The prevalence of violence against women and girls is exaggerated by statistics. Debunking myths about violence against women and girls.

We always hear statistics like: 1 in 5 women will be raped, 1 in 5 college women will be raped, 1 in 3 women will be victims of domestic violence, 1 in 4 girls will be molested in their childhood, etc. These statistics are inflated. Let's look at the real data:

1 in 5 women will be raped? This is a myth.

This is a statistic by the CDC. Because many rape victims do not acknowledge what happened to them as rape, especially if it's an acquaintance rape, the CDC refused to simply ask them "were you ever raped?". Nonetheless, the way they phrased the question was flawed. The CDC didn't ask whether someone has done this to them before, but how many people have done it to them in their lifetime or in the past year. This wording removes the tendency to not admit such a thing has happened, but could lead to false positives by pushing people toward the assumption that such an answer is automatically affirmative, especially when preceded by questions about sexually aggressive behavior.

They also ask about physical force, being "physically forced" to have sex could include cases of sexual coercion (i.e.: making threats to lie about someone or ruin their reputation to convince them to have sex, repeatedly asking them to have sex until they finally agree, etc.) where a forced kiss occurred and repeated light tapping on the shoulder or grabbing them lightly for one second saying "c'mon" occurred in the middle of repeatedly persuading to them to have sex. They ask about them being drunk, high, or incapacitated or unable to consent due to intoxication, but this can include cases where consensual intercourse while somewhat intoxicated but not to the point of being incapacitated occurred (most people have probably had sex while somewhat drunk before). These kinds of people may feel like it was an unwanted experience, but not to the degree where it could cause long-term damage like the way rape does. Some of these people might've answered affirmatively, inflating the stat.

Also, the response rate was low, so rape victims might respond more, inflating the statistic. Other surveys show 1 in 6 women will be raped, or it will look at YRBS surveys of teenage girls and say 1 in 6 teen girls get raped, but these statistics have similar limitations, inflating the stat.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) from the Bureau of Justice Statistics is criticized by feminists because it's not as detailed and because many rape victims don't think they were raped. While the NCVS does asked if they were raped, they also ask for more details. They define it as "rape, attempted rape, or any other unwanted sexual attack". Rape victims who don't identify as rape victims could answer affirmatively to "unwanted sexual attack". Additionally, unlike the CDC or YRBS, the NCVS actually have them describe the incident and ask what exactly happened. As a result, rape victims who think they weren't raped or unsure if they were will still perhaps answer affirmatively just so they can briefly describe the incident and point out how they perceived it, rather than the CDC who decides for them if they were raped based on poor phrasing of questions. Moreover, the NCVS has bigger sample sizes and high response rates. The NCVS might underestimate the prevalence of rape just a bit, but not nearly as much as the CDC exaggerates it.

According to NCVS, rape rates are much lower these days. So back in the 1970s, 40% of women were raped in their lifetime? That's absurd!

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They revamped the survey in the early 1990s to include non-rape sexual assault victims, and this is the result they found.

Another thing we need to realize: according to the NCVS, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft are more common each year than rape. Hell, property crimes are more common than violent crimes.

In 2010, per 1,000 people, less than 1 women per 1,000 women were raped that year. This looks at annual rates, so each year, a small fraction of 1% of women are raped that year. Admittedly, this percentage would be slightly higher depending on demographics.

A Bureau of Justice Statistician from 1987 wanted to calculate how many people would be victims of a particular crime in their lifetime by calculating annual rates from the mid-late 1970s/early 1980s (NCVS only looks at annual rates). These were only estimates, but they were very careful. They concluded that just 8% of women will be raped in their lifetime, including 8% of white women and 11% of black women. Rape rates were higher back then in the 1970s/early 1980s, so it's obviously far lower than this by 2023. Interestingly, in 1989, a reviewer critiqued this estimate and said that the estimates of how many people will be raped, robbed, assaulted, burglarized, etc. in their lifetime were exaggerated, with some evidence of this. As a result, in the late 20th century, that percent (8%) could've also been lower.

How many college women will be raped in college?

We hear the constant 1 in 5 college women will be raped statistic all the time. It's all false. The statistic comes from a 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Survey of two universities (which is only 2 universities), and it had a low response rate, so rape victims might respond more. The way they phrased the questions could lead to people who dealt with mild or brief physical contact or forced kissing at some point during sexual coercion (e.g.: constantly persuading someone to have sex until they finally agree) to answer affirmatively to being physically forced to have sex or people who had consensual sex after some drinking without getting too drunk to answer affirmatively. Other college surveys found similar percentages, but similar limitations.

