In January this year a Toronto police officer suggested that women could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like ‘sluts’. Made during a safety information session at York University, the officer’s remark provoked a storm of protest. By May the protests had spread as far as Australia.
Many people — including some Troppo readers — think it’s obvious that women who wear revealing clothing are more likely to be raped. But most researchers who study sexual assault regard this as a myth.
As it turns out, there’s some research that suggests women are less likely to be assaulted if they wear provocative clothing. In a paper titled ‘Sexy dressing revisited: does target dress play a part in sexual harassment cases?’ (pdf) Theresa Beiner writes:
While people perceive dress to have an impact on who is assaulted, studies of rapists suggest that victim attire is not a significant factor. Instead, rapists look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness, which, studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing. (140) In a study to test whether males could determine whether women were high or low in passiveness and submissiveness, Richards and her colleagues found that men, using only nonverbal appearance cues, could accurately assess which women were passive and submissive versus those who were dominant and assertive. (141) Clothing was one of the key cues: "Those females high in passivity and submissiveness (i.e., those at greatest risk for victimization) wore noticeably more body-concealing clothing (i.e., high necklines, long pants and sleeves, multiple layers)." (142) This suggests that men equate body-concealing clothing with passive and submissive qualities, which are qualities that rapists look for in victims. Thus, those who wore provocative clothes would not be viewed as passive or submissive, and would be less likely to be victims of assault.
Troppo commenter Meg argues that the police officer’s advice is worse than unhelpful. She writes "This ‘common sense’ advice is restricting the agency of one group to the point of inhibiting everyday living. That’s just ridiculous and it’s bad advice."
“… victim attire is not a significant factor”. I think that’s the key message in Beiner’s summary of the research.
seems a bit far-fetched to go from correlations between how a set of random men assess the passiveness/aggressiveness of women in a picture to the actual behaviour of rapists. Also, the kind of incident we were thinking of earlier is less that involving some serial stalker (who plans to be aggressive beforehand and may well pick on the passive-looking ones) and more that of some testosterone fueled brawny male getting seriously out of line.
Like some other commenters, I hold the line that women’s dress SHOULD not affect the risk of rape, but that in fact it DOES. On that ground I supported that copper’s advice in the context it was given. If I am shown to be empirically wrong, then I take that back (“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”).
But commonsense gives me strong priors here (in the particular context in which the copper gave his advice, don’t forget that the “testosterone fueled brawny male” will likely have added alcohol to the testosterone). It would take moderately strong evidence to reduce my posterior probability estimates to a low enough value to force that change of mind. Paul’s point is correct – this aint that strong evidence.
I haven’t read the earlier discussion, but the account mentioned in the post seems interesting and plausible to me (incidentally, all of the claims in the quotation – and in the quoted citations to (140), (141), and (142) – are derived ultimately from this article). On the other hand, the claim that “signs of passiveness and submissiveness, which, studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing” is in fact based on only one study, in which the researchers asked 32 male college students to assess the dominance/submissiveness of 8 female college students the researchers had selected for the study (4 of whom were “dominant” and 4 of whom were “submissive”, as assessed by the researchers). So the claims that “signs of passiveness and submissiveness are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing” and that “those females high in passivity and submissiveness wore noticeably more body-concealing clothing (i.e., high necklines, long pants and sleeves, multiple layers)” are based on the association between dominance/submissiveness and clothing worn among the 8 female college students selected by the researchers for this study. It would be interesting to know whether this association among these 8 female college students can be generalised to the wider population.
Paul and James – As you both point out, the research Beiner cites doesn’t make a strong case for the claim that provocative clothing reduces the risk of rape.
I think the conclusion we should draw is that we don’t if there’s a relationship between provocative dress and the risk of rape and if there is we don’t know whether provocative dress increases or decreases the risk. Chances are the relationship isn’t simple.
derida derider – I agree that we need to distinguish between what should be the case and what is the case. But I’m not sure why you’ve decided to support the police officer’s advice until you see evidence that his factual assumptions were wrong. Why does the burden of proof lie with those who claim there’s no link?
It seems that the original “slutwalk” idea was that police should not give any advice to young women about avoiding rape, on the basis that it is intrinsically unacceptable for anyone to suggest that the victim should make the slightest attempt to save herself.
That has gradually shifted to the idea that it is after all OK for police to give advice, providing:
[A] that advice is presented in a morally neutral way.
[B] that advice is only advice and not a command that anyone is obliged to follow.
[C] there is some genuine factual basis to the advice.
Having got this far, we discovered that it is quite difficult to find any empirical data to decide [C] above. This to me suggests that the best thing the police could do is compile an accurate statistical database on crimes including various aspects (e.g. age of various parties, whether the victim was alone or in a group, approx description of outfit, approx body shape, racial features, suburb, recent activities, time of day, etc).
The database could be published (in an anonymous statistical format) on the Web and anyone could type up a profile of themselves and their lifestyle and get a decent indicator of they type of crimes they are likely to encounter and their expected survival rate. This would be an amazingly useful tool and would easily satisfy all the criteria above. By publishing detailed statistics on all crimes, they ensure that rape is not given any special treatment, hopefully removing any moral bias in the data.
Something tells me that it won’t get done, but that’s OK. Only “Very Serious People” worry about their great ideas finally coming to something.
I think there’s a case for supporting the opinion of professionals who have relevant experience. I also think conventional wisdom that is common throughout history shouldn’t automatically be discarded because it doesn’t fit some ideological perspective. We can’t rely on scientific studies to prove everything before we give people advice. This will obviously lead to differences of opinion; however we need to deal with that through open debate and discussion (the way some commenters here and elsewhere have been) and not through group-think and silencing (the way other commenters have be doing, and through undertones in the slutwalk).
What confuses me is how on one hand we’re told that rapists are quite common and just like other men except with lower respect for women, and that raising that respect will lead to less rape. But when we look at what men think about why other men would rape given an assumption of no respect for women we ignore what they think could be a causal factor.
I think it’s telling that when asked for evidence for the no risk argument, the evidence offered is an argumentative essay rather than some sort of statistical study. I did a quick and dirty search for studies about the motivation of rapists and all I came up with was a 80’s longitudinal study that indicated there wasn’t much agreement on the matter. I’m sure there’s something more recent, but everything else I found seem to be focused on peoples perceptions of rapist’s motivations (I guess that’s easier to study).
