Facebook's Continuing War on Women: This Time Human Rights Watch is the Problem

Yesterday, Facebook blocked a page from Human Rights Watch. 

And, yes, you read that right. 

Facebook deemed a page by Human Rights Watch so hateful that it contravened their official policy on "offensive" material. You know, their policy which allows violent pornography, images of abused children and women, racism, homophobia, disablism and rape threats to remain as "free speech". 

Human Rights Watch's crime: requesting the Tunisian government grant feminist activist Amina Tyler pretrial release, as she is entitled to under the law. Amina Tyler, whose only crime was writing Femen across her bare breasts and posting the image on Facebook, has been detained since May 19th. Tyler's photo did not contravene FB's standards despite the fact that images of infants breastfeeding does. 

Human Rights Watch are a subversive group because caring that no human be tortured, imprisoned, raped or murdered for being human now contravenes Facebook standards. We have arrived at the point where "free speech" only applies to violent men. Those who campaign for the protection of vulnerable people from male violence have no legal right to free speech.

Welcome to the Patriarchy where Feminist activism is required to ensure that internationally recognised human rights organisations aren't deemed "offensive".

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If Men Want to Help:

This is reblogged from Radical Wind: blowing through female outerspace

If Men Want to Help:

There’s been a bit of discussion lately about how men who posture as pro-feminists are worse than useless, such as John Stoltenberg or this Dude.

I could write an entire essay about each “pro-feminist”, why and how what they write and do is wrong, but it’s a complete waste of energy and time because all we need to know is that men cannot be feminist and should not get ANYWHERE NEAR feminism or talking in the name of feminism, at all. They are not to be given any important or prominent tasks within any feminist organising, they are not to be given any position or presence (even small, let alone a public one) within any feminist group or woman’s support group, and are not to be integrated in any decision-processes or debates concerning women whatsoever; they should refuse any such position or invitation even if asked by women.

The pattern is that pro-feminist men will very easily occupy and monopolise key positions and publicity in feminism so they can posture as heroes-victims-of-masculinity, and behind the scenes, not only do they do NOTHING to help women but they continue to steal women’s work, abuse women, manipulate women, rape women, promote the work of rapists or publish misogynist content, etc, etc ad nauseum.

The foremost reality about so-called pro-feminist men however is that their mere presence (just PRESENCE, that is, without even saying anything YET) inevitably and automatically triggers in most women the illusion that men can, after all, be nice and care about women, and that it is worth staying around them investing energy and time trying to change them (and why not be my nigel?). In other words, it reinforces trauma-bonding to men, or alternatively, causes consciously-experienced fear, rage, suspicion, hypervigilance or other normal reactions to men’s presence. This means that men’s presence will inevitably be experienced as a threat by women, whether consciously or unconsciously, and will thus paralyse movement into feminism. Whether we want it or not. Encouraging trust and especially trauma-bonding to men endangers all women, exposes women to more abuse and surveillance from men, it prevents women from going to the end of our thoughts and sabotages women’s spaces and work.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg, this chain of paralytic effects on women caused by their mere presence in feminist spaces. This alone is enough to warrant their complete exclusion from all things feminist, before we even look at what scum they might be.

To make it easier for everyone, I will lay out a brief and very simple, minimalistic instruction manual as to what men can do if they are taken by the desire to give women a hand in destroying man’s dominion. It’s not an instruction as to how to be a feminist man, because as I said earlier, it doesn’t exist and men’s presence is highly undesirable and noxious to feminism. It’s not an instruction as to how to free women from men, because only we can do that. It’s just, if men want to do something for women, this is the LEAST, the VERY LEAST they can do, and it’s easy! No need to say anything! No faux-posturing or lying needed! No invading of women’s spaces! No stealing women’s work!