The NCVS has looked at annual rates of crimes against college students and found that in a four year span, 2.5% of college women get sexually assaulted, and this includes non-rape sexual assault like groping. By the early 2010s, only slightly less than 1% would be raped in college in a four year span. They also found that women ages 18-24 who aren't enrolled in college are more likely to be raped than ones who are enrolled (and in general, 18-24 year olds who weren't in college were victims of crime in general than ones who were enrolled in college), and that rape rates against college-age women have declined over the years. The NCVS also found that excluding rape (which only talks about being penetrated rather than being forced to penetrate, which happens to a lot of men), college-age men were far more likely to be robbed or victims of aggravated assault than college-age women were raped and that college-age women were victims of aggravated assault just as often, if not more often than they were ever raped. In fact, most robberies and aggravated assaults were against men. The NCVS has more reliable methodology. I think this statistic is the most reliable.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics looked at 9 universities in the 2014-15 academic school year and found that slightly below 5% of college women were raped that year. This had a moderate response rate, but could've been higher, and some of the 9 schools had low response rates, and they phrased the questions poorly, inflating the statistic. Nonetheless, they found that an average of 45% of the time (almost 30% to about almost 60% of the time) at the 9 schools, the rapist was someone who had nothing to do with the school (not a student nor a staff member), and a similar percentage was true for sexual battery offenders. Usually, the incident occurred off-campus. It could've been an off-campus apartment or a frat house, but it also could've been far away from campus back in their hometown.

Domestic violence

The CDC also would say shit like "1 in 3 women will be victims of domestic violence" or "1 in 6 will be victims of severe domestic abuse with injuries", but the NISVS CDC surveys have low response rates and the phrasing of questions can confuse people. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence would conclude that more than half of married women will experience violence in their marriage, and more than one-third are battered repeatedly in a year. This is false and these statistics have no source. The Washington Post in 1994 wrote an article debunking this called "Battered Truth Syndrome":

From a 1993 Harris poll commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, in which 2 percent of the 2,500 women interviewed said they had been "kicked, bit, hit with a fist or some other object." Based on about 55 million women married or living with a man, that's a total of 1.1 million. So where did the other 2.9 million come from? They were women who said they had been "pushed, grabbed, shoved or slapped" -- not pleasant or condonable, certainly, but also not what most people would call the "terrorism in the home" Shalala referred to in her speech. Shalala -- and media reporting the story -- also neglected to tell us that fewer than 1 percent of those polled claimed ever to have been beaten up, much less choked or threatened by their partners with a knife or gun.

The most accurate survey they found was the National Family Violence Survey:

The survey, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, found that there is no violence in about 84 percent of American families. In the 16 percent of families that do experience violence, the vast majority of that violence takes the form of slapping, shoving and grabbing. This is not to minimize the violence that occurs -- or the seriousness of some violence against spouses. But the fact is that only 3 to 4 percent of all families (about 1.8 million) have members who engage in "severe" violence -- kicking, punching or using a weapon. And a recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that 44 percent of "severe violence" to wives did not cause any injury, and 31 percent caused only slight bruises.

In fact, they found that in domestic violence, 24% of it was the woman being violent, 27% was the man being violent, and in the remainder, both were violent mutually (no this doesn't mean a woman attacking him in self-defense). In fact, in 1994, only 6 women per 1,000 women were victims of serious intimate partner violence. This is 0.6% that year. Rates of intimate partner violence have declined since then. In 2011, it was below 0.2% that year. These are annual rates not lifetime, but it shows you it's not as common as the media says. Even when surveys show a certain percentage of women being victims of intimate partner violence, this can include a mild slap had occurred only once, or maybe it just happened every now and then rather than that often. In fact, statistics actually found that mild domestic abusers typically had satisfactory relationships with their significant others. Aside from perhaps a mild slap from time to time, they usually get along. According to society though, if the most mild slap happened even once in the relationship, then it must be a toxic relationship overall.

Or when we hear that millions of women are in emergency rooms each year for domestic violence injuries. According to Christina Hoff Sommers:

What is the provenance? The Atlas provides no primary source, but the editor of Domestic Violence Law cites a 1997 Justice Department study, as well as a 2009 post on the Centers for Disease Control website. But the Justice Department and the CDC are not referring to the 40 million women who annually visit emergency rooms, but to women, numbering about 550,000 annually, who come to emergency rooms “for violence-related injuries.” Of these, approximately 37% were attacked by intimates. So, it’s not the case that 22%-35% of women who visit emergency rooms are there for domestic violence. The correct figure is less than half of 1%.

So this isn't even a quarter a million each year being sent to emergency rooms for domestic abuse injuries.

Most domestic violence is usually just two young adults in their late teens/early 20s mutually hitting/punching either with mild to no injuries. In fact, it usually doesn't involve injuries, and rarely severe injuries. It's not normally some alcoholic husband beating his wife with severe injuries on a daily basis.

