Note: I submitted this piece to The Good Men Project, but since I received no response I assume they have no interest it in.
Female rapists are a taboo subject. People know women rape, yet few want to talk about it. When people do talk about it, they blame women’s violence on men, drugs or mental illness. They treat female-on-male rape as a joke, a badge of honor or an anti-feminist ploy. Few realize just how often women rape boys.
Case in point: In his recent article, Hugo Schwyzer claimed, “Because women are much less likely to sexually abuse teens than are men, those rare cases that do feature female defendants tend to attract lots of media attention – particularly when the woman involved is relatively young and conventionally attractive.” Schwyzer implies that the media covers most of the cases of women’s violence, yet most cases never make the news. Likewise, while there is a lack of research on female-on-male rape, the available studies suggest that women rape boys about as often as men do. Here are some of the statistics:
- In 1994, David Finkelhor published a paper reporting that women commit 20 percent of the sexual abuse against boys.
- In 1996, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect found that women committed 25 percent of sexual abuse against children.
- Both the 2000 American Association of University Women study and the Cameron study showed that about 42 percent of students reported abuse by women.
- The 2005 Long-Term Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Gender of Victim study found that women committed 38 percent of the abuse against boys.
- According to a 2008 University of British Columbia study of homeless youths, nearly half the youths said at least one woman sexually exploited them, and 1 in 3 said that only women exploited them.
- The 2008-09 Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth report found that of the staff members who sexually abused juveniles, women committing 95 percent of that abuse.
- In 2009, ChildLine received 2,142 calls from children abused by women, and found that boys reported more abuse by women (1,722 cases) than by men (1,651 cases).
The research shows that women commit 20 to 50 percent of the sexual violence against boys. The prevalence rate increased as more researchers studied the problem and more male victims reported their abuse. The facts are clear: Women abuse boys almost as often as men do.
Schwyzer likely based his assumption on police reports and gender-skewed studies. Police reports are misleading because most male victims do not report their abuse, particularly those abused by women. Likewise, many of the studies that show a low rate of female-on-male rape rely on those police reports. Other studies do not include women as potential abusers or use gendered language on their surveys, which may result in male victims not reporting their abuse.
Yet the likely reason for Schwyzer’s claim is that it is the accepted social view. People simply do not believe women commit rape or count their acts as rape. Schwyzer summed it up best in his response to Pal Sarkozy’s account of his sexual encounter with his nanny at 11-years-old: “To suggest he was a victim is preposterous.”
That is the sentiment we must overcome if we want to address female-on-male rape. As long as people think it is preposterous to view males as potential victims and view women as potential rapists, we will never know the full extent of women’s violence. As long as people claim that women’s violence against boys is rare and frame it as a “relationship”, we will never help male victims. As long as people pay lip service to the sexual abuse of boys, we will never see society take this issue seriously.
Only when we stop treating women’s violence like a rare novelty can we stop the abuse.
@TS…
You linked to this GMP thread in a previous post thusly.
The link you’ve used in this current post leads to the same Schwyzer/GMP article with a remarkably and severely abbreviated commentary.
If you examine the actual link URLs you’ll see the difference between them.
I’d kept an eye on that thread knowing I had posts which I believed visible and two still in moderation. I’d be interested to know, TS, if you’d seen any of them at all. For my own sanity I’m reproducing all I can find below. I have no doubt there were many other posts “in moderation” which I couldn’t see from myself and others. I’ve kept copies of the html source for both. Later today I’ll do a proper analysis of just what has disappeared from the commentary.
Gwallan, two of my comments and the trackbacks to my blog posts are in moderation. Curiously, the comment count at the top of the page still lists the comments as present even though you cannot see them. From what I can tell, any comment critiquing Schwyzer’s prior position, linking to his blog, mentioning Pal Sarkozy, or using phrases “male victim” end up in moderation.
I’ve noticed “vanishing comments” like that before too. Its like they only want certain people to speak up.
Ah, TS, it’s in the small print between the comments and the trackbacks. Comments are spread over two pages. Many remaining in moderation and some weird connections between posts and replies at times.
It’s a very clunky website physically. Matches it’s temperament I guess.
I’m starting to get a handle on GMP. It’s run by and for feminists after all. At the moment it seems that male victims are OK but they must play by the girls rules. Victims of male perps are certainly OK as they can be used to fill a role in the Patriarchy Pageant. Theoretical discussions about the possibility that girls could be naughty are OK. This, of course, helps make them look a bit “progressive”. Any direct, first hand, implication of an actual girl doing something naughty is gauche and mean to all girls and will not be tolerated.
The female perpetrator is their event horizon. It’s here that their cognition begins to break down. Beyond this point they cannot deal in the active. Everything must be passive in the treatment of female perpetrators be it the punishments afforded, the media’s coverage or any other discourse. The victims MUST conform. They have cake to eat.
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If it’s women raping men, it’s dangerous because men can easily beat, kill, and/or rape them back. Pure and simple.
LR, few rape victims are in a mental state to retaliate after being raped, so the idea that men can “easily” beat, kill or rape women back is ridiculous. Secondly, the post was about boys, not men, and it is unlikely boys can just overpower their rapists.
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By the way, I linked to this entry in a new post today, so you should get a little bump in traffic:
http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3850/79/
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I hate the fact that women can get away with any thing, especially assault. A lot of people say because a man is stronger a woman can attack him at any time that’s a load of BS. Then the world wonders why we have maniacs like Ted bundy.
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