1. Stop sticking your dicks in women. This is rape. This is torture.
2. Stop sticking your dicks in women. NOW. For EVER!!!! Ever ever. Like, don’t ever put your dick in a woman or a girl again.
3. The above is the utmost, absolute MINIMUM men can do to help women. This does not even count men’s infinite every-day torture that surrounds rape and impregnation of women by men that they should stop too. A man who sticks his dick in girls and women is a rapist (and scum). He is not helping women.
4. Give back to women what you, and men in general, have stolen from women:
5. Women need Land. Give land back to women.
6. Women need money. Give money back to women.
7. Women need houses and rooms of our own. Give houses back to women.
8. Women need resources (food, water, equipment of all sorts…). Give resources back to women.
9. Women need time. Clean your own shit.
10. Reminder: stop using your dick against women, stay away from feminism, and refuse any credit for your what you give back to women. For a thief is not to be thanked for handing back what he stole.

This, above, is also the LEAST men can do. It’s very easy, all it takes is doing it, with no consequences to men’s personal integrity other than minor material loss. As opposed to more complicated things, like sabotaging the porn and prostitution industry, ridding us of the most violent rapists and abusers, things like that. Which men are also free to do of course, but let’s start with more simple things and see how it goes, ay?

To all women who may be reading: remember: if a man claims to help women, ask yourself (or him) what he does: does he continue to stick his dick into women? Yes? You can forget him. Is he parasiting a space meant to be reserved for women (feminism, support for victims, healing groups, whatever female only space…)? Easy: he shouldn’t be there, his very presence is anti-feminist. You can forget him too, or tell him to get out. If he doesn’t, then, bye bye. He claims to do things useful to women? Does he do any of the above, discreetly, without taking any credit for it, and making sure it goes to the right hands? Take it and don’t look back! Don’t feel grateful! It is impossible to steal anything from a man.

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This week in Missing the Point Completely: Maria Miller and the WBC

According to the Guardian, Maria Miller has come up with yet another completely pointless but expensive program to deal with The Problem of Girls. This time she's got the Women's Business Council, which was only set up last year, making recommendations which demonstrate just how out of touch they all are with the reality of the lives of girls who aren't white and born to wealthy, well-educated parents. Miller is going to produce information packs to teach parents of girls how to bring up "aspirational" daughters. You see, the only reason that the number of women in the upper echelons of management and on FTSE 100 boards is because girls lack "aspiration".

It has absolutely nothing to do with systemic oppression which privileges boys over girls from the start of their lives. 

It has nothing to do with educational practise which favours boys.

It has nothing to do with girls being socialised to defer to boys their whole lives.

It has nothing to do with girls being taught that having an opinion or being intelligent doesn't count unless they pass the Patriarchal Fuckability Test.

It has nothing to do with sexist hiring practises. 

It has nothing to do with the fact that women are penalised for being mothers before actually being mothers [and the assumption that all women want to be mothers].

It has nothing to do with poverty or class or race or disability. 

The Fawcett Society has clearly been blithering on about absolutely nothing for years.

The only problem girls have is a lack of aspiration. We know this because a bunch of well-educated, mostly white women who are very privileged have gotten together to say so.

I could rant for hours about Miller's complete lack of understanding of the reality of the lives of most girls in the UK. Government policies to encourage FTSE 100 companies to have a minimum of 25% women on their boards won't change anything if the vast majority of girls in the UK are being left behind for no other reason than not being born to privileged parents.

There are two things that will increase girls "aspirations":

1. The Welfare State
2. Feminism

That is it. We need a fully functioning welfare state which supports everyone. We need universal and affordable child care. We need a social care network which helps care for family members who are disabled or elderly. We need a culture where men do 50% of the childcare and the housework. We need a culture where women's choices are supported and not used as a stick to beat them with.

We don't need information packs to teach parents how to raise "aspirational girls". Our girls are already aspirational. We need nothing less than a complete destruction of the capitalist-patriarchy so that our girls can grow up to be who they want to be without being pilloried, insulted and denigrated.

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Deborah Orr: Ignoring the Obvious to Perpetuate Myths about Violence

I'm not sure quite what to write about Deborah Orr's recent piece in the Guardian. Orr seems to have completely ignored all of the research into mental illness and propensity to violence to write one of the most ridiculous pieces of "poor ickle menz" I have read in ages. Orr uses the murder of April Jones and the recent spate of detective TV series, with female leads, to claim that men who commit violence must be clearly ill. She conveniently ignores 50 years of detective programs and 150 years of detective novels with male leads and entirely male casts who  investigate male violence to come up with this clearly ridiculous point. 