“) and not through group-think and silencing (the way other commenters have be doing”
In case you’re including me in that, desipis, I also happen to be a medical professional with relevant experience supporting many rape and assault victims.
Wanna support my opinion?
“) and not through group-think and silencing (the way other commenters have be doing”
In case you’re including me in that, desipis, I also happen to be a medical professional with relevant experience supporting many rape and assault victims.
Wanna support my opinion?
Sure. The overall message can be that some people believe dressing provocatively is a risk factor, some don’t, there’s (apparently) no statistical evidence to support either argument, think it over and make your own choice.
Actually Desipis, I think the message is pretty darn clear. Considering there is no reliable statistical evidence to support either argument, let’s not fixate on women’s clothing or tell them what or what not to wear, and instead focus on what actually matters in terms of preventing rape. In other words, the exact message of the worldwide SlutWalks: “STFU ignorant policeman”.
It appears to me that that there are two separate issues here that are still being confused.
(1) Is it appropropriate advice from someone acting in an official capacity? I can only imagine the outcry here (the American South) if an officer gave black students advice not to act like uppity n*ggers or they might get lynched. If I had children it might be sage advice for them (or not), but hopefully it isn’t official public policy to tell people that. I think that true or not, acting as a representative for the public service, the Toronto police officer should not have said what he did in public. It undermines confidence in the system and I believe this shown by various studies indicating that 70-80% of rapes go unreported. In this example a surprising/depressing number cite the police themselves as a major deterrent to reporting: belief that police wouldn’t do anything (12.6%), blame them (11.9%) or just didn’t want them involved (3.5%)
(2) Is the advice even true? There’s a traditional narrative that Stay-at-Home-Sally spends her time knitting and cooking for her husband and lives a safe and fulfilling life. Meanwhile Slutty Susan gets all dressed up, goes out drinking, catches the eye of a creepy stalker type/drunken boor who follows her when she leaves and is dragged into an alley where she’s punished for her sins.
It’s a seductive narrative and forms the basis of the commonsense I believed in until Don’s post made me get up and look for some facts. I haven’t seen anything firm on attire but a few of the facts I’ve managed to dredge up (for the US): Around 70%-80% of the victims know the attacker, about half occur at home (~2/3 in familiar environment), the victim wasn’t affected by drugs/alcohol about half the time, the perpetrator was affected most of the time (in ~30% both were sober). The assailant isn’t a lonely creep either: ~1/4 of convicted assailants are married, ~1/2 have been married and I’ve read somewhere that up 70% of them were currently in a relationship (not necessarily with the victim) of some sort.
In this light the narrative above looks increasingly unlikely – Sally might be more likely to be raped than Susan and by someone she knows. Can she reduce her risk factors by changing her attire? I still don’t know but it looks like many of us need to reset what we imagine (see PF @ #2) when we think of rape/rapists/victims.
Dammit, stuffed up my links:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/210346.pdf
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/SOO.PDF
http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Similarities_And_Differences_In_Women_s_Sexual_Assault_Experiences_Based_On_Tactics.pdf
The reason we’re looking for evidence is that we don’t know what actually matters.
BB,
seems to me your numbers strongly support the commonsense view. Half of the US victims were under the influence of alcohol and 70% of the offenders were under influence. That is very much the story of a disproportionate number being due to snap decisions taken under influence. Exactly the type of situation college students would find themselves in.
Yah, we’re still looking for evidence. So making poorly supportable denouncements to women = idiotic.
And Paul – well, yes, there is some common sense involved. But if you look at the narrative of BB’s comment, what we’re really seeing is women being raped by men who have gained their trust, probably over a longer period of time than one alcohol-fueled night. Same deal with acts of child abuse. If you pay too much heed to kindly strangers on the street, you completely fail to notice Uncle Shitwick fingering your kids.
Once again, the context matters. The copper didn’t tell the women to be stay at home sallies all their life – he told them (in admittedly offensive language) that if they want to go out partying where there are lots of drunken frat boys then they should take action to make sure they can still have fun while minimising risks. The findings of that paper don’t really translate well to those circumstances – which is Paul’s point.
All that in no way excuses drunken frat boy rapists, but it also doesn’t bear on the context in which most rape actually happens. Miriam’s last point is correct, but then the women weren’t asking about Uncle Shitwick. They were asking about drunken frat boys.
In an almost certainly futile endeavour to identify areas where we don’t differ (something Don attempted earlier), my reading of the various threads suggests that almost no-one is denying that the Toronto cop’s choice of the word “slutty” at least viewed in isolation was unfortunate and offensive to many. That isn’t what we’re currently discussing as far as I can see. The discussion is whether it is appropriate for a police officer (or other person in a semi-official capacity) to give moderately expressed and balanced cautionary advice to young women that includes (along with other commonsense advice) the suggestion that wearing scanty clothing might be a rape risk factor depending on other situational factors. I don’t see why that should be regarded as objectionable. One would hope that any official giving that sort of talk would also point out that sexual assault at the hands of someone known to the victim is statistically more likely than stranger rape.
Talk about confirmation bias. Paul – I honestly can’t see how you managed to find your imagined “Incident” in those numbers but you’re obviously wedded to the idea. Half of the victims were affected by alchol/drugs so half were not – I interpret that as meaning it doesn’t matter whether the victim drinks or not – it’s not a risk factor they can control. Does the statistic (same links) that the average age of rapists being 31 affect your view or were the college perpepetrators of your imagination mature age students?
My point was that this is much more complex than the reductive narrative we construct when we try to imagine a “typical” rape. It isn’t based on fact and hinders understanding of the nature of the crime.
Ken, I agree the first point is done, the second point I think I still need to clarify. I remember Dad giving me the advice when I graduated to buy the most expensive house I could afford because property always goes up. Commonsense or not? Everyone else was certainly doing it so it was common… It’s weird to me how the rational people here abandon data for gut feel (aka commonsense) when it comes to this subject.
