"IIRC at least one woman out of every eight has been sexually assaulted at some point in her life;"
And I would like to see some definition of what that means. Are we including all forms of "unwanted physical contact" in that, or limiting it to forcible rape and attempted forcible rape? [As opposed to giving in to sexual demand through emotional blackmail]
Disclaimer: Most of my experiences of digging into this sort of horribleness was in the 1990's when I was a part-time volunteer counsellor, and from conversations with my partner who worked on a rape hotline for a few years around the same time. So this is all from somebody who hasn't worked in the area in some time.
The 1 in 8 sounds about right for UK rape & attempted rape number from what I recall, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#United_Kingdom seems to back that up. The last paragraph of that section is especially telling:
"A survey done by a third party research group on behalf of rape crisis centre The Havens found that almost half of UK men between the age of 18 and 25 do not consider it rape to force a woman who has changed her mind to continue sex. Almost 1 in 4 men claimed that it wasn't rape even if a woman had said "no" at the start. A further 1 in 4 would try to have sex with someone they knew was unwilling. 5% would attempt to have sex if the woman was asleep and 6% if she were drunk.[159][160]"
Which, again, matches my experiences of dealing with these people in the 90's.
The figures in the US are worse. Repeated studies (in 1987, 1995, 2000 & 2006) had at around 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 range. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#United_States
Some of this is likely out of date since I frankly no longer have the stomach to poke into what is quite soul destroying work now that I don't have to for $work. From conversations with a few folk who do still work in the area things have improved a little over the last ten years - especially in the US - but I don't have numbers to hand to back up those anecdotal reports.
There has been some fascinating - for definitions of fascinating in the "deeply disturbing" category - work on looking at the attitudes and types of men who rape and abuse. Especially Lisak & Miller's work in the early 2000s. There's a pretty accessible summary at Meet the predators for those who may be interested.
]]>Where are you getting that from? The UK, which has most certainly gone through the demographic transition, is about the third, from memory, most unequal society on this planet.
]]>Odd thing to point out since I'd never claimed women had it "the worst." Seems a lot of effort to go to in order to refute something that wasn't said.
]]>As I understsand it, somebody else said to try not to look like prey.
You asked how someone can not look like prey when society has gone to great efforts to train them to look like prey.
I intended to say that it's a hard situation and all of us must deal with it as best we can.
Not at all disagreeing with you.
]]>Yes, but when they had their draconian laws they were a distinctly unequal society with high birth and death rates. So it fits his correlation. If they changed the laws but are still very unequal, that fits too. If they changed the laws before the demographic transition that wouldn't fit, but it doesn't have to fit perfectly. Correlations don't have to be 100%.
]]>In contrast, the UK's demographic transition occurred between 1860 and 1940. (After which, the gini coefficient dropped to the all time low it hit in the 1970s.)
]]>This is a fraught subject; feels run high. Score one for civilised discourse, eh?
]]>Civilised discourse FTW!
]]>