This is the conclusion of the piece:

I can't help wondering what it's like to be a man, tainted by association with the tiny minority of men who do such things. I can't help wondering, also, if the widespread male defensiveness that such an ever-present prejudice seems understandably to induce is an integral part of the ongoing problem. Women are against violence. We even have a campaigning group called Women Against Violence. Unfortunately, all this also suggests is that men are in favour of violence, and if not violent themselves, then guilty by association. A leading neuroscientist, Kathleen Taylor, this week suggested that in years to come Islamic fundamentalism might be seen as a mental illness. It seems to me that lack of mental health, not gender, is the defining motivation of all violence. The problem isn't men, it's alienation. And believing that men are the problem may be alienating men on a massive scale.

Now, I haven't taken a survey of men but my partner has watched every single program Orr mentions and he doesn't feel insulted about their portrayal of men. Using Orr's understanding of statistics, I'm going to assume that his reaction is what all men think.*

Orr can write as many myths as she would like but it won't change the fact that she is just wrong about two points: 1) almost all violence is committed by men; and 2) having a mental illness drastically increases a person's chance of being a victim of violence. It does not dramatically increase their chances of committing violence against themselves or others; regardless of how many episodes of Law & Order featuring violent schizophrenics you've watched. 

Men are responsible for majority of violence committed. 

Men who commit violence aren't mentally ill. It's erroneous and offensive to suggest otherwise. The vast majority of men who are violent are violent because they choose to be; not because they are ill. It is articles like this which perpetuate myths about people who are ill and allows men to deny responsibility for the violence they perpetrate. We have a serious problem with male violence and ignoring the evidence of who perpetrates violent crimes so that men don't feel sad isn't going to change that.

If men's feelings are hurt at the thought of being part of the group of people most likely to commit violence, they need to step up and call out violent men. 

Men need to stop being violent: physically and sexually.

After all, men are just as likely to be victims of male violence as women. 

Let's stop making excuses and start taking responsibility.


*Obviously, he isn't representative of MREs but I'm fairly sure we can discount them. He's also not representative of all men being white, well educated and middle class but I'm fairly sure he's representative of the level of intelligence of most men since university education is most definitely not an indicator of common sense. 

More Reponses to the article:

Yes, Men of Sound Mind do Commit Murder by UK Feminist

A Little Ramble about Mental Illness and Crime by the Not So Quiet Feminist

My Name is Jemma and I have a personality disorder at POTsy not Potty

Mental Health, Violence and Me at Carregonnen

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Dr Christian: Apparently, he invented twitter.

Dr. Christian Jessen is on yet another misogynistic spree on twitter. He does this frequently as he really, really dislikes it when women challenge his knowledge. I first came across him nearly 18 months ago on twitter. I knew about his reality TV show but I had never watched it since I think all reality TV is exploitative and hateful. His "Embarrassing Bodies" is up there with Gok Wan on the misogynistic body-shaming stakes.

I would have ignored him completely had a member of Mumsnet not retweeted a particularly nasty comment of Jessen into my twitter feed. Basically, Jessen had called into question the fuckability of women with leg hair. This was, apparently, the appropriate response to a member of Mumsnet tweeting Jessen to point out his information on breast feeeding was incorrect. Jessen was helpfully suggesting that breastfeeding "ruined" women's breasts. Ignoring, the misogynistic body-shaming in that statement, it's actually also not true. The rapid weight gain and loss during pregnancy changes the shape of women's breasts. There is also research that suggests that breast-feeding helps women retain the shape of their breasts but, actually, that bit is irrelevant.

Dr. Christian took to twitter to make factually incorrect statements about breast-feeding and dismissed the women questioning him as unfuckable due to their leg hair.

He then proceed to suggest that breastfeeding was kind of creepy, which is also not exactly a pro-woman stance. A pro-woman stance on infant feeding is to ensure that women have all the correct information and support so that they can then choose the option which works best for themselves and their baby. Suggesting breast-feeding makes women unfuckable by ruining their breasts is misogyny.