If I were to be giving out advice on rape based on known statistics then I might end up saying something like:
Avoid all men, especially men of the same race as you. Stay away from familiar locations with men that you know, in particular your own home. Try to avoid people at 12am, 8am and 12pm (there are spikes in rapist activity at all three times)….
Hopefully it seems obvious that advice here ends up being manifestly unworkable for any female trying to manage her risk factors. With these restrictions in place do we really have room for unproven and vaguely defined maxims like “Don’t dress slutty”? (What is “slutty” anyway? Exposed ankles? Exposed knees?)
To be honest my visceral reaction when told about slutwalks was probably the same as many other men: “Stupid feminists. Always bitching about minor issues”. What I think I’m seeing now is the there isn’t a “typical” victim, there isn’t a “typical” rape. There’s really not that much a woman can do to avoid being a victim and the illusion of controllable risk factors is dangerous.
In closing, I would prefer public officials refrain from giving out gut-feel advice but if you want to tell your daughters not to “dress slutty” privately, fine. But my advice – if you really want to help – tell them you’ll support them no matter what happens. Because 1-in-5 women in your life will be or have been sexually assaulted and if they haven’t told you then it probably has something to do with you.
Holy statistics interpretation fail. Generally, women are only going to spend a small portion of their lives under the influence of alcohol or drugs. This means half the rapes are crammed into this small portion of time and half the rapes are spread out over the rest of their lives, indicating a strong correlation between alcohol and rape. This suggests causation, although there could be other explanations for the correlation (people who drink more are more sociable, more trusting, etc).
If this is the standard of understanding applied to the issue it’s no wonder people are disagreeing.
BB, sorry if that seems a bit confrontational. I wasn’t intending to have a go at you, just frustrated at the poor use of data/statistics generally and the way it can feed into group-think.
BB:
I’m pretty sure that what I outlined on the previous thread (learn self-defence for years and carry a small pistol) is exactly a hell of a lot a woman can do.
Women can barely say ‘no thanks’ assertively enough, you think that they would be able to poke out the eyes of a guy that was being nice five minutes ago? Self defence won’t work if you freeze up.
It is important to bear in mind that researchers in any field to do with human behaviour carry around a lot of ideological baggage and this in turn influences what research questions they ask, what studies they conduct and in subtle ways, it shapes the findings of those studies. Think of research into poverty for example; conservative/libertarian researchers often focus on factors related to the “culture of poverty”, family dysfunction and the relatively low IQ of generally impoverished ethnicities. On the other hand leftists tend to focus on inequality of opportunity, discrimination and facets of capitalism. To a very large extent a researcher’s findings are anticipated by his or her ideological baggage rather than any genuine empiricism.
I would wager that most persons studying in the area of rape come out of university departments that are steeped in left-wing ideology and that many of them subscribe to one or another brand of feminist theory. As we’ve seen on this thread and on any number of threads on feminist websites, the notion that clothing could be a risk factor in rape is ideologically unpalatable and routinely referred to as a “rape myth” and “victim blaming”. Accordingly I think caution and an extra dose of skepticism is required when looking at the few studies that do touch on this topic.
Another point- one of the catalysts for the Cronulla riots was men of a “Middle Eastern appearance” allegedly assaulting immodestly dressed white women at Cronulla beach.
I also note this from Greg Sheridan, who has apparently lost faith in multiculturalism:
“The worst thing I saw myself was two strong young men, of Middle Eastern appearance, waiting outside the train station.
A middle-aged white woman emerged from the station alone. She was rather oddly dressed, with a strange hair-do.
The two young men walked up beside her, began taunting her and then finished their effort by spitting in her face. They laughed riotously and walked away. She wiped the spittle off her face and hurried off home. It was all over in a few seconds.”
I think an investigation of rape and assaults on women by men from ethno-religious groups that demand modesty and obedience from their womenfolk is warranted, but this is precisely the type of study that is precluded by the prevailing social science hegemonies.
Mel
I agree. I was trying to avoid mentioning the Middle Eastern factor, but now someone else has I’ll chime in. I think there’s significant (if not quantified) evidence that dress may be an important signaller for males from some particular ethnic groups in Australia. To the extent that ethnically based crime figures are available they tend to show that Lebanese and Turkish groups especially have significantly higher rates of violent crime generally and sexual assault particularly than people born in Australia. The Bilal Skaf gang rapes are merely extreme examples of the phenomenon. Sheikh Hilaly’s infamous “uncovered meat” remark was an attempted explanation/condonation of such behaviours. It appears that for at least some young men from Middle Eastern countries scanty dress IS taken to connote loose morals and sending open sexual invitations which they’re entitled to respond to in an aggressive manner. It’s these young men who see scanty dress as identifying a youn woman as a “slut” and it may be quite important for young women to understand that there are some males around who look at things that way and may act on their misperceptions.
Moreover, it may be that the psychological process for some of these young men is even more toxic. They read scanty clothing as a sexual invitation, but also read (correctly) that the invitation isn’t directed towards them. They then misread that rejection as being because of their ethnicity (when it’s probably for quite different reasons e.g. their overt aggression and general oafish behaviour or the fact that the woman just doesn’t find them attractive). They take it as an unfair and racist slur on both their masculinity and culture/ethnicity, and that is all the “justification” they need to react with extreme violence including rape. The remarks of the Skaf gang reported in evidence by the numerous victims clearly show that this is how they viewed (or at least professed to view) the situations.
Now I concede that this is only one type of scenario, and that most rapes don’t involve such situations. But it seems to me that it’s a potentially common enough risk for young women clubbing in our larger cities that a responsible police officer should warn them about it (albeit in moderate language and in the context of wider information about rape).
Ahh, Greg Sheridan, who has argued in support of the idea that George W will be judged one of the great presidents of the United States…! Does anyone take him seriously?
I’m also not sure about this approach: Caution and an extra dose of scepticism is required when looking at studies in the area of rape and…hold on, have a look at this second-hand anecdote!
Mel writes:
Ken writes:
After making some generalisations and guesses about men from Middle Eastern countries (on the basis of one of the most, if not the most, extreme cases of rape by such men), Ken writes:
Taking on the “prevailing social science hegemonies”, here are some rough figures for crime and population by country of birth.
