Huffington Post politics reporter Laura Bassett, who I had an intimate liaison with eight years ago, shared the following infographic via Twitter the other day:
Rape.24.media.tumblr.com/c5904ef556bb2b…
— Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) January 7, 2013
Here it is:
It was picked up by Dylan Thomas of The Washington Post, who deemed it “the saddest graph you’ll see today.” It was also the most fabricated graph you saw that day.
The above graphic, passed along by the Huffington Post‘s Laura Bassett, was put together by the Enliven Project using data from Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey and FBI reports. It drives home extremely well the fact that false rape accusations are exceedingly rare, despite what media reports might suggest. Almost as rare are cases when rapists actually go to jail.
The Enliven Project, producer of the graphic, is led by a woman who deems herself a “semi-psychic.” I’m not making this up.
Sarah Pierson Beaulieu is the founder of The Enliven Project. She has had nearly 35 years of experience as a human and over 15 years experience in managing complex relationships and partnerships, fundraising, and systematic approaches to change. She is a survivor and a truth teller, a poet, a semi-psychic, wife, mom, and a loyal friend.
My bullshit radar exploded, but apparently not The Washington Post’s, who passed along the chart without checking if it was accurate. Their action was gently checked by a feminist on Slate, a site that happens to suspiciously be owned by the Post.
The graphic overestimates the number of unreported rapes. It’s hard to measure how many rapes go unreported, because, duh, unreported.
Someone on the internet created another graphic debunking the graphic. Even Reddit, one of the most feminist corners on the internet, lashed against it with dozens of comments.
I’m looking through the data collection, and while the Enliven project fully admits that data collection is “a challenge”, the most appropriate thing they could do is subtext the infographic with a disclaimer. Basically, these numbers are just guesses stretched to their most biased outlier value, and the figure they are downplaying (false accusations) is from wildly biased sources.
In particular, their source for the 2% of reported rapes being false accusations is sourced from an article by “The National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women”, which (while a laudable organization) is hardly an unbiased source on this particular figure…and 2% isn’t even what they said! They said 2%-8%.
The NDAA.org article cited a number of figures, some biased, some not. The number they seemed to have settled around was about 8%, including their most rigorously cited study. So…8% is a better estimate, not 2%, as the infographic assumes.
Further, Enliven’s assumption of the reporting rate comes from a report from the UK (because even the robust NDAA article doesn’t have any figures for how many rapes are actually reported). The UK study includes the following line: “It is currently estimated that between 75 and 95 per cent of rape crimes are never reported to the police.” This report DOES NOT CITE how or where it got the number, and this is the only time this figure shows up in a 175 page document. The reporting rate was entirely guessed at, because it’s almost impossible to gather data on it. So the infographic authors picked a nice round “10%”, a number they have NO justification for.
CONCLUSION: The infographic stretches the numbers, to say the least.
The founder of the Enliven Project, a self-proclaimed “truth-teller,” sees no harm in her bogus graphic. The reason? It created a conversation! Here’s a response to a critical tweet saying her graphic was bogus:
@slate Fantastic response to our infographic, TY. So many challenges w/ rape stats, but all part of the same critical conversation.
— Sarah Beaulieu (@sarahbeaulieu) January 8, 2013
The Washington Post eventually pushed an update to their original post:
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.
Take a minute to soak that in. One of the biggest news organizations in America is telling you that accurate data is not important, but the “phenomenon,” like perhaps UFO sightings, is bound to have happened. It must be true because they feel it’s really happening! How’s that for irony—using false data to disprove false rape accusations. Nonetheless, Laura Basset, Sarah Beaulieu, and Dylan Thomas will all get pats on the back for adding to the “conversation” of rape with their bogus chart while heterosexual American men will continue to be portrayed as misogynistic rapists. It doesn’t matter that we’re not rapists, but that we are capable of it and therefore contribute to this gross violation of womankind by merely existing.
As for Laura Basset, I’m confident that her hatred of men will propel her far up in the American media machine.
Read Next: You’re A Misogynist
In my part of the world most rapes go unreported.
are you actually a girl, from pakistan?
CNN lately has made about as big of a deal about foreign rapes as they have guns. And I still don’t know how this country is getting out to debt!
P.S. This chart is about as accurate as listening to a woman tell you about what kind of man she’s interested in dating.
i know wierd eh
you can look through the chrats…aside from congo
devloped countrys report rape more prolly cuz in devolpin nations men an women are expected to marry young an not as likly to occur…but martial rape is ok..so prolly another reason
@ paki
think its under reported everythwere
How the hell do you know it if it goes…well…, unreported? There is a reason in my field most social science studies are regarding as bogus at best.
+1
Care to share the details of the liasion with Laura?
this
Imagine what her reaction would be if she were to read this post and discover who the man that pumped and dumped her 8 years ago really is. It’d be funny to see her rationalization for why she was so attracted to such a “misogynist”.
*inb4 she falsely accuses Roosh of rape*
Women who…
Lie/Cheat/Steal/Abuse Get Caught Admit It Held Accountable
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“This chart is about as accurate as listening to a woman tell you about what kind of man she’s interested in dating.”