Now, I totally would have ignored him as yet another obvious misogynistic troll had Jessen not gone to suggest that the women questioning him were "hysterical". As you can imagine, I did not take kindly to that suggestion.

Nor did I find Jessen's suggestion that we should thank him for giving us a platform in which to air our views.

Because Jessen, clearly, invented both twitter and the internet.

Because without Jessen us poor "girls" (as he dismissively refers to us) couldn't possibly have a public platform in which to discuss our views.

Like, say, the internet.

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Dear Cannes Film Festival, Roman Polanski is a Child Rapist.

 Dear Cannes Film Festival,

Roman Polanski is a child rapist.

I know I've written this exact same letter before, although last time it was to the British Film Institute. I'm sure you are bored of hearing this. I'm certainly finding writing this over and over and over again somewhat tedious but people seem to be struggling with this issue. Still.

So, for the record, Roman Polanski is a convicted child rapist who is also a fugitive from justice.

It doesn't matter how many "good" films he makes, or how many stupid people make excuses for him because he's an "artiste", Roman Polanski will always be a convicted child rapist.

Roman Polanski gave a 13 year old a quaalude in champagne and then vaginally, orally and anally raped her.

I know Polanski has trouble understanding the fact that raping children is a despicable crime for which he should still be in prison. After all, there are no end of rape apologists telling him that it was completely okay for him to rape a child [see: the entire audience the night he won the Oscar for the Pianist].

There is a reason he's blithering on about equality for women being a bad thing and the birth control pill "ruining romance". Polanski does not want to take responsibility for the child he was convicted of raping nor does he want anyone to question the clearly illegal sexual relationship he had with Natassja Kinski when she was only 15 years old.

Every single person who pays to see Polanski's films is supporting rape culture.

Every single actor who appears in a Polanski film is supporting rape culture.

Every single organisation that gives Polanski awards for his films is supporting rape culture.

Every single person who uses the word "historical" to refer to Polanski's rape conviction is supporting rape culture.

Every journalist who does not mention Polanski's conviction for rape is supporting rape culture.

Roman Polanski is a child rapist who fled from California because he did not want to go to prison.

Roman Polanski gave a 13 year old a quaalude in champagne and then vaginally, orally and anally raped her.

He should be in prison; not receiving awards at your Festival.

Louise Pennington

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Posted in #celebrityculture, #rapeculture, Child Rape, Male Violence Against Women, Misogyny, Rape Culture, Roman Polanski, Violence against Women, War on Women | No comments

Nick Ross: Not all Rape is Rape (with trigger warnings)

Nick Ross, creator of the BBC's Crimewatch, has written a book about Crime. I have never actually seen Crimewatch and I was not familiar with Nick Ross until I read his article in the Daily Mail today. Ross' Wikipedia page implies his research skills and knowledge are impeccable, yet he's written an article for the Daily Mail which is basically a list of myths about violence against women. The entire article blames women for being victims of male violence. 

What the DM article demonstrates is that Ross hates feminists. Every single "fact" about violence against women that Ross tries to debunk is used to demonise feminists. Apparently, feminists paint women as "victims" of male violence and that it's feminists fault women are frequently victimised by men because we do not hold women accountable for the violence perpetrated against them. 

Ross deliberately misunderstands research into domestic violence to imply that women are as likely as men to commit DV and ignores the research into "gaslighting". He also blames women for lashing out at a violent partner. Ross conveniently neglects to mention that the "research" which "proves" that women commit domestic violence as frequently as men has been disproven because it is deeply flawed.  That "research" was based on frequency of reporting of domestic violence. If we were to look at it simplistically based only on that criteria then women do commit domestic violence as frequently as men. This research ignores two very basic issues: 1) women frequently experience domestic violence 30-40 times before reporting; and 2) the issue of gaslighting. Gaslighting is emotionally abusive behaviour wherein the male partner harasses their, usually female, partner into lashing out physically. The male partner then has "evidence" that his female partner is as abusive as he is. This "evidence" is used to control and belittle the female partner further, especially if their are children involved. That is domestic violence. It is not evidence that women are as violent as men; it is evidence of the myriad of ways in which men are violent.