All the figures relate to Victoria. The crime figures relate to 2009/2010 and come from pages 56-57 of this document. The population figures relate to 2006 and come from this website.
The rows in the table are ranked by “Alleged rape offenders processed per 10,000 people” (I couldn’t find population figures for Victorians born in “Australia”, “Other”, or “Unspecified”).
What does this table tell us about rape, crime, and people from Middle Eastern countries? There are only two Middle Eastern countries identified in the table, the same countries Ken singled out in his comment above, namely, Lebanon and Turkey.*
If we focus on these two Middle Eastern countries and compare people in Victoria born in these two countries with the total Victorian population (see the bolded rows in the table), we can see, firstly, that the figures for “Alleged rape offenders processed per 10,000 people” for Lebanon and Turkey are a little higher than the figure for the total Victorian population, although these figures are pretty close to one another (2.02 and 1.97 versus 1.70 alleged rape offenders processed per 10,000 people).
Secondly, the figures for “Total alleged crime offenders processed per 10,000 people” for Lebanon and Turkey are indeed significantly higher than the figure for the total Victorian population (517.15 and 511.56 versus 332.81 total alleged crime offenders processed per 10,000 people). Victorians born in Lebanon and Turkey do seem to be significantly more likely than the average Victorian to become criminals.
The above two results suggest the third, which is that even though Victorians born in Lebanon and Turkey seem to be significantly more likely to become criminals, something seems to cause their criminal activity to be skewed away from rape and towards other crimes. As the final column shows, the figures for “Alleged rape offenders processed per 10,000 alleged crime offenders processed” for Lebanon and Turkey are lower than the figure for the total Victorian population (39.01 and 38.51 versus 51.05 alleged rape offenders processed per 10,000 alleged crime offenders processed).
How can these patterns be explained? Since theories are underdetermined by data, a range of explanations can be suggested. Here’s one:
People who were born in Lebanon and Turkey suffer from a wide range of social disadvantages: in comparison to the average Australian, people born in these two countries are more likely to have poor English-language skills, are more likely to have low levels of educational qualifications, are more likely to be unemployed, are more likely to work in low-skilled occupations (if they are employed), etc (see Chapter 2 of this document). The combination of these factors means that people who were born in Lebanon and Turkey are more likely than the average Australian to engage in antisocial activities – including criminal activities. However, since as a cultural system Islam places more restrictions on sexual activity than does mainstream Australian culture, as well as perhaps because of Islam’s restrictions on alcohol consumption, the criminal activity of people who were born in Lebanon and Turkey tends to be skewed away from crimes such as rape and towards other crimes. Factors such as poor English-language skills, low levels of educational qualifications, unemployment, and working in low-skilled occupations breed criminal activity, but the influence of Islam is to skew this activity away from rape and towards other crimes.
Naturally an explanation like this doesn’t fit with the stereotypes mentioned above.
One final point about the “Middle Eastern factor”. It’s interesting to put into perspective how significant the activities of people from Middle Eastern countries are for the infliction of rape in Victoria. As the table mentioned earlier shows, in 2009/2010 in Victoria, 871 people were processed as alleged rape offenders. Of these, 6 were born in Lebanon or Turkey. Just to repeat myself, 6 – that’s 0.69 per cent – were born in Lebanon or Turkey.
It is true that North Africa and the Middle East include more countries than Lebanon and Turkey. In 2006, the number of Victorians who were born in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria amounted to about 31,988 people (the number born in Lebanon and Turkey amounted to about 30,098 people). If we can assume that the numbers of alleged rape offenders processed per 10,000 people for Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Syria were similar to the equivalent numbers for Lebanon and Turkey, this would mean that, of the 871 people processed as alleged rape offenders in Victoria in 2009/2010, 1.42 per cent would have been born in either Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria.
In other words, the “Middle Eastern factor” is pretty much a red herring, or at least it seems to be so to me.**
* In the Standard Australian Classification of Countries, the following countries are included in the “North Africa and the Middle East” category: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Gaza Strip and West Bank, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spanish North Africa, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, and Yemen. Of these, only Lebanon and Turkey are identified in the table. Note that there is a difference between being born in North Africa or the Middle East and being a Muslim. Among people in Victoria who were born in Lebanon, more are Christians than Muslims (47 per cent versus 44 percent). Similarly, among people in Victoria who were born in Somalia, which the Standard Australian Classification of Countries includes in the “Sub-Saharan Africa” category, 96 percent are Muslims.
** Disclosure: My mother grew up as a Muslim girl in a Minangkabau family in Indonesia, while my father grew up in rural Michigan dreaming of warm, tropical islands (in short, places as different from rural Michigan as possible). Eventually my mother and father met and married in Indonesia. At the time my father converted to Islam, having become disillusioned with the Christianity of his youth and having explored a range of other religions. So, to cut a long story short, I do have a Muslim background, although the term “background” is pretty crucial here. There are many aspects of Islam which I think are problematic: ritual slaughter of nonhumans, genital cutting of boys without their consent, other gender inequalities, etc. But like Barack Obama, I do have an exotic middle name.***
*** In fact, Barack Obama and I are practically the same person. We both: (1) have exotic middle names; (2) were born in Honolulu; (3) have parents of mixed ethnicity; (4) spent part of our childhoods in Indonesia; (5) voted for Barack Obama in 2008 (well, I know how I voted!); (5) are devilishly handsome.
Hopefully you applied Bayes Theorem to correctly separate the risk factor from general background interactions. I mean, forgetting to use Bayes Theorem would be as ignorant as, err, as a policeman I guess.
James, the three countries you refer to are generally considered to be moderate Islamic countries. Obviously the term moderate is relative and I note that in Indonesia the mass butchering of female genitalia- a hitherto unknown phenomena in that part of the world- is now commonplace in the Islamic community. I have seen footage of this procedure being carried out in Islamic Malaysia. I shan’t link to it as the bloodied hacking and screaming probably constitutes ch!ld pron.
As to Lebanon and Turkey, both are moderate states by Middle East standards yet both possess certain customs that may be considered quaint by Western standards, for example a man who rapes a woman then forces her into marriage is absolved of the crime.