OK lets just get one thing out of the way right now. I read a lot of comments like this in the Manosphere. Basically men seem to be unware of the lady boner. Just like you, we women get physiological reactions when we see a man who we are physically attracted to, a physically attractive man. He passes the lady boner test. Now, whether or not we will want a relationship with him, and what type of relationship, depends upon other factors like personality, character, things we have in common, shared values, etc.
BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERS UNLESS HE FIRST PASSES THE LADY BONER TEST!!!
This should not be hard for men to understand.
When we say we want a “nice guy” or “sensitive guy”, its given that we want a HOT nice guy or HOT sensitive guy. Just as when you say you want a nice girl, its automatically given that you want a HOT nice girl, not an ugly or 200 pound nice girl.
And if they are not HOT, they are creepy or rapists, huh?
Congrats, you just proved the point you took such exception to.
Actually when a guy says he wants a nice girl, it means he is open to a plain, nerdy, or possibly overweight girl. Because he can’t get a hot girl. Just like a girl who has to lay out what she is looking for is already unqualified for the top 50% of guys, though she is probably in denial.
Sorry, don’t know what kind of girl you are, but ladies don’t have boners…
They have clitoral erection :v
Lol, the likelihood of finding a “hot” and “nice” guy is very small. Good looks grant him the ability to be an asshole, in the same way attractive girls can be more choosy.
This graphic has been challenged in most locations I’ve come across it on the internet.
It came up on my facebook feed and was discredited by several eloquent posts (eg rape is terrible, but these stats are cherry picked).
What I’m trying to say is that its good to see anti-feminist sentiment becoming more mainstream and its becoming a lot more common for people to point out that the ’emperor has no clothes’.
Everytime major feminist drives like this are debunked out in the mainstream (facebook, MSM site comments) their entire movement loses credibility.
Vox has the best version of that chart.
Funny thing is that the feminists who get raped are still getting laid while the average guy gets blamed for rape and gets no sex. God bless America.
Let’s talk about the Indian rape case for a minute.
The reports are all about the woman. A sidenote (if it’s even mentioned) is that a male companion was with her. He got beat up too. But no one is talking about that. At all.
Why is it that women victims get more attention than male victims? Men are beaten and murdered every day, in far greater numbers than women, yet you don’t hear about it. Ever.
Why is it that there’s a massive “Women’s Breast Cancer Awareness” campaign with big bucks involved, yet no corresponding campaign for cancer that affects men or children? Is women’s cancer worse than men or children’s?
Our society is very misandrist. It will get worse before it gets better.
Hell, it wasn’t even as though he was merely assaulted, from what I’ve gathered he was injured and violated in ways every bit as extreme as the girl. Barely a mention.
well…
first of all, i think she is more talked about because she died.
secondly, everything i read about that case, he is frequently mentioned as victim and that he’s still hospitalized. or are you interested in more gruesome details as to how much he was beaten into a pulp?
and concerning breast cancer…
looking briefly at the figures, breast cancer does have a higher mortality rate in general then for example prostate cancer. so raising awareness kind of does make sense in that way.
but leukaemia, which is quite often be found in childern, has a big lobby and a lot of press and campaigns.
also…i mean, let’s face it. it is much easier to design campaigns for breast cancer then for prostate or testicular cancer (also ovarian cancer doesn’t have a big a lobby as the boobs, despite being a female topic).
i mean, have a go to campaign for testicular cancer. it’s probably good when someone starts doing it, but i won’t lie to you…it won’t be easy.
The reason I think the attention is on the female victim is because of the physical trauma she went through. Her intestines were spilling out of her.
Well technically breast cancer affects men too even if it affects women more, so I guess we still get benefits from the campaigns (assuming of course they aren’t gonna be the uninformed ones and bar us from the offers of the campaigns (like free exams and shit) for being men), I don’t support gynocentrism or misandry though, was just pointing out that little detail
i have a childhood friend. we used to screw but now we dont. anyway she said she was raped. so i was like “that sucks what happened”. i dont have but a couple of female friends i dont have sex with and all of them i have had sex with in the past.
anyway she says this girl invited her to her house to party and fuck her husband. she said cool.
then she went over, partied, and the girl and her husband asked her to come lay down. she was like ok cool.
then she went in the room, the girl went to sleep and she laid next to the dude. the dude felt her up and had sex with her. she didnt resist out of “fear”.
this occurence was never reported.
this is one example of an unreported rape.
which is why i dont buy any statistics. because the above “occurence” wasnt a rape at all.
my best guess… about one third of rapes go unreported, which is a rather large number. about half of those unreported rapes are retroactive rapes like the one above and therefore arent rapes at all.
of the reported ones at least half are false either as blatant lies or retroactive rapes.
that means 1/2 of all rape “cases” didnt happen, one sixth go unreported and are rapes and the other 5/6th are probably true.
still bad when it happens, but not any less bad as destroying a mans life with a lie.
I don’t normally post on sites but this is an issue I encountered while doing jury service in the UK.