Ross makes some bland statements about the differentiation in sentencing between men and women for crimes without taking into account the gendered construction of crime which does give women harsher punishments than men. He does point out that women are more likely to receive harsher sentences for sex crimes than men are but he neglects to point out that women are more likely to be incarcerated than men for their first crime. Men are frequently incarcerated for crimes of violence whilst women are incarcerated for crimes which are the consequence of severe abuse, substance misuse, poverty and male violence. Women receive custodial sentences for shoplifting at much higher rates than men.

The entire article is deeply offensive and wrong but it is the section on rape which is truly appalling. This is what Ross says about rape: 

Rape is one of the most violating crimes. Victims tend to feel dirty, embarrassed, racked with revulsion and self-blame, and, since it almost always involves a male assailant, rape is one of the defining issues for radical feminism. But have the red mists of politics and emotion clouded reality here? 

Rape victims were once treated appallingly, as though it was all their fault, but have we now gone too far the other way? Many of the victims seem to think we have. The main argument of my book is this: we can aggravate crime by tempting fate, and we curb it by playing safe. 

We have come to acknowledge it is foolish to leave laptops on the back seat of a car. We would laugh at a bank that stored sacks of cash by the front door. We would be aghast if an airport badly skimped on its security measures. 

Our forebears might be astonished at how safe women are today given what throughout history would have been regarded as incitement. Not even in the licentious days of Charles II in the 17th Century was it acceptable for women to dress as provocatively as they have done in Western culture since the 1960s.

Equally they would be baffled that girls are mostly unescorted, stay out late, often get profoundly drunk and sometimes openly kiss, grope or go to bed with one-night stands. 

No amount of temptation can excuse rape, or any other crime. On that point ‘slutwalk’ demonstrators [those reacting against a Canadian policeman whose advised women to ‘avoid dressing as sluts’ if they did not want to be harassed] are obviously correct. Yet for some it is heresy to suggest that victims should ever be held responsible at all.

Apparently, women are responsible for being raped for just being in possession of a vagina in public. After all, the suggestion that we hold individuals responsible for having their laptops stolen if left on the front seat of the car is the same as women making themselves vulnerable to rape by going out in public in clothes. It is women's fault for getting raped by wearing "provocative clothes". Men can't possibly be expected to control themselves when they see a woman in a skirt. One has to wonder what babies wear which is "provocative"? Or, elderly women? Or, women in jeans? 

Ross also ignores the fact that the vast majority of women are raped by men they know. How are women supposed to avoid being raped by their husbands? Fathers? Boyfriends? Employers? How are women supposed to avoid being raped in their own homes? Statistically, women are much safer completely intoxicated at 3 in the morning in a town centre than they are in their own homes. But, we don't talk about that: instead we focus on the women who are raped by strangers and then blame the women for being "provocative". 

Not content with blaming women for being raped, Ross goes on to discourage women from reporting rapes within their relationships:

Bear in mind that some of the allegations are made weeks or even years after the event took place, and the average rape case takes nearly two years to come to trial. When cases do go to court, 55 per cent result in a conviction. 

Could it be that court proceedings are not always the best way of dealing with what happens in relationships? If that is the case, could it be that women (and men who are raped) are generally acting wisely if they choose not to take that route?

Perhaps, I am confused but I am fairly sure rape in a relationship is as illegal as rape by a stranger. But, Ross wants women to forgo reporting their violent partners. Men's lives and reputations are, as ever, more important than the bodily integrity and safety of women. Would Ross suggest that children not report being raped by their fathers; after all, these constitute relationships too. God forbid, we actually hold men legally responsible for their own actions.

Ross continues his victim-blaming by attacking women involved in prostitution. Now, it is true that some women are involved in the sex industry through choice but these women are not statistically representative of women who are prostituted and trafficked. Many of the women who are prostituted are first prostituted as children. Many have histories of sexual abuse and are substance misusers. Poverty is a huge indicator of women's vulnerability to sexual exploitation. Not all women who are prostitutes are victims of sexual exploitation but for every Belle du Jour, there are literally hundreds of teenage girls and boys being trafficked across cities, the UK and the world. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the realities of the lives of thousands of women and children across the UK.

