© AP Photo/Jacquelyn MartinWhile I commend Betsy DeVos on the position she's taking and feel confident she'll get something more fair in place re campus sexual assault, I certainly don't envy her. I'm not even sure she knows what an uphill battle she has.
During President Barack Obama's time in office, campuses were portrayed as a dangerous place for women - what with all the young men lurking in the wings to pounce on unsuspecting young women. The notion that our nation's campuses are infested with a "rape culture," and that universities are cavalier toward female victims of sexual assault, became the status quo during Obama's tenure.
The problem is that neither is true.
Though Obama and his ilk repeatedly claimed that "one in five women on college campuses have been sexually assaulted," the truth, according to Stuart Taylor Jr., author of The Campus Rape Frenzy, is that "the best Justice Department statistics suggests that maybe 1 out of 100 college women is raped during her four years and maybe 1 in 40 or 1 in 50 is sexually assaulted."
Unfortunately, like all untruths that are propagated in the media ("fake news" anyone?) week after week, the rape culture narrative, bolstered by the "1 out of 5" claim, took hold, in large part because the Obama administration was replete with feminists who salivated at the opportunity to claim men are natural-born oppressors.
No one thought to ask, "Hm, what's different about college campuses today, and what's different about our culture, that would make sex on campus so litigious?" Are we supposed to assume the previous generation of women just happened to produce a bunch of rapists? Or perhaps men have been raping women on campus for decades and the entire matter is only now being addressed?
There is so much more to this issue than meets the eye, and we are fortunate to have an education secretary who gets that - and who doesn't cave to feminist antics, as her predecessor did. It means we can finally get to the truth about campus sexual assault and be fair to all those involved.
By "all," I mean women and men. Because that is where the real problem lies. The rape culture craze was built on a distorted view of masculinity and has led to policies that have proved devastating to those who have been falsely accused. You'd think the Duke Lacrosse case or even the slam dunk Rolling Stone case would have been enough to hit the pause button. But no. That's because rape culture zealots - i.e. feminists - don't believe that men, by virtue of their DNA, can be victims. They are always, always to blame. No due process needed.
This is very important to understand about feminists, many of whom hold powerful positions. DeVos has the challenge of creating, as she put it, "a more precise definition" of sexual misconduct. Amen to that. But what she's up against are folks who honestly believe that being catcalled or propositioned falls under the same umbrella as rape. Even the fact that college sexual encounters are fueled by alcohol doesn't sway their steadfast belief that women are blameless.
Radical feminists have no ability whatsoever to see men as anything but perpetrators. If a man even looks the wrong way at a woman, he's guilty of objectifying her. And domestic violence never goes both ways. To them, domestic violence is synonymous with "violence against women."
So, while I commend Betsy DeVos on the position she's taking and feel confident she'll get something more fair in place regarding campus sexual assault, I certainly don't envy her.
I'm not even sure she knows what an uphill battle she has.
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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos kicks off emotional battle over campus sexual assault rules