Former Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young has written a number of excellent pieces over the years on “rape crisis feminism” and the way rape laws have become stacked against male defendants. Her newest is Last Call for “Rape-Crisis” Feminism? (Reason Online, 4/16/07). Young writes:
“…’rape-crisis feminism’ (as the writer Katie Roiphe dubbed it) replaced one set of prejudices with another, such as the notion that women virtually never lie about rape. As the radical feminist law professor Catharine MacKinnon wrote in her 1987 book, Feminism Unmodified, ‘Feminism is built on believing women’s accounts of sexual use and abuse by men.’
“Making the credibility of women’s accusations against men a cornerstone of your belief system is a sure prescription for bias. The Duke case amply illustrates this. As Cooper pointed out at his press conference, there were serious questions about the woman’s credibility from the start. Her claims were not corroborated by any physical evidence, or by the other stripper who was with her at the party. She herself gave contradictory accounts of what happened. Yet for a long time these questions were swept aside.
“The Duke case also makes it clear that the feminist dogma on rape is far from benign. It is hostile both to men and to basic principles of justice.
“Consider the hateful rhetoric of Wendy Murphy, a former sex crimes prosecutor who is now an adjunct professor at the New England School of Law in Boston. She appears frequently as a legal analyst on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and other channels. On the air, Murphy made numerous false statements about the Duke case (documented by K.C. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College who blogs about the Duke case at Durham-in-Wonderland) and repeatedly referred to the accused men as rapists. On one occasion, she fumed: ‘I’m really tired of people suggesting that you’re somehow un-American if you don’t respect the presumption of innocence, because you know what that sounds like to a victim? Presumption you’re a liar.’â€ÂÂ
Read Young’s full piece here.
Wendy Murphy is something else. Marc Angelucci and I debated her in print on the Kobe Bryant case and the issue of false rape accusations a few years ago–see Research Shows False Accusations of Rape Common (Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, 9/15/04). We wrote:
“In her recent Daily Journal column, high profile feminist professor Wendy Murphy dismisses the problem of false accusations as an ‘ugly myth,’ and calls for ‘boiling rage’ activism to address what she perceives as the anti-woman bias of the criminal justice system. Like many victims’ advocates, Murphy cannot seem to fathom the possibility that Bryant could be innocent. However, research shows that false allegations of rape are frighteningly common.”
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