Tuesday, March 01, 2011

On Bad Critiques of Rape Prevelance Studies (Part I)

Michael Ezra of Harry's Place has a post up critiquing some of the literature regarding the prevalence of rape in our society. The immediate hook is some quotes by Eve Ensler at a recent talk, but the post quickly segues into an attack on the famous Mary Koss study which claimed that 1 in 4 college women surveyed have experienced rape and/or attempted rape at some point in their life. Contrary to Ezra's claim and popular belief, Koss did not originally publish this claim for Ms. Magazine, but in a peer-reviewed journal (Sexual experiences survey: A research instrument investigating sexual aggression and victimization, 50 The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 455 (1982)). Ms. Magazine helped support a national follow-up study, but that too was peer-reviewed and eventually published at 55 The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 162 (1987).

Anyway, that's the least substantive of my problems, which can be grouped into two major categories (sufficiently disjointed that I'm writing this as two separate posts). The first, which I'll focus on here, is that Ezra and his colleagues forward an unduly ossified conception of what "rape" is, when (as his own post makes clear) the contours of rape have been historical extremely variable and contested. In the subsequent post, I'll take issue with the weight Ezra puts on the fact that many of the women whom Koss claims were raped do not adopt that label to describe their own experience.

Ezra opens with a methodological objection that purports to demonstrate that Koss' questions improperly categorized as "rape" ambiguous or even clearly non-rape behaviors:
Neil Gilbert (“Realities and Mythologies of Rape” [subscription required] Society, May/June 1992 pp.4-10) commented on the questions that were included in the survey. As well as those that referred to the threat or use of “some degree of physical force,” there were the following two questions:
Have you had a man attempt sexual intercourse (get on top of you, attempt to insert his penis) when you didn’t want to by giving you alcohol or drugs, but intercourse did not occur?

Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?

Gilbert declared:
Forty-four percent of all the women identified as victims of rape and attempted rape in the previous year were so labeled because they responded positively to these awkward and vaguely worded questions. What does having sex “because” a man gives you drugs or alcohol signify? A positive response does not indicate whether duress, intoxication, force, or the threat of force were present; whether the woman’s judgment or control were substantially impaired; or whether the man purposely got the woman drunk to prevent her from resisting his sexual advances. It could mean that a woman was trading sex for drugs or that a few drinks lowered the respondent’s inhibitions and she consented to an act she later regretted. Koss assumes that a positive answer signifies the respondent engaged in sexual intercourse against her will because she was intoxicated to the point of being unable to deny consent (and that the man had administered the alcohol for this purpose). While the item could have been clearly worded to denote “intentional incapacitation of the victim,” as the question stands it would require a mind reader to detect whether an affirmative response corresponds to a legal definition of rape.

This is a very bizarre objection, on a couple of levels. First, note the claim that Koss needs to tailor her questions so they match the "legal definition of rape". This implies that there is (a) a single, unified legal definition of what rape is and (b) that neither Koss, nor anyone else, has the right to contest that definition or provide a counterdefinition. The former is false, the latter ridiculous.

Rape, both legally and in terms of public conception, has had a diverse array of definitions over the years and across societies. Ezra, of course, implicitly concedes this insofar as he nutpicks a few radical feminists with exceptionally broad conceptions of rape as examples of how ridiculous the whole field is. But even putting them aside, it's obviously the case that there are and have been different legal definitions of rape. For example, there is divergence in whether the victim must physically resist the rapist for it to be rape and, if so, what degree of resistance was required (some only required any amount of resistance, other states, notably Louisiana, require that the victim resist "to the utmost"). Whether spousal rape even exists has legally been in flux, with the consensus in favor only being established towards the end of the 20th century. There remains dispute, unfortunately, as to whether consent can be withdrawn -- that is, whether rape can occur if penetrative sex begins but does not cease if one of the party's withdraws their consent mid-coitus. Hence, actions which are rape in one jurisdiction might not be in another; Ezra and Gilbert are proffering an impossible demand if they expect Koss to be able to unify these by-design divergent threads.

But even if the definition was unified, there is no reason why Koss must defer to it. Many jurisdiction's have hideous definitions of what rape is, and Koss would be quite within her rights to define rape more expansively than they do. For example, at the time of her study, not all states had abolished the exemption for marital rape (North Carolina was the last to do so, in 1993). Should Koss have included a question asking her respondents to check off if any of the potentially-rape acts were committed by their spouse? Why? I imagine Koss thinks, and I agree, that for purposes of social science research we should label such acts rape regardless of whether the state defines it so or not.

