January 2012 - Save - Leading The Policy Movement For Fairness and Due Process On Campus

Contact: Teri Stoddard

Centers for Disease Control Should Remove Flawed Rape Survey,

Says Washington Post Editorial

Washington, DC/January 31, 2012 — A growing number of commentators are questioning the legitimacy of the CDC’s claims about rape and sexual assault. An op/ed published in the Washington Post exposes the scientific flaws in the study and calls outright for its retraction: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cdc-study-on-sexual-violence-in-the-us-overstates-the-problem/2012/01/25/gIQAHRKPWQ_story.html

Columnist Christina Hoff Sommers concludes that the CDC’s findings are “wildly at odds with official crime statistics.”

Sommers does not exaggerate: The CDC reports 70 times the number of sexual crimes that the FBI’s gold-standard National Crime Victimization Survey does. Sommers makes the case that the political pressure of the domestic violence industry, whose interests are served by exaggerated statistics, is largely responsible for the CDC’s irresponsible sexual violence research.

Writing in December, Robert VerBruggen explained just how the CDC achieves its inflated statistics: “Researchers ask women about their sexual experiences, and then classify some experiences as ‘rape’ that most people, including the women themselves, do not consider to be rape.” http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/285936/re-sexual-assault-and-college-robert-verbruggen

Analyst Carey Roberts laid out commonplace New Years Eve scenarios in a recent column, and then explained how the CDC would have classified them all as rapes. “Rigging definitions to create bogus victims is old-hat to the abuse industry,” he said. http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/111229

The CDC’s exaggeration may be well-intended, these experts concede: the agency may believe that it is shedding light on the plight of victims. But as Sommers explains, “survivors of sexual violence would be better served by good research and sober estimates — not inflated statistics and sensationalism.”

In early January, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments sent a 12-page letter to CDC director Thomas Frieden outlining numerous concerns with the survey definitions, methods, and recommendations. Abuse prevention programs based on dubious research findings divert scarce resources away from true victims of violence, SAVE notes.

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments is a victim-advocacy organization working for evidence-based solutions to partner violence: www.saveservices.org

Contact: Teri Stoddard

Email: tstoddard@saveservices.org

Tell the Truth about Partner Abuse: SAVE’s New Year’s Resolution

Washington, DC/January 3, 2012 — As persons start 2012 intending to make good on their New Year’s resolutions, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) is encouraging everyone to strike a blow against domestic violence by resolving to TELL THE TRUTH about partner abuse.

Over 280 scholarly studies show men and women are equally likely to slap, hit, or shove their partners: http://csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm. But some persons continue to be abuse deniers, downplaying the problem of female-initiated abuse, SAVE notes.

In September, Vice President Joseph Biden appeared on The View to discuss dating violence. Government studies show teenage girls are more likely than boys to be the aggressors: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss5905.pdf. But when co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked the vice president to “remind the women that the way to get a man’s attention is not to hit him,” Mr. Biden turned to his usual talking points.

In some cases, male victims of domestic violence have found themselves the butt of public ridicule.

This past July, Catherine Becker of Garden Grove, Calif. drugged her husband, lashed him to a bed, severed his penis, and threw it into a garbage disposal. Sharon Osbourne of ABC’s The Talk described the incident as “hysterical” and boasted to her national audience, “It’s quite fabulous.” “When you cross a woman, all is fair,” remarked TV personality Wendy Williams.

Lesbian and gay victims are often ignored, as well. A LGBT Domestic Violence Fact Sheet issued by the Center for American Progress concludes, “barriers to equal treatment for same-sex couples remain.”

Abuse reduction efforts that are based on untrue assumptions are destined to be biased and ineffective. Said SAVE spokesman Philip W. Cook, “Our success in countering abuse misinformation this past year gives us hope for all domestic violence victims in 2012. That’s why we want to encourage persons to keep their New Year’s resolutions to tell the truth about domestic violence.”

Columnist Barbara Kay recently decried the continuing denial of mutual partner aggression: “By now there is no excuse for the failure of governments at all levels to follow through on — or at least acknowledge — the settled science of bilateral violence….Who will have the courage to bell this politically correct cat? When will revenge end and fairness begin?”