Here I put in all this leg work, and Ezra Klein puts up a correction update at Wonkblog citing the due diligence of Amanda Marcotte:
Update: Rape statistics are notoriously hard to collect, and Amanda Marcotte has a compelling critique of the methods used here, which Enliven describes in more detail here. So while the phenomena described here are real (and Marcotte argues that, if anything, the chart exaggerates the number of false accusations), be aware that the exact numbers are subject to dispute.
What about that critique though? What is it critiquing? Conveniently enough, it critiques some of the data used to produce the graphic in question but not the journalistic integrity of Dylan Matthews or Wonkblog or WaPo or Ezra Klein. Nor does it address the speciousness of the argument put forth by Enliven. Marcotte says that they “have the best intentions”. The lesson here is that the right intentions will always and forever trump precision and integrity.
There are plenty of interesting veins in all of this. One can discuss rape statistics and methodology and think through the entire process from the rape incident to the false rape accusation/prison sentence. That’s legitimate. One can also discuss the perpetuation of myths and lies. I happened to find room to discuss both. Marcotte focuses only on the statistics rather than looking at the process behind the proliferation of the lies. She acknowledges that the cause is not helped by untruths, yet she says absolutely nothing about how that untruth came to be. As if the untruth just existed without the aid of Dylan Matthews, Enliven Project, and Wonkblog.
Even though Marcotte discredits the graphic, she still misleads:
The graphic overestimates the number of unreported rapes. It’s hard to measure how many rapes go unreported, because, duh, unreported. Making it even harder to get an accurate count, a lot of rape victims don’t identify as rape victims, because it’s so stigmatized. Still, improved public education has made it easier for rape victims to report. RAINN (the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), using government numbers, estimates that 54 percent of rapes go unreported. Tweaking the infographic to reflect this more conservative number wouldn’t make the image less convincing, but it would make it more accurate. (emphasis added)
Actually, tweaking that number does make the graphic less convincing. The graphic itself is one giant tweak. That’s what all graphics are. That’s the reason the graphic was made – in order to be extreme and dramatic and therefore more convincing.
Tweaking that number even in line with the statistic Marcotte accepts as more likely to be true discredits her next argument:
The graphic overestimates the number of false accusations. This infographic is intended to drive home how rare false accusations are, and yet, because of a simple error, it overestimates how many actually occur. The problem is that the Enliven Project conflates “false reports,” which only require the claim that a crime has happened, with “false accusations,” which require fingering a supposed perpetrator.
When adding a corrective it is best to be correct all the way through. Even if Marcotte is correct that the number of false accusations is less than the number of false reports, this would not mean that the graphic itself overestimates the number of false accusations. It might overestimate the rate, but it does not overcount the little stickmen which are doing all of the lifting power of the graphic.
If you assume 1000 rape incidents, a 46% report rate is 460 reports. The false report rate, according to Marcotte who cites the commonly accepted range, is 2-8%. She lowers that number by distinguishing between accusations and reports (though since most rapes are acquaintance rapes, it is hard to imagine that the gap would be all that large). If you want to half the range, we’d have between ~5 and ~18 falsely accused men. And based upon the other assumptions about rape reports, you’d have a larger pool of men who are charged, prosecuted, and imprisoned for the crime. The entire chart is altered along two opposing vectors – vectors which are unkind to the feminist argument here.
Marcotte addresses a question I had about the punishment of rape. She writes “If more rapists saw a jail cell the first time they raped someone, the number of victims would decline dramatically.” At least a few commenters at Slate seemed to agree with the comments I made there that not every single incident classified as a rape should lead to a jail sentence. What about plea bargains? Fines and probation and marks on permanent records? Surely prison isn’t the only form of punishment, yet assuming that anything less than imprisonment is always an injustice makes the graphic all the more powerful. I’d like to see feminists discuss rape and the punishment for it in more concrete terms.
Finally, Marcotte makes a similar argument to mine – that repeat offenders commit the vast majority of rapes. She thinks that if the chart denoted “Rapes” rather than “Rapists” everything would be hunky-dory. But that doesn’t settle the issue because the graphic is comparing the number of men falsely accused, imprisoned, etc. You can’t switch from incidents to individuals just to make the argument more compelling.
That’s what got all this started in the first place.