But certainly in many other Islamic contexts, women have a status not much above that of disposable chattels and the norms associated with such value systems have proven vigorously resistant to change among immigrant communities. Note this from Britain for example:
“A GIRL of 15 was tricked into a “telephone marriage” ceremony to a Sheffield man with a mental age of five in a ceremony recognised by sharia (Islamic law).
When the girl arrived from Pakistan expecting to meet the handsome man she had been shown in a photograph, she found that he was 40 years old, unemployed and disabled.
To make matters worse, her mother-in-law decided to exploit her attractive looks by forcing her into prostitution.
The family invited men to the family home to rape her before she managed to escape to the police by bolting through the front door. She was taken into care and now lives in a refuge.
The case is highlighted in a report by the Centre for Social Cohesion, which has found that policemen, councillors and taxi drivers are turning a blind eye or even conniving in enforcing the Asian community’s strict “moral code” on young women.
The girl’s marriage last April was not recognised by the Home Office but was approved by the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain. She is typical of the runaway brides at risk of an “honour killing”. According to official figures, 10 to 12 women are murdered in Britain in honour killings each year, but the government has been warned by MPs that this is a serious underestimate. Police often record the deaths as cases of domestic violence, while other girls are driven to suicide or taken away to their family’s country of origin and never seen again. Many Asian parents would rather resort to violence against their children than see their reputation tarnished by the perceived dishonour of allowing them to become “westernised”.
The report, Crimes of the Community, claims the problem is no longer an issue of first-generation migrants importing attitudes from “back home” but is “indigenous and self-perpetuating” because it is sustained by third and fourth-generation immigrants. ”
Intriguingly, the host Western cultures tend to collude in the game for fear of being branded racist:
“Police have a long way to go before they get on top of honour crime. There is a lingering fear among officers of being dubbed racist for probing cultural issues. We’ve got to shake off that myth,” she said. ”
I submit, James, that women who are trapped in the most oppressive and patriarchal cultures are rather less likely than women generally to report rape or any other crime to the authorities, even if they live in the West. I would further submit that those cultures that routinely hack female genitals, slice off their noses and ears, hide them within the confines of the house, deinvidualise them through clothing and generally deny them any real measure of dignity and respect are the most oppressive of them all.
Mel,
You didn’t address my last point, which was that your strategy of injecting stereotypes of men from Middle Eastern countries into a thread on provocative clothing and rape is a red herring, for the simple reason that in Australia men from Middle Eastern countries are responsible for only a very tiny proportion of rapes – around 1.42 per cent.
Your comment is long, but as far as I can tell it includes only one point that is at all relevant to this thread – a claim that women from Middle Eastern countries living in Australia are less likely than the average Australian woman to report rape to the authorities. This could contribute to why the recorded figures for Lebanon and Turkey for “Alleged rape offenders processed per 10,000 alleged crime offenders processed” are lower than the equivalent figure for the total Victorian population. Since the recorded figures for Lebanon and Turkey are significantly lower than the equivalent figure for the total Victorian population, these figures would have to rise significantly to equal the figure for the total Victorian population and then rise further for the figures to support the notion that in Australia men from Middle Eastern countries are particularly prone to instigating rapes, over and above a general tendency to participate in criminal activity. I don’t have any evidence one way or the other about this. Do you?
Nevertheless, it’s worth remembering that, of the evidence that is available, none of it supports the notion that in Australia men from Middle Eastern countries are particularly prone to instigating rapes, over and above a general tendency to participate in criminal activity. All there really is are preconceived notions and stereotypes about these men floating around in people’s heads. There is some evidence that pertains to this notion (as mentioned in my earlier comment), but this evidence provides absolutely no support for this notion.
As I said, I didn’t think the rest of your comment was of much use. Your strategy of reading about one sensational case on one side of the globe, collecting information about another sensational case on the other side of the globe, and then forming your views on the basis of these sensational cases, is not a sensible one. There are thousands of Muslims in Australia and billions around the world. Muslims are not a monolith – there is as much variation among Muslims as there is among Christians, whether from Poland, the Philippines, the Congo, Brazil, the United States, etc. That’s a lot of variation. Reading about one sensational case on one side of the globe, and then collecting information about another sensational case on the other side of the globe, will tell you next to nothing about the Muslims who have chosen to leave their homelands to start a new life in Australia. (And obviously Muslims who have left their homelands to move to Australia will differ from those left behind – after all, these Muslims have self-selected themselves to leave, as well as being selected by the Australian government for immigration.)
Imagine if someone had discussed one case of church-based child abuse in the United States or Europe, and then used this to condemn people of “European appearance”. Would that make any sense? I’m sure there are people around the Muslim world who adopt the same approach as you – reading about sensation cases of abuse in newspapers or on websites and then forming their views of people in the West on the basis of these sensational cases – but it’s not a sensible approach.
Nevertheless, here are a few comments on the grab-bag of cases you mention.
* “the three countries you refer to are generally considered to be moderate Islamic countries”. What this suggests to me is that most Muslim immigrants to Australia have come from relatively moderate Islamic countries.
* “in Indonesia the mass butchering of female genitalia…is now commonplace in the Islamic community”. This is a caricature of reality, as you probably know. Remembering that Indonesia is a huge country (it has the fourth largest population in the world), as well as being a very diverse one, there is bound to be variation in practices from one place to another. Nevertheless, regarding female genital cutting the Office of the Senior Coordinator for International Women’s Issues of the United States Department of State writes: “There are no statistics on this practice in Indonesia. However, a study conducted in Jakarta and West Java, found most female children who were circumcised underwent ritualistic, largely non-invasive procedures…The type of procedure performed in Indonesia, if any, is usually left to the discretion of local traditional practitioners who rely on local traditions. The procedure is often performed in a hospital in urban areas. Because procedures are largely symbolic, the incidence of complications is believed to be low”. Female genital cutting in Indonesia has also been described as follows: “FGM is also found among some Muslim groups in Indonesia, where the most common form is type IV, also known as ‘incision’. This involves some form of symbolic pricking, scraping or touching of the clitoris”. Female genital cutting in Indonesia is not nice, but it is generally not as invasive as male genital cutting, which is almost universal in Indonesia and in which boys’ genitals are invariably cut and genital tissue excised. As I alluded to in my earlier comment, I’m not a supporter of any type of genital cutting without consent.