A guy (lets call him Fred) in his early twenties was on trial for rape. He lived in a small town and had spent the previous year of his life being ostracised and abused by members of his local community. His job as a personal trainer suffered as a lot of female clients refused to hire him, leading his income to drop and forcing him to move back home with his parents. That was just the stuff we heard about in the trial.
Why?
He bumped into a female friend of a friend (lets call her Fanny) in a bar in a nearby city. They got drunk and ended up in a hotel with two other men visting the city for the weekend
In the hotel the two guys went to bed (separately). Fred and Fanny ended up sleeping on the floor together… in the middle of the night they started having sex, beginning with him on top and then her on top, then doggy… Yes they told us the details!
The two other guys in the hotel room were woken up by her screaming rape!
Apparently, Fanny was having sex with Fred because she thought it was her boyfriend! When she ‘realised’ it wasn’t her boyfriend she screamed rape…. When they cross examined her and asked why it was rape she said it was because she didn’t consent to having sex with Fred, she was consenting to sex with her boyfriend. Did she let Fred know that she thought she was having sex with her boyfriend? ‘Not at the start but when I realised I told him to stop’. Did he stop when you asked him? “Yes he stopped but he carried on for a few moments’…..
We found him not guilty. Even the female jurors were confused this even came to court. But what really worried all of us was that Fred and other men who become embroiled in false rape cases have their lives ruined not just in the short term, but sometimes the damage continues well after they are found not guilty. A rape accusation leaves your reputation in ruins. The dismissive attitude towards false rape charges and the impact they have on the lives of innocent men tells us a lot about the current state of play in Western society.
Sad story. Thanks for sharing.
I’m disappointed in the Washingon Post. You should write to their ombudsman (Patrick Pexton) about it. He seems fairly level-headed.
Of course the dimbulbs at HuffPo will never be able to figure this line of reasoning out, but if some broad is so scared of being raped, she should simply carry a gun. If someone tries to rape her, shoot him. And, this is the important part, if whatever the guy is doing does not justify blowing his head off, it isn’t rape. And certainly does not justify spending my tax money on cops and courts to sort out.
Absolutely. Have been saying this for a long time.
Makes sense to me…
As someone who designs infographics for a living, I’m glad to see this piece of shit debunked. Thanks!
You can see straight away that the data is bullshit and the fact the data source isn’t displayed clearly on the bottom sent alarm bells ringing for me. However, it’s sad this misandrist disinformation got to spread around so far. How many people will actually believe this crap to be true?
I stopped giving credence to the idea of “rape culture” when a subordinate of mine fired herself from working with our base’s Sexual Assault Response Center. Her reasoning for doing so?
In six months of work (which usually included post-0100 calls, spending weekends manning phones, etc.), she received less than a dozen cases. Of her dozen cases, half of them involved the woman using thawed out sperm, inserted in the vagina from the “attacker” to provide evidence of assault. She literally quit due to disgust (and like almost all short-term assault counselors, her disgust at falsified accusations was based on her own personal rape.)
There were other reasons (studies proving that easily substantiated rape claims were higher in the pre-“stigma” days than in modern times, news articles detailing the lack of clients received by most rape crisis centers, working with men who were accused of literally impossible rapes), but the obvious revulsion on my subordinate’s face when revealing that factoid was a clincher.
It is really heart breaking someone would go to such an extreme to frame someone for a crime. I can imagine how hearing about these stories would disillusion someone.
But when you think about it, you mention this is just a dozen cases, this is a very small amount of people in a population. If 1 in 4 women experience a sexual assault, and 1 in 6 men (so far as we know, I don’t know if this statistic is right….1 in 8??) that means millions of people are victims.
Why should 6-12 people be the example for a crime that happens daily? They sound like they are an exception…
1 in 12.5 cases stem from a false accusation, if that 8% figure is correct. That’s not something that should be overlooked lightly.
“Of her dozen cases, half of them involved the woman using thawed out sperm, inserted in the vagina from the “attacker” to provide evidence of assault.”
How would sperm be evidence of rape?
one of the biggest problems with the “false rape claim” statistic is that a false rape claim is probably one of the ONLY things harder to prove than an actual rape. It’s just stupid hard to prove that she is lying. Honestly, I believe that many rapes (the real ones) go unreported, but I would guess that a majority of the ones that are reported are false.
Rape is a horrific crime, and rapists are despised – there’s no tolerance for rape in this country. In fact, we have strict laws that Americans want to see enforced. Though rape is certainly a serious problem, there’s no evidence that it’s considered a cultural norm.
Twenty-first century America does not have a rape culture; what we have is an out-of-control lobby leading the public and our educational and political leaders down the wrong path.
Rape-culture theory is doing little to help victims, but its power to poison the minds of young women and lead to hostile environments for innocent males is immense.
What about UNREPORTED false accusations. Such as false accusations that the defendant could not prove. Why isn’t that in the inforgraphic?
In a decent society, when a graph shows that only 1 in 12 reported cases (so not even accused) are convicted, the take-away is that 11 in 12 cases are false accusations. You know, innocent until proven guilty and all.