Feminists

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Disturbingly, the Men's Health article counsels men to avoid colleges with strong policies against sexual assault; such schools "redefine rape so that all men are guilty" and have disciplinary systems that are "rigged against men." The magazine attacks schools that "parrot the feminist myths" about sexual assault. Bates College, for example, distributed a sexual violence handbook "repeating a long-discredited feminist canard--that one in four college women has been the victim of a rape or an attempted rape."

Actually, the 1-in-4 statistic came from a scientific survey conducted in 1987 by Dr. Mary Koss for the National Institute of Mental Health, which found that 28 percent of women in college experienced rape or attempted rape, and 15 percent had experienced rape, since age 14. While Koss' work has been attacked (Extra!, 11-12/93; Extra!, 9-10/94) by anti-feminist writers like Christina Hoff Sommers-- whose opinions are prominently featured by Men's Health-- Koss' findings, far from being"long-discredited," are corroborated by a 1999 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that found that 1 in 5 female undergraduates had been raped in their lifetimes and 15 percent had been raped since age 15.

Men's Health goes on to cite Department of Education statistics from 1994 showing that "there was actually less than one forcible sex offense for every 1,000 students." This is an apples-to-oranges comparison, counting only reported, completed assaults that took place at college--not all attempts since age 14. Most law enforcement agencies agree that sexual assault is a vastly underreported crime; the Senate Judiciary Committee has estimated 84 percent of rapes never get reported. Moreover, the Department of Education's one-time survey was hampered by many colleges tallying only those rapes brought to the attention of campus police, disregarding assaults disclosed to counselors or health services providers.