* You include a link to a discussion of laws in Lebanon, although, since government and law making in Lebanon are meticulously shared between Christians and Muslims, laws in Lebanon are hardly ideal tools to criticise Muslims. Are you criticising Christians at the same time? And what do these laws have to do with the attitudes of those people who have chosen to leave Lebanon to start a new life in Australia?
* Most of your comment consists of a long exposition of one sensational case that wasn’t even in Australia. It’s a terrible case, but what are we supposed to learn from this case about the thousands of Muslims in Australia?
I’ve responded to your last comment, but obviously it’s not worth my while to respond to each sensational case you can find from around the globe. If you have anything useful to say about provocative clothing and rape, though, I’d be happy to respond.
James: “… for the simple reason that in Australia men from Middle Eastern countries are responsible for only a very tiny proportion of rapes – around 1.42 per cent.”
Could you pls give a citation for that stat. I would also be interested to know if this fig. includes second and third generation ME Muslims. I ask because as I understand it, second and third generation ME and Pakistani Muslims living in the West are just as likely- perhaps even more likely- to commit terrorism offences. I wouldn’t be surprised if the situation with respect to other anti-social behavious such as rape (perhaps other than “in-house” rape).
You might also like to comment on my contention that women from oppressive and patriarchal backgrounds are much less likely to be inclined to report rape than women raised within a more liberal culture. In support of this contention I note the following story from France:
“Samira Bellil wasn’t asking for trouble, but trouble came to her. She’s the granddaughter of Algerian immigrants and she’s written a book about surviving the hell of the Paris ghettos.
“I was gang raped by three people I knew, and I couldn’t say anything, because in my culture, your family is dishonored if you lose your virginity,” says Bellil. “So I kept quiet, and the rapes continued. The next time, I was pulled off a commuter train and no one lifted a finger to help me. …Everybody turned their head away. They were all looking out the window.”
When Bellil’s family discovered that she had been raped, they weren’t sympathetic. They threw her out onto the streets. But she’s since discovered that what happened to her was not the only case. ”
I see no reason to assume the situation in Oz is much different.
Where I got this statistic is spelled out in my first comment.
This statistic does not include second and third generation Middle Eastern Muslims (and in fact it includes a lot of Christians, since, among Victorians born in Lebanon, more are Christians than Muslims, as mentioned in my first comment).
In the 2006 Australian census, 431,000 people reported a “ Middle Eastern or North African” ancestry (eg, Lebanese, Turkish, Arab, etc). In comparison, 250,509 people reported a “Middle Eastern” or “North African” country of birth. The ratio of these two figures is 1.72.
As mentioned in my first comment, of the 871 people processed as alleged rape offenders in Victoria in 2009/2010, 1.42 per cent can be estimated to have been born in either Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria.
Using the 1.72 ratio mentioned above to move from country of birth to ancestry leads the 1.42 per cent statistic to rise to 2.44 per cent (1.42 * 1.72 = 2.44). So, on the basis of the data I have at hand, I’d estimate that of the 871 people processed as alleged rape offenders in Victoria in 2009/2010, only 2.44 per cent can be estimated to have a “Middle Eastern or North African” ancestry. (As I mentioned earlier, this includes Christians as well as Muslims).
People who have no Middle Eastern or North African ancestry whatsoever account for the remaining 97.56 per cent of alleged rape offenders.
Did you read my last comment?
James says:
“People who have no Middle Eastern or North African ancestry whatsoever account for the remaining 97.56 per cent of alleged rape offenders.”
Right, so you’ve deduced based on nothing whatsoever that no second, third etc generation ME or North African Muslims have committed rape and you’ve also excluded Pakistan etc from your less than convincing fiddle with the stats.
Sorry James, but in light of contemporaneous events such as the public finger-fucking of CBS reporter Lara Logan by 200 jubilant Arabs and the ongoing refinement and spread of “tournantes” in France, whereby groups of fifty or more ecstatic Algerian males rape women with gay abandon and little chance of being reported to police let alone arrested and convicted (see Samira Bellil’s account for example), I think I’ll stick to my stereotypes.
I’ve deduced nothing of the sort. The 2.44 per cent figure, and the matching 97.56 per cent figure (100 – 2.44 = 97.56), assume that second and third generation immigrants who have a Middle Eastern or North African ancestry commit rape at the same rate as immigrants who were born in Lebanon and Turkey. Please read my earlier comments.
People born in Pakistan constitute a miniscule proportion of the population: about 0.1 per cent. Pakistan is also in Southern Asia rather than the Middle East.
You might also be interested in this document, which suggests that in Australia in 2010, of the 3,711 prisoners whose most serious offence or charge was sexual assault or a related offence, 28 were born in Lebanon, Turkey, or Iraq (see Table 2.4). That’s 0.75 per cent…! You could adjust the figures to take into account other Middle Eastern and North African countries, or to look at ancestry rather than country of birth, but I doubt it would make any substantial difference to this miniscule percentage.
(I came across this document via this Catallaxy Files thread.)
Interestingly, of the prisoners whose most serious offence or charge was sexual assault or a related offence, 49 were women (see Table 2.1). Among these prisoners, more were women than were born in Lebanon, Turkey, or Iraq…!
From this document (Table 2.4 again) you can also estimate, for people born in various countries, the number of prisoners whose most serious offence or charge was sexual assault or a related offence per 100,000 adult population (the adult population can be estimated from the penultimate and ultimate columns). Here are the estimates, in descending order.
Samoa: 115.69
Sudan: 68.76
Other: 61.31
Tonga: 54.18
Fiji: 38.33
IRAQ: 27.50
Australia: 25.67
Chile: 21.70
Papua New Guinea: 21.54
TOTAL: 21.25
United States of America: 19.54
New Zealand: 18.67
Romania: 18.55
TURKEY: 18.47
Germany: 14.48
Sri Lanka: 12.43
Thailand: 11.88
LEBANON: 11.48
Singapore: 10.46
Former Yugoslavia: 10.45
India: 7.40
Philippines: 6.62
United Kingdom and Ireland: 6.33
Vietnam: 6.07
Greece: 5.49
Malaysia: 4.97
Hong Kong: 4.83
Italy: 4.59
South Africa: 3.19
China (excludes SARs and Taiwan): 2.09
Indonesia: 0.00
Cambodia: 0.00
Enjoy!