By the way, I communicated with Klein via email. He told me about the correction update. I pointed out my fuller critique but am not surprised to have not heard back from him.
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I’ve noticed that these liars in the mainstream media are beginning to steal ideas and arguments from the manosphere and pretending they’re the source. Good work Chuck.
“Has the best intentions”. Outright lying about false rape, it’s prevalence and the potential lifelong damage it could do to men because you don’t give a shit about men, is not having the best intentions.
Kudos Chuck. The graphic is the powerful tool to explain their point. The USA Today has been publishign for 20 years but the only thign they have ever done that sticks in people’s minds are those little infographic boxes in the lower lefthand corner of their sections’ front pages.
It’s still a joke that improved public education has made it easier to report. That line is a little addition to make sure it supports the make work jobs of our education and social services cadre of libs.
Who watches the watchmen?
Great work. They’re intellectual lightweights. The truth and the truthtellers win in the end.
^ hahaha, we’ll see
Knowingly printing false information for the general public to read is not well intentioned, it is poorly intentioned.
Actually, we are making progress boys. 10 years ago the feminists would have claimed that there is no such a thing as false rape accusations (unless it was a man making the accusations) and that all men were rapists or rapist want-to-bes. But since denial won’t work any longer they are now shifting gears and trying to minimize what is occurring.
Those two black male figures at the bottom right of the graph representing those falsely accused both have names, Dominique Straus-Kahn and the Duke University Lacrosse team. It is sort of ironic that the two most prominent rape stories of the last decade both panned out to be false. Old Smarty Pants, Ezra Klein, probably just thinks this is coincidental or something conjured up by the Men’s Rights Movement provide an alibi for the mass organized rapes being conducted by white male Republicans to deny women and people of color their civil rights.
Perhaps our armature statisticians Marcotte and Klein can produce a follow up graph that shows what percentage of false accusers actually ever see prison. In Mangum’s case she was let go Scott free to later murder somebody and Diallo successfully settled for a $1,000,000 and was allowed to stay in the country when she should have been deported. If they do produce it, it will have to show a fraction of a male stick figure. Maybe they can put that one in white so it won’t show up on a white background.
“hahaha, we’ll see”
The truth-tellers may not always win, but the truth always wins in the end, one way or the other.
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/avoiceformen/fembot_infographic_zps1d5fd67c.jpg
How can one know that their intentions are good without first having an honest understanding of the facts?
[This may be a double post; apologies if so. WordPress seemed to reject it the first time.]
I recall the issue of the prevalence of false accusations coming up in discussions of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax/Frame in the comments of KC Johnson’s blog Durham in Wonderland back in 2007.
One thread considered a study by Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, “False Rape Accusations” (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994). Abstract:
A Wendy McElroy opinion piece at Fox News from 2006 was also discussed, False Rape Accusations May Be More Common Than Thought. Fair-use extract:
While old and incomplete, the Kanin/McElroy data are not consistent with the infografic factettes placed on offer by Klein, Marcotte, Matthews, and their mainstream allies.
Did anyone bring up the fact that the word rape has a myriad of meanings? From a man with a ski mask and a knife ambushing a woman in an alley, to a woman consenting to sex, then later having ‘buyers remorse’?
@Scatmaster: I was thinking of doing a similar thing. You need to make them skirts though.
Microphone Jones,
It gets brought up all the time, but not within the feminist borg. Anyone who brings that up is automatically marginalized. It is right up there with race crime statistics in terms of “nyah nyah nyah I can’t hear you” tantruming.
I got only a little traction with it at Slate’s comments. A couple of seemingly liberal commenters supported the argument that not every single incident technically classified as a rape should be met with a prison term. I think that if anybody sat down one-on-one with a feminist who didn’t want to parse the rape spectrum, they could make headway. But the internet provides cover against such nuance.
TNC gets on the anti-graphic bandwagon.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/you-cant-fight-rape-culture-with-bad-data/266955/
He even gives a tip of the hat to you! Nah, just kidding it’s to Marcotte.
Sorry for the double post, but:
I’ve heard numerous people say similar things. Arguing in front of a audience causes many to be less honest in certain ways (e.g. score points, repeat the “proper talking points” be snarky for laughs, etc.). Is there a way around it?
Mot sure that Ezra issued the update. Since it is unsigned, probably ought to attribute it to Dylan.