the sexual excesses of modern teenagers. "Reports of young studs 'playing rape' … during recess, of 9-year-old sexual harassers and fifth-grade rapists and sodomists have become too common to pass off as simply anomalous," wrote conservative Manhattan Institute researcher Kay Hymowitz. The progressive Media Education Foundation, which distributes educational videos, warned in "Deadly Persuasion" of "widespread and increasing violence against women" by young men incited by brutal, misogynist popular culture and corporate advertising.
Evidence supporting the claims of rising teenage sexual violence is seldom offered. Commentators instead ask, given today's salacious ads, slutty preteen styles, women-hating rap lyrics, MySpace.com, designer porn and binge-drinking orgies, how could young people not be "hooking up" more randomly, more violently and younger?
Yet crime reports, victimization surveys and public health measures consistently reveal something else: large declines in the percentages of young women reporting violence against them, especially sexual attacks, and of young men committing rape and other violent offenses. [CONTINUED]
---
Why is rape in the US on the decline over the past 3 decades?
posted by:
|
San Francisco
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: The decline of rape
Mon, February 26, 2007 - 7:56 AMI would guess the "why's" to be some what self evident, despite the claims by conservatives.
1) we are on our second generation of kids growing up seeing women and men on *mostly* equal footing in and more importantly, OUT of the house.
2) when women are objectified blatantly, there is usually someone around who says something "that's funny, but yeah - it's not appropriate". even that 2nd half, reminds people (men) that it's one thing to maybe have an "idea" of women, and quite another to act on it.
3) women are stronger, physically, mentally and emotionally. we say "no", we RUN, and some of us fight back.
4) Society at large, but perhaps most importantly the police side of society, finally started taking rape to be a serious crime, with serious repercussions.
I would suspect women's attitudes are a huge part of why rape has gone down. but, no evidence for any of these opinions. just guesses.
-
Re: The decline of rape
Sat, March 17, 2007 - 12:04 PMA DECLINE OF REPORTS DOES NOT EQUAL A DECLINE IN OCCURANCE. -
-
Re: The decline of rape
Sat, March 17, 2007 - 2:15 PMWhy would there have been a _significant_ decline in reports? The hasn't there been a large and decade long campaign for rape victims to come forward and seek justice and not blame themselves? -
-
Re: The decline of rape
Mon, March 19, 2007 - 9:41 AMI'm with Jon here. Experts (whatever that term means) in the feild have suggested that women (and men) are far more comfortable reporting rapes than they were, just 10 years ago.
besides, many of these numbers (most, in fact) are not based on reported rapes, but studies of women in different sectors of life, to also account for all teh rapes NOT being reported.
-
-