Ross is quite clear though: it is feminists, especially radical feminists, fault women think they are victims. If women didn't think they were victims, then they wouldn't be victimised. Women are at least partially responsible for being victims of domestic violence and rape. Men who rape are "provoked".

Men are not responsible for the violence they commit because women shouldn't make themselves vulnerable to crime.

Welcome to the Capitalist-Patriarchy: where the lives of women and children are irrelevant.


This is the full DM article. I have reproduced it in its entirety so that you do not have to click on the DM site and increase their advertising revenue:

It's heresy, I know. But not all women are victims. And not all rape is rape: It is a view that will outrage many, but Crimewatch creator NICK ROSS insists it is a debate we must not flinch from

Despite a century of feminism, and perhaps partly because of it, women are still mostly portrayed as weak when it comes to the issue of crime. It is 80 years since cinema audiences first thrilled to King Kong abducting the hapless blonde Ann Darrow – her only defence was her beauty.

Even now, much of the news and comment about women and crime tends to smack of sexism and stereotyping – some of it promoted by radical campaigners who are perversely keen to depict the sisterhood as ready victims.

So how much of women’s portrayal in crime stories is fair, or even true? For example, is domestic violence as one-sided as it seems? Is prostitution mostly victimisation, or emancipation? And why, if equality is a goal, do women get much shorter sentences than men for similar offences? Or, paradoxically, if they cross the Rubicon into sex crime, why are they reviled much more than men?

Why, all things considered, do women suffer far less deliberate injury than men. And what about rape? It is plainly objectionable to reproach a victim for her own misfortune – so why do so many women do it? It is common knowledge spiked drinks are a potent menace, but is it a modern myth?

These are all important questions that any sceptic ought to pose. Yet while challenges to orthodoxy were once scorned because of appalling chauvinism, they now risk the wrath of feminists.

Take domestic violence, for example. It is almost universally portrayed as though the perpetrators are men. Indeed, in 1989 the Canadian Journal Of Behavioural Science published the results of a survey that was celebrated as a classic exposé of ‘battered wives’, and was taken up as proof of typical male perfidy.

However, two years later the Journal acknowledged a different side to the story after the data had been re-analysed. While 10.8 per cent of the men surveyed had pushed, grabbed or thrown objects at their spouses, 12.4 per cent of women had done so too. And although 2.5 per cent of men used serious violence, so did 4.7 per cent of women.

Marilyn Kwong, who carried out the new analysis, also examined eight other studies and found the pattern was universal. Inconvenient facts had been cut out.

Feminism did a vital job putting domestic violence on the agenda – most police officers now take it seriously, and in some force areas it represents one in six emergency responses. Yet the success of feminism and its flattery by mainstream authority meant that for decades professional interventions assumed that men were always the aggressors, and if women were violent, they must have been acting in self-defence.

It is widely claimed that one woman in four is subjected to domestic violence, though depending on the source, that figure might include minor physical assault, feeling afraid or suffering mild psychological abuse – and any of this at some stage in their lives.

If three-quarters of women went through life without ever once fearing some form of mental or physical attack, however inconsequential, that would be more surprising.

Many reports also ignored the thought that women can be violent to men. Erin Pizzey, the feminist who, in 1971, founded one of the world’s first women’s refuges, has been trying ever since to set the record straight.

She once wrote: ‘I will never forget one woman, who was staying in my refuge, telling me in chilling tones, “Knives are a great leveller”... The truth is that much of the violence takes place in squalid, tortured relationships, often involving drink and drugs, where both partners are guilty of verbal and physical assault.’

In Britain, a large Home Office survey in 1995 found that 4.2 per cent of men said they had been physically assaulted or injured by their partner within the previous year – precisely the same figure as for women. When 15 years of British findings were put together in 2012, they told an essentially consistent story: between 30 and 40 per cent of those assaulted were men and they suffered a quarter of all the attacks.

Although in many cases neither men nor women reported injury or emotional effects, about one in ten in both genders had suffered bleeding or broken bones, and three per cent of men and two per cent of women had later attempted suicide.

The same thing was found in a health survey in New Zealand.

