Heather MacDonald: Campus Rape Charges Often False, Unfair

The Obama administration's push to investigate the handling of sexual assault cases on college campuses signals a "feminist takeover'' of the government and unfairly puts the blame on men, says Heather MacDonald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

"It's about the feminist takeover of the federal government — the result of three decades' worth of propaganda that women are constantly living in an unsafe environment in society," McDonald told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"Nobody ever says that it would be very easy to stop this so-called campus rape epidemic overnight by a few simple words of advice to women, which is don't drink yourself [silly], don't get into a bed with a guy that you don't know, act responsibly, go home at night to your own bed.

"Nobody sends that message because they want to preserve the principle of male fault and they understand what's going on on campuses — drunken hook-ups [that are] much more complicated and ambiguous than an actual rape," she said Tuesday.

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Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that federal investigators are checking whether 55 colleges and universities illegally handled sexual violence and harassment complaints.

MacDonald, who is also a contributor to City Journal, said the government is using skewered polling methods that don't truly reflect what women have experienced.

"The pollsters cut up the definition of sexual assault into little aggregate parts and they ask women, have you experienced this and that,'' she said.

"But the interesting thing is when you actually ask the women whom the pollsters categorize as rape victims if they have been raped, 73 percent say no, I haven't been raped.

"Forty-two percent of those alleged rape victims go on to have sex again with their alleged assailant. This is unthinkable in the case of an actual rape . . . If somebody grabs you, comes into your room at night, rapes you at knife point, there is no way that you are having sex again with that male."

MacDonald said the increased scrutiny on college campuses could have the effect of curbing rampant sexual behavior.

"If this ends up turning boys into sexual prudes, there's no loss to society. Somebody has got to take the initiative to return to a more sexually prudent and modest set of relationships," MacDonald said.

"What we're seeing, weirdly, is the feminist movement reimporting a Victorian ethic, but sort of one-sidedly because they want males now to be responsible for females.

"Both can be drunk, both can be drunk out of their minds, but only the male is responsible for what happens. If the female wakes up the next morning and says, my God, what did I do? What happened? She can claim that she's been sexually assaulted by him, even though he doesn't really remember either."

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