DD @ 3: “Like some other commenters, I hold the line that women’s dress SHOULD not affect the risk of rape, but that in fact it DOES. On that ground I supported that copper’s advice in the context it was given.” If the copper had expressed it the way you and other express it, there would have been less of a problem. I think the words he chose indicate that he really did blame women. To this extent, it is actually irrelevent whether dressing modestly turns out to be good or bad advice.
In comparing crime rates across population subgroups, it is also a good idea to adjust for differences in age strucures. For example, I would imagine that a disproportionate percentage of people born in Sudan are under 30. People under 30 tend to commit more crimes than prople over 50, for example. So once again it is useful to calculate age-standardised rates.
Hi Peter,
I couldn’t agree more. As you say, the relatively high crime rates among people born in Sudan are likely to be due in part simply to the youthful age structure of this sub-population, rather than anything to due with Sudanese culture. Conrad and others make the same point in the Catallaxy Files thread, as well as mentioning a range of other confounding factors, such as gender distributions. I alluded to some other potential confounding factors in my first comment (poor English-language skills, low levels of educational qualifications, unemployment, working in low-skilled occupations).
Working within the confines of the data I had at hand (and since the focus of this thread is on rape), comparing rates of rape to rates of total crime was a crude attempt to impose some kind of control for these confounding factors. But if I had access to the data, some kind of multivariate approach that explicitly controls for confounding factors such as age and gender would have been great.
James:
“The 2.44 per cent figure, and the matching 97.56 per cent figure (100 – 2.44 = 97.56), assume that second and third generation immigrants who have a Middle Eastern or North African ancestry commit rape at the same rate as immigrants who were born in Lebanon and Turkey. Please read my earlier comments.”
There is no basis for assuming what applies to o/s born Lebanese and Turks applies to all persons from the ME. There is also no basis for your assumptions about second or third generation ME persons. Further, as you have previously noted, Lebanon has a sizeable Christian population. My hypothesis is limited to ME Muslims, although I would expect much the same pattern among the more oppressive and patriarchal Lebanese Christian elements as well. Sorry for not spelling this out more clearly earlier on. It is much more difficult to generalise about Lebanon because it does have a sizeable liberal element. You will see Lebanese women in bikinis on the beach, something that is simply not possible in most other ME countries.
“People born in Pakistan constitute a miniscule proportion of the population: about 0.1 per cent. Pakistan is also in Southern Asia rather than the Middle East.”
There is no single definition of Middle East. Wiki cites several sources that include Pakistan in the definition of Middle East and notes that Pakistan was considered part of the Middle East by the Eisenhower administration, which coined the term.
As you are probably aware, four of the five perpetrators of the Ashfield rapes were Pakistanis. Moreover, contra your claims about disadvantage, the Pakistani perpetrators were from privileged backgrounds. Interestingly, as if to reinforce my stereotype, the defence team for the Pakistani perpetrators used culture as a reason for the rapes.
In Britain, which I think is a reasonable proxy for where we are heading, I note this regarding Pakistani rape of white children:
Charities and agencies working in conjunction with the police to help victims of sexual abuse in such cases have publicly denied there is a link between ethnicity and the on-street grooming of young girls by gangs and pimps.
But researchers identified 17 court prosecutions since 1997, 14 of them in the past three years, involving the on-street grooming of girls aged 11 to 16 by groups of men.
The victims came from 13 towns and cities and in each case two or more men were convicted of offences.
In total, 56 people, with an average age of 28, were found guilty of crimes including rape, child abduction, indecent assault and sex with a child.
Three of the 56 were white, 53 were Asian. Of those, 50 were Muslim and a majority were members of the British Pakistani community.
Those convicted allegedly represent only a small proportion of what one detective called a ‘tidal wave’ of offending in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and the Midlands.”
Note once again how the prevailing culture of anti-racism seeks to suppress an unsavoury reality. Further stories on the topic note how the perpetrators are generally middle class or upper middle class rather than poor impoverished waifs who knew no better, once again countering your assumptions.
Mel, they are the same people who are terrorists, too.
Another Muslim woman fesses up on the ethno-religious aspects of Muslim rape:
” Let’s begin then. Because without such an open conversation, prejudices fester and millions of Britons come to believe that serious offenders from certain ethnic and religious groups have protected status within our country.
The Cornwall and Derby villains who used girls as sex toys believed that their victims had “asked for it”, which in our permissive age is an easy excuse. Very young girls are sexualised in the social environment, so paedophiles must feel they are only helping themselves to the goodies that are on offer. But in the case of the Asian men, disgusting cultural beliefs further validate their acts and their uncontrollable lechery is, in part, a symptom of repressed sexuality and sick attitudes.
Most Asian [Pakistani] men do not go around raping young white girls and women; many have happy and equal relationships with white partners. However, an alarming number of Asian [Pakistani] individuals, families and communities do believe that white females have no morals, are free and available, deserving of no respect or protection.
Up in Bradford a few years back, I met Muslim pimps, some wearing mini Koran pendants on heavy, gold chains. “Not our girls,” they reassured me, “just them white girls from the estates, cheap girls. They love it man, all the money they make! What else will they do with their lives? We’re helping them make a career.”
Much laughter, until I asked them what they would do if a white pimp groomed their daughters. They would kill the pimp and the girls too, they said. They would too.
Then there was an 18-year-old white boy from Manchester who said he was lured and raped at the age of 10 by an Asian scoutmaster and his Muslim mates, who would, in public, hysterically denounce homosexuality. The double standards enable the Asian rapists to feel good, and that makes it doubly bad. Convenient myths of uprightness help hide the rape within their families too – which is why barely anyone ever reports it. The final insult is the veil of religious hypocrisy, already evident in the pimps above. Muslims and Sikhs make much public noise about the importance of religion and its intrinsic goodness. Islam and Sikhism do give women some important rights, but these are devalued in real life on a daily basis.
When deeds destroy professed religious principles, when nefarious abusers claim to be true worshippers, people rightly feel more animus and deeper repugnance. That is why paedophile Catholic priests arouse such fury. What abominable secrets and lies nestle beneath the sheets of godly and “ethnic” self-righteousness!