Not that most men would confess how they were injured. Women are twice as likely as their male partners to confide in a professional, five times more likely to tell a doctor or a nurse, and three times as likely to go to the police.

None of this diminishes the horror of domestic abuse, especially when it is repeated, severe and one-sided. Women do tend to come off worst, and a small proportion of them suffer relentlessly. However, we should not underestimate the extent of mutual aggression that takes place within the hurly-burly of human discord. Nor should we forget the extent of emotional bullying, where the wounds don’t show. So let us turn to the other crime with which women are almost exclusively identified as victims: rape.

As far as we can tell, about four per cent of British women are raped at some point in their lives, some repeatedly. About 0.6 per cent of women (and 0.1 per cent of men) are victims of rapes and other serious sexual assaults each year.

Rape is one of the most violating crimes. Victims tend to feel dirty, embarrassed, racked with revulsion and self-blame, and, since it almost always involves a male assailant, rape is one of the defining issues for radical feminism. But have the red mists of politics and emotion clouded reality here?

Rape victims were once treated appallingly, as though it was all their fault, but have we now gone too far the other way? Many of the victims seem to think we have. The main argument of my book is this: we can aggravate crime by tempting fate, and we curb it by playing safe.

We have come to acknowledge it is foolish to leave laptops on the back seat of a car. We would laugh at a bank that stored sacks of cash by the front door. We would be aghast if an airport badly skimped on its security measures.

Our forebears might be astonished at how safe women are today given what throughout history would have been regarded as incitement. Not even in the licentious days of Charles II in the 17th Century was it acceptable for women to dress as provocatively as they have done in Western culture since the 1960s.

Equally they would be baffled that girls are mostly unescorted, stay out late, often get profoundly drunk and sometimes openly kiss, grope or go to bed with one-night stands.

No amount of temptation can excuse rape, or any other crime. On that point ‘slutwalk’ demonstrators [those reacting against a Canadian policeman whose advised women to ‘avoid dressing as sluts’ if they did not want to be harassed] are obviously correct. Yet for some it is heresy to suggest that victims should ever be held responsible at all.

There was an outcry when our Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority cut recompense to rape victims who had ‘contributed’ to their plight through ‘excessive’ drinking. The decision had to be reversed. But for any other crime, compensation can be reduced according to ‘the conduct of the applicant before, during or after the incident’.

There was another outcry in 2011 when Ken Clarke, the then Justice Secretary, was urged to resign by Labour leader Ed Miliband for using the words ‘serious rape’.

The transcript of the interview makes it clear that Clarke meant aggravated rape, but it has become sacrilege to suggest that there can be any gradation: rape is rape.

The real experts, the victims, know otherwise. Half of all women who have had penetrative sex unwillingly do not think they were raped, and this proportion rises strongly when the assault involves a boyfriend, or if the woman is drunk or high on drugs: they led him on, they went too far, it wasn’t forcible, they didn’t make themselves clear... For them, rape isn’t always rape and, however upsetting, they feel it is a long way removed from being systematically violated or snatched off the street.

Such stranger attacks – the sort most often reported by the newspapers – make up only a small proportion of rapes that women divulge through surveys.

The assumption is that any woman who chooses not to pursue a claim is being let down by the State or is acting irrationally. But could it be that she is right? What if she feels partly responsible for what happened? What if she realises there is no evidence other than her word against his? What if her life is bound up with that of her assailant? What if she feels humiliated as well as violated?

Should she be expected to disclose all this in public and then put her life on hold for the greater good? Do we want a justice system that overrides the victims’ sense of what is in their own best interests, or one that, in order to accommodate them, ceases to be just?

It’s little wonder that, despite the fact that reporting rates have soared, fewer than 20 per cent of rape victims go to the police. When they do, about a sixth of complaints are rejected (rightly or wrongly) by police as implausible; a third are abandoned for lack of evidence; and a third are dropped because the complainant withdraws.

Bear in mind that some of the allegations are made weeks or even years after the event took place, and the average rape case takes nearly two years to come to trial. When cases do go to court, 55 per cent result in a conviction.