I can't access Koss' study myself, so I don't know if she forwards a specific definition of rape. My rough-and-ready definition is that rape is when a person engages in a penetrative sexual act without consent (and sexual assault is when a person engages in any sort of sexual act without consent). That's a reasonable enough definition, in my view, albeit more expansive than many state definitions (it also locates nearly all of the action at the question of "consent" -- most of the radical feminists Ezra derides claim, incorrectly in my view, that various aspects of patriarchy make meaningful consent usually or always impossible in heterosexual encounters. That claim may be wrong, but I don't think it argues against the claim that consent is the sine qua non of what is and isn't rape). It may be one pole of the debate (the other being, as one wag noted, rape being only "forcibly raping a baby who wasn't too much of a slut."), but it's one I'm willing to defend, in contrast to the "middle ground" which adds in requirements of physical coercion, unmarriedness, virginity, or what-have-you.

Ironically, the specific objection Ezra and Gilbert raise "that the man had administered the alcohol for this purpose [of rendering the woman incapable of granting consent]" corresponds to no legal definition of rape that I'm aware of -- at least, of those for whom intercourse with a woman too intoxicated to give consent would count as rape. If a woman is in a position where she is incapable of granting consent due to intoxication, not only does it not matter if the man intended for her to get that way, it doesn't matter if he played any role whatsoever in intoxicating her -- a man who randomly stumbles across a woman too intoxicated to consent and sleeps with her anyway strikes me as a very easy case for conviction, and I think it would be in most jurisdictions.

Finally, with respect to the "legalization" of this discussion, it's also worth noting that it's perfectly consistent to have different standards for what rape is from the perspective of answering "was this woman raped" and "should we impose criminal liability on the accused"? Mistake-of-fact defenses, where we believe both that the woman did not consent to sexual activity, but the man reasonably believed that she did, are an example where many people would be willing to simultaneously say that the woman was raped but that the man shouldn't be punished. Not everyone, and not always (we don't admit a mistake-of-fact defense in statutory rape cases, for instance, and there are some who would extend that to all rape prosecutions and would suggest that sexual partners always be sure to gain active consent before any encounter), but the distinction itself is coherent. Law -- criminal and civil -- isn't capable of correcting or even encompassing every wrong, but that doesn't mean law ought exhaust our moral vocabulary.

Anyway, assuming Koss' definition of rape roughly tracks my own, and is intended not to focus on the perpetrators (how many men should we punish as rapists?) but on the victims (how many women have experienced what is properly termed rape?), the challenged questions seem perfectly appropriate. Koss seems invested in the notion that sex is only legitimate when all parties involved wish to have sex -- hardly a morally shocking claim or indicative of academic malpractice. By contrast, Ezra and Gilbert both falsely posit a legal unity to the definition of rape (one whose contours are vague but seems, in important respects, far narrower than that extant in many if not most legal jurisdictions), then demand that it colonize the entire field such that no researcher or advocate can ever challenge it. That's a bad critique.

UPDATE: Part II is now available here.

10 comments:

Michael Ezra said...

Dear David,

Thank you for taking the time for responding to my post. I feel I must respond in a few areas:

1.

You state:

" Contrary to Ezra's claim and popular belief, Koss did not originally publish this claim for Ms. Magazine, but in a peer-reviewed journal (Sexual experiences survey: A research instrument investigating sexual aggression and victimization, 50 The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 455 (1982)). Ms. Magazine helped support a national follow-up study, but that too was peer-reviewed and eventually published at 55 The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 162 (1987)."

Your comment is not accurate.I have read the 1982 study paper by Mary Koss and Cheryl Oros that you refer to. Koss and Oros do not state anywhere in that paper that "one in four" have been raped. They simply present the raw results of their study with some commentary. This commentary does not include the "one in four" claim. A reader of that study would also not necessarily come up with the "one in four" statistic.

I also have the far more detailed 1987 paper that you refer to.

In the 1982 paper there were the results from the survey of 2,016 women. Christine Hoff Sommers makes clear (Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women [Touchstone, 1995], p.297n8) that 3,187 females were used for the statistic that was published by Ms. magazine. Hence Ms. could not be basing the "one in four" claim on the 1982 study. The 1987 Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski published paper that you refer to is the one with 3,187 females.

2.

You state:

"Ezra and his colleagues forward an unduly ossified conception of what 'rape' is."

For clarity, I take responsibility for my post on Harry's Place. There were no colleagues who I consulted before publishing my blog post.

3. You state:

"Anyway, assuming Koss' definition of rape roughly tracks my own, and is intended not to focus on the perpetrators (how many men should we punish as rapists?) but on the victims (how many women have experienced what is properly termed rape?), the challenged questions seem perfectly appropriate."

From my post on Harry's Place I quoted Gilbert's paper in one area which you have not repeated in your post. I copy it below:

"When asked directly, 73 percent of the students whom Koss categorized as victims of rape did not think that they had been raped."

If one were to focus on the victims, then surely this statistic is relevant.

David Schraub said...

Michael -- by "colleagues" I was referring to Gilbert, not your HP cobloggers. And the final point (regarding how the women characterize their own experience) will be the subject of the "Part II", which I should be able to put up today.