The injuries suffered by child victims are not determined by race or religion, but their sense of injustice is understandably much greater when their fiendish attackers believe themselves to be morally superior and therefore entitled to corrupt young flesh.
Listen to Miranda, now in her twenties, who was repeatedly raped by a British Asian pimp in Rotherham. She was also abused by her own dad when she was 11 : “Ahmed told me I was making him do it because I was sinful, not a true believer. That he would never do it if I was a Muslim. My dad would cry afterwards. I hate them both, but Ahmed was worse”. ”
In Western countries like France, Britain and Australia, one can find literally hundreds of documented instances of Muslim men from backgrounds as diverse as Lebanon, Algeria and Pakistan using rape in the name of Allah against western women, and in some cases boys, who they see as morally and culturally inferior.
Sorry Mel, I’ll take large scale surveys and censuses over the odd anecdote any day.
Mel
I appreciate the point you’re trying to make, but I don’t think the lurid passages help your overall case (and they do sound a tad racist). James has made a case on stats that can’t be effectively rebutted by this sort of anecdotal evidence. The only point I think is worth making about that is that the figures he refers to are only from Victoria and over a decade old. Whether more widespread and up to date stats would show the same picture remains to be seen, but it’s not possible to assert otherwise in the absence of evidence. I can in part understand why they don’t keep (or at least make publicly available) stats on crime and ethnicity. They would inevitably inflame tensions and be misused by the Pauline Hansons and Andrew Bolts of the world. Nevertheless I’d almost wager they’re maintained but kept private. After all, NSW has (or had until recently) a specifically named Middle Eastern Crime Squad, so it would be surprising if they didn’t have figures on the amount of crime committed and in what categories.
Ken says:
“James has made a case on stats that can’t be effectively rebutted by this sort of anecdotal evidence. ”
All James has done is subject some of the limited available data to some cruel and unusual punishment. The most robust evidence we have is the many hundreds of recorded convictions of ME Muslims in the west together with the court evidence, all of which becomes apparent after a little googling.
Sadly, the fine-grained data we need to settle the matter once and for all with statistics simply does not exist, nor is it ever likely to exist given the current political orthodoxies.
Crikey, even James’ claims about the Shangri-la nature of FGM in Indonesia turns out to be porcine. Here’s what James wants us to believe:
“Female genital cutting in Indonesia is not nice, but it is generally not as invasive as male genital cutting, which is almost universal in Indonesia and in which boys’ genitals …”
Here is what the UN is saying:
“Though the Indonesian government banned female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) four years ago, experts say religious support for the practice is more fervent than ever, particularly in rural communities.
A lack of regulation since the ban makes it difficult to monitor, but medical practitioners say FGM/C remains commonplace for women of all ages in this emerging democracy of 240 million – the world’s largest Muslim nation.
Although not authorized by the Koran, the practice is growing in popularity.
With increased urging of religious leaders, baby girls are now losing the top or part of their clitoris in the name of faith, sometimes in unsanitary rooms with tools as crude as scissors.”
Equally bad advice, actually perhaps worse, are the naïve campaigns and slogans like “society teaches ‘don’t get raped but does not teach not to rape”. It simply buys the feminist myth of the rape as a tool for male societal domination, when, in fact, most men don’t need to be “taught” not to rape; they simply can’t rape. And for those who can, such slogans wouldn’t cause anything but laughter. Combined with a second slogan, “drinking is not crime, rape is”, what we have is just the situation rapists have ever hoped for. Easy prey, making themselves vulnerable, hoping that “now men understand that they shouldn’t rape”, as they’ve finally seen the slogans asking not to rape.
I wish I knew how to phrase all this issue in a way that is not prone to rejection. Somehow lots of people see this as “blaming the victim” and are blinded to the reality, that these campaign, as well intended as they might be, don’t take in consideration any scientific research on the profile of the rapist, but instead assume that it’s just a common man behaving bad just because he lacks some teachable manners. That’s simply not the case, and letting ideology-fueled theories dictate campaigns or strategies will be disastrous.
Sigh.
“Almahde Ahmad Atagore, 28, had been in Australia only a month and was having trouble adapting to the Australian culture when he committed the attacks, a court heard.
Atagore, who is a Muslim, was upset and sexually aroused at the way women in Australia dressed and behaved, the Victorian County Court heard on Tuesday.
Between August and September last year Atagore, who was in Australia on a Libyan government scholarship, embarked on a string of sexual assaults over four days in Mentone and at Flinders Street railway station.
His youngest victim was just 13.”
Another day, another anecdote.
I think that rapists would rape a range of women, but they might pick a provocative dresser as it would be easier that way to make her feel like she is to blame for it and to convince others of this. I read that in countries where women are covered up from head to toe, the men actually find that very exciting. They start to fantasize about what is underneath and will objectify women anyway. I just think most people don’t understand that rapists and predators somehow look to blame the victim. It could be that a bourka wearing Muslim woman smiled with her eyes or that an American girl was wearing a mini skirt. The point is that predators blame the victim. Let’s not all start blaming the victims of violence and rape. Rapists feel entitled or somehow personally provoked. Women don’t wear sexy clothes for all other men. The way people dress has a lot to do with environment and social groups they are a part of. If anything, I think women try to dress attractively for THAT ONE cute guy they actually want to connect with. Or they just want to feel strong and powerful or it could be 100 other reasons. The point is, the rapists and predators are not claiming responsibility. It is very common for a predator type guy to tell himself that what he did is the victims fault. Some men have low impulse control. If you know you have low impulse control or you are possibly a predator or rapist, please just seek help and get away from that misery.
Back in 2011 Ken Parish made the following statement to refute my claim that Muslim culture (or certain strains thereof) is a significant causal factor in rape and that events in Rotherham etc. shouldn’t be dismissed lightly as just anecdotes:
Now of course we know that the left wing establishment in Rotherham made certain that the truth about what was happening was concealed and that the stats were accordingly so much bullshit:
Way to go, Lefty team. You knew perfectly well this shit was happening and you’re as morally culpable as the pugs who run the Catholic Church.