Could it be that court proceedings are not always the best way of dealing with what happens in relationships? If that is the case, could it be that women (and men who are raped) are generally acting wisely if they choose not to take that route?

This brings us to another vexatious issue: drug-rape. Fears about women swooning from spiked drinks became so widespread that several TV soaps, the BBC and newspapers warned about the growing menace. The publicity turned Rohypnol – a previously obscure pre-anaesthetic sedative – into a household name.

There was always an implausibility about widespread drug-facilitated rape. For one thing, every assailant would need to control the dosage of a dangerous medication to allow extraction of the victim from her social setting without complaint or alarm from her friends.

In any case, the evidence is vanishingly thin. The UK’s Forensic Science Service tested samples from more than 1,000 women who complained of being sexually assaulted after being given drugs surreptitiously – and found most of the women were drunk.

In 98 per cent of cases, there was no evidence of drugs other than self-administered alcohol, sometimes with cannabis and cocaine. This is in line with other studies both in the UK and the United States.

Critics suggest evidence was missed because samples were not taken early enough, and that the media reinforces the impression that such drugs are almost undetectable. Not so: some of the studies were on samples taken within hours, and anyway, some of the metabolites of hypnotics can be detected for days or even weeks.

Perhaps the drug-rape story has such a grip on our collective imagination because it fits so well with the time-honoured horror story: that of the insensible woman at the mercy of the wicked male.

Prostitution is another issue where women tend to be portrayed as victims. Those who work in the sex trade tend to be scandalised by this patronising view. Females are as capable as men of making decisions on whether to work in an office, a factory or a knocking shop. But the view persists that they are fragile creatures who have been trafficked and set to work under duress.

There have been claims over recent years about a white slave trade – thousands of naive girls from abroad being smuggled into Britain and forced to work as prostitutes. Small brothels that had more or less endured for many years suddenly faced crackdowns from local authorities and police.

Government spokesmen were widely quoted saying that of 80,000 working girls in Britain, ‘the majority are under control from traffickers, pimps or brothel owners’.

The Home Secretary leapt into action and an extraordinary law was introduced. Instead of targeting the supposed pimps, Section 14 of the Policing And Crime Act 2009 targeted the clients. It placed the onus on them to prove their innocence, even though the Bar Council, which represents barristers in England and Wales, warned that the measure was unenforceable.

So where had the statistics for prostitutes come from, and how could anyone know that most of them were sex slaves?

Due to the furtive nature of the industry, the only number available – 80,000 – had been extrapolated from a small survey compiled 20 years previously by Hilary Kinnell, a health outreach worker in Birmingham. She later described the constant quotation of the figure as ‘bizarre’.

As for the alarming idea that ‘the majority’ of the women were trapped by violent pimps – a figure of 80 per cent was cited by a former Minister – that really does seem to have been invented.

Nonetheless, Scotland Yard set up a dedicated Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Unit (SCD9) to tackle it. Officers estimated that 30,000 women were working as escorts or from flats and brothels, of whom 2,600 were definitely trafficked. How did they know? They asked about 250 of the women and generalised from the results. Of 210 who came from abroad, fewer than 20 indicated they were not working entirely of their own volition.

Leaving aside the statistical stretching required, how meaningful are the results? If you were an illegal immigrant, if you may have to go to court and if your mother might find out, what would you say when asked if you were duped or under duress? It would hardly be surprising to say yes.

Perhaps the proof of the pudding is what happened next. One series of 822 raids found only 11 victims who asked for police help. Two intelligence-led sweeps involving 55 forces found 250 people who might have been trafficked.

Meanwhile, the predicted surge in victims at the time of the Olympics failed to materialise.

In fact, the most reliable figure we have for people brought to Britain on false pretences and exploited for sexual purposes is not ‘80 per cent’ of 80,000 but a tiny fraction.

It’s no wonder that Hilary Kinnell, the woman who first tried to quantify prostitution in modern Britain, has become utterly cheesed off. She protests her original figure was no more than a guess, and that the trafficking scare that followed was based on wild exaggeration.

In crime, as in everything else, women are stronger and more capable of making their own decisions or running their own lives than we allow. In sex, as in so much else, almost everything we’re told about crime is wrong.

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