N. Friedman said...

David,

I have a lot of problems with your critique because it does not seem to be directed at the material you quote. The issue I see is in the questions, which are, I (not to mention the person you quote) think, ambiguous, the second question being the more ambiguous of the two. This is true using your definition of rape or the least or the most restrictive legal or moral definitions.

For example, a woman given a drink or two could, at the time of passion, want to have sex (and, in fact, have taken the drink intending to lower her inhibitions) and to follow through by having sex but the next morning, being no longer tipsy like the night before - as opposed to smashed the night before, as you would have it - come to realize a bad mistake had been made and that sex was not wanted and cringe at a horrible mistake. That circumstance is not rape on your definition or mine, yet on that scenario, the answer to the second quesiton would properly be "Yes."

The first question is slightly less ambiguous but not much so. At least there is a focus on the time of the event in question, something missing from the second question. However, the first question is still ambiguous. People drink and men often have, historically, used alcohol as a lubricant without intending to rape and women have typically taken drinks knowing full well that drinks act to remove inhibitions. So a woman who takes a drink to lower her inhibitions, given by a man intending to lower her inhibitions is rejected during the prelude to sex. The man, not wanting to rape, stops upon request. That is not rape and it is not a sexual assault. It is pretty typical of what occurs, though.

I think, to be blunt, that you did not read the questions in issue carefully enough.

N. Friedman said...

Someone's - not my - comment evidently vaporized because the blog page indicates there are 4 comments while there are only 3 comments listed and 3 visible comments on this page.

Barry Deutsch said...

N. Friedman, for what it's worth, I see your comments.

Michael, you wrote "This commentary does not include the 'one in four' claim. A reader of that study would also not necessarily come up with the "one in four" statistic."

I've read the Ms Magazine article reporting on Koss' work, and it didn't include the "1 in 4" claim either. So your claim that 1 in 4 is a "headline statistic from the Ms. study" is, by your own standard, inaccurate.

N. Friedman said...

Barry,

If you look on the blog page, you will see, just now, "6 comments" while, on this posting page, you see "5 comments." My comments are all here. Someone else posted something which vaporized. That is a common problem on this website, one that David has had occasion to note. He often corrects the problem, so that all posts are made to appear.

David Schraub said...

I actually have checked, and there is nothing in my spam filter for this post, so I think the numbering is just a glitch. All comments that I've seen are currently up on the page (and I normally get emails even for the spam comments, though those emails, annoyingly, don't tell me what is and isn't being flagged as spam).

Barry Deutsch said...

First, note the claim that Koss needs to tailor her questions so they match the "legal definition of rape".

I'm not disagreeing with your larger point, but it's possibly worth mentioning that Koss' implicit definition of rape was actually an attempt to reflect then-current Ohio law in her study. See page 16 of this pdf file.

Michael Ezra said...

Barry Deutsch states:


"I've read the Ms Magazine article reporting on Koss' work, and it didn't include the '1 in 4' claim either. So your claim that 1 in 4 is a 'headline statistic from the Ms. study' is, by your own standard, inaccurate."

Christina Hoff Sommers declares (Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women [Touchstone, 1995],p.211):

"Here is how the Ms. Foundation characterizes the results: 'The Ms. project-the largest scientific investigation ever undertaken on the subject-revealed some disquieting statistics, including this astonishing fact: one in four female respondents had an experience that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape.'"

Hence, it is quite clear that the Ms. Foundation were using the "one in four" statistic. Whether this statistic was published in the original Ms. magazine report I do not know, but it is quite clear that it was Ms. that used the "one in four claim."

Barry Deutsch said...

Just to be clear, we're not talking about the claim that 1 in 4 women experience rape at some point in their lives, but the more nuanced claim that 1 in 4 women experience rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives. (Neither figure is in the original Ms article.)

I'm sure that Ms has stated the more nuanced 1 in 4 claim many times -- but that doesn't establish that it originated with Ms, or justify referring to Koss' work as the Ms study.

I have doubts about the 1 in 4 claim, because I think "attempted rape" is inherently more nebulous and harder to track in surveys than "completed rape," and (more importantly) Koss' major findings regarding completed rape have been confirmed by multiple later studies, but realtively little subsequent work has attempted to measure the prevalence of attempted rape.

That said, the 1 in 4 claim is not obviously out of bounds of the reasonable; it's just not verified by futher research.

Furthermore, to believe that it's not true, you'd have to believe either than Koss was wildly off-base with her measure of completed rape -- in which case, the multiple studies confirming her findings are hard to explain away -- or that she was right about completed rape but the attempted rape part is wrong. Which may be true, but it doesn't make completed rape any less of a widespread and urgent crisis, and it's no reason to dismiss Koss' study entirely.

I'll be posting a response to your post's critique of Koss sometime in the next week (covering some stuff David's excellent post didn't get into), at which time I'll get into the issues in more detail.