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Is feminism still relevant; what is modern-day feminism like?

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I've found a few things, mainly from the States though.

Recent study (doesn't cite the study) suggests that 86% of sexual assault on male victims is male perpetrated (so 14% by female perpetrators). Does break that down into seriousness of assault, or ages of indiviudals involved (though the suggestion is a lot of it is younger male victim, older female): http://www.southernct.edu/womenscenter/menagainstviolence/malesurvivorsofsexualassault/

Regarding children (and a lot of what is written seems to be about minors, rather than adult men and women), Childline suggest that 11% of its calls regarding sexual abuse concern female perpetrators (http://jezebel.com/5335061/sexual-abuse-by-women-the-crime-no-one-wants-to-investigate - fyi, jezebel is a feminist website generally).

As a breakdown in Australia, 1 in 5 women as opposed to 1 in 20 men report having experienced sexual assault since the age of 15 (http://www.casa.org.au/casa_pdf.php?document=statistics), and 93% of offenders are male.

Anyway, I'm inclined to agree that the idea of women committing sexual assault is something we are uncomfortable with - and the fact that we are uncomfortable with it is (ironically?) a feminist issue. A lot of the discomfort plays into our ideas of what women should be - sexual assualt against children goes against our idea of women as a 'mother', and sexual assault against men betrays the illusion of women as the 'gentle' sex, who should be persued by men. I saw a really interesting talk at a conference a few weeks ago about female agency and constructions of womanhood in the criminal law which talked about some of these issues.

there is more to be said here, including an analysis on why some feminist thinkers and campaigners are uncomfortable with talking about female perpetrated sexual violence (and also worth remembering that 'feminism' is not a unified school of philosophical or politcal thought), but I have a shedload of work to do right now, and my brain is a bit too fuzzy to articulate well.
Original post by flying plum
I appreciate that s. 1 of the SOA defines rape as an activity conducted by a man, but I figured if I put it in inverted commas, I'd get a load of grief. I found the official stats, but I wondered if there were 'unofficial' stats, such as the recently released ones regarding the 'real' incidences of female rape and other sexual violence.
I'm sure (as with domestic violence) the incidences of male sexual violence are higher than we appreciate, but I have a hard time believing it's 50/50, if you consider even male and female experiences of low level sexual harassment.

Which recently released figures are you referring to? Not the CDC figures I hope - they only appear to show 50/50 because of the very strange and widely misunderstood definitions that they use, and because they keep being quoted by someone who doesn't understand them. nookyn2 wrote: "I find it unhelpful that the American definition of "made to penetrate" (for men) can include everything from OTOH female perpetrators attempting to force male victims to penetrate them to OTOH a guy receiving a blowjob from a more sober partner. Rightly or wrongly, every guy I've asked doesn't regard the drunken BJ example as an assault (quite the opposite in fact), so the CDC report may be megamiles ahead of UK public opinion on this matter. Of course, public opinion can be wrong."

Original post by flying plum
[...]Anyway, I'm inclined to agree that the idea of women committing sexual assault is something we are uncomfortable with - and the fact that we are uncomfortable with it is (ironically?) a feminist issue. A lot of the discomfort plays into our ideas of what women should be - sexual assualt against children goes against our idea of women as a 'mother', and sexual assault against men betrays the illusion of women as the 'gentle' sex, who should be persued by men. I saw a really interesting talk at a conference a few weeks ago about female agency and constructions of womanhood in the criminal law which talked about some of these issues.
there is more to be said here, including an analysis on why some feminist thinkers and campaigners are uncomfortable with talking about female perpetrated sexual violence (and also worth remembering that 'feminism' is not a unified school of philosophical or politcal thought), but I have a shedload of work to do right now, and my brain is a bit too fuzzy to articulate well.

Good points!
Original post by Pastaferian
Which recently released figures are you referring to? Not the CDC figures I hope - they only appear to show 50/50 because of the very strange and widely misunderstood definitions that they use


Sorry, I'm not sure what the CDC is? I'm referring to (and sorry, I can't remember exactly) figures from a charity (poss rape crisis?) earlier this year/late last, suggesting that the actual figures for rape and sexual violence (against women) are much higher tha official figures, but victims often don't report due to shame, fear of the court process and so on. Sorry it's not more specific than that, but I wondered if there was a similar thing for sexual violence against men.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by flying plum
Sorry, I'm not sure what the CDC is? I'm referring to (and sorry, I can't remember exactly) figures from a charity (poss rape crisis?) earlier this year/late last, suggesting that the actual figures for rape and sexual violence (against women) are much higher tha official figures, but victims often don't report due to shame, fear of the court process and so on. Sorry it's not more specific than that, but I wondered if there was a similar thing for sexual violence against men.

The CDC report is here... http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nisvs/
As I said, anyone quoting figures from it needs to read the definitions very carefully.

Under-reporting is always a problem, irrespective of the genders of victim and assailant. Official figures do try to take that into account, but there is always room to question how good a job they did.

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