Child sexual abuse

I often hear "1 in 4 girls will be molested in their childhood" or "1 in 6 boys". This is also an exaggeration. First, some statistics show 1 in 10 girl or 1 in 25 boys. It varies, but here's the problem: Many child molesting surveys poorly phrase the questions. For example, according to the study "Long-Term Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Gender of Victim", they found that 25% of the women and 16% of the men they surveyed were molested in their childhood, but nonetheless, the phrasing of the question was flawed. They asked:

During the first 18 years of life, did an adult, relative, family friend, or stranger ever (1) touch or fondle your body in a sexual way, (2) have you touch their body in a sexual way, (3) attempt to have any type of sexual intercourse with you (oral, anal, or vaginal), or (4) actually have any type of sexual intercourse with you (oral, anal, or vaginal)?”

Because of words like touch or fondle, someone who has been merely groped (e.g.: someone grabs your ass) one time might answer affirmatively. They could've even been groped in the rear-end by someone at school. It isn't necessarily the molestation we're thinking of. Hell, believe it or not, most sexual abuse of minors is often done by juveniles, typically peers, and teens are the most overrepresented age group among sex offenders against minors (including both prepubescent minors and adolescent minors).

Moreover, someone who had consensual sex with someone over 18 might answer affirmatively and it was perhaps a Romeo and Juliet relationship, like a 15 year old 10th grader with an 18 year old 12th grader, or a 17 year old and a 19 year old, or a 16 year old and an 18 year old.

Also, Susan Clancy wrote a book in 2010 called The Trauma Myth. Her book talked about her research done on child molesting survivors. She found that most child molesting victims do not get raped, deal with intercourse or experience anything forcible or against their will. Most child molesting victims we meet tell us that's what happened, but that's because child molesting victims who get raped or experience force are disproportionately the ones who ever tell people about it. She found that for most child molesting victims, they're usually fondled non-forcibly, and it initially wasn't an upsetting or traumatic experience at first. It wasn't until adolescence or at least young adulthood when they realized what happened. Clancy wrote that because of the popular narrative that most child molesting involves being violently raped, many survivors feel self-blame, feel there's something wrong with them and blame themselves because it wasn't against their will and didn't traumatize them initially. It was initially a neutral or confusing experience when it happened. She concluded that the popular narrative is what causes trauma for this silent majority of child molesting victims, and many of these victims also feel a profound sense of betrayal because they realize as they got older that someone they knew and trusted took advantage of them (most child molesters are someone you know and trust, not a stranger).

Clancy's book caused huge controversy, and many people accused her of condoning child molesting, but she said she's objectively reporting the results of her extensive research, and said because of the popular narrative, 95% of child molesting victims don't tell anyone, and many even were misunderstood by people they told it to because they didn't experience the violent rape stereotypical abuse. She condemned child molesting and does not view it as acceptable, and people misinterpreted her book.

It could be a considerable minority of people get molested as kids, but this doesn't show the full picture. There's theories about how people forget child sexual abuse that traumatized them as a coping mechanism and recover memories from therapists. Clancy says this was all found to be pseudoscience and a myth. We all remember traumatic events. What really was the case was simply forgetting the abuse. Because child sexual abuse involves non-forcible touching that the child isn't initially traumatized by, it's often a forgettable and unremarkable memory for many children, so like many other things we experience as children, we don't remember it. Unless it traumatized them back then, children who don't remember being inappropriately touched typically don't get psychologically damaged by what happened, but when they remember it, they usually do.

So when it says 1 in 4 girls will be molested? Most of them probably don't remember it, and being asked by a survey if it ever happened to them helps them remember something they completely forgot about. So it's not like 1 in 4 girls are molested and subsequently traumatized unless they remember it, and most people can barely remember their childhood. This might explain why that same survey showed that most of the child molesting survivors didn't suffer depression, substance abuse or suicide attempts. Restrict it to the ones who remembered it, and they probably will suffer those kinds of problems. The percent who are molested and subsequently traumatized is far lower than 1 in 4.

Now I want to make perfectly clear that I'm far from condoning child molesting, but this is an unpopular fact about child molesting and Susan Clancy's book was misinterpreted as condoning abuse. She made it perfectly clear that children cannot give informed consent, and molesting them could even lead to taught behavior where they molest other kids thinking this is normal.

Even child physical abuse could include incidents in the questions where a mild hit happened a couple times and nothing more or where a son/daughter and their parent got into mutual fights a couple times where the parent hit them and they hit each other or the son/daughter started it, and then they answer affirmatively, which inflates the percent of people who are considered child physical abuse victims in surveys.

Children who get violently raped or forcibly fondled disproportionately come forward more than the silent majority of child molesting victims, making them seem like a majority.

Sexual trafficking

They say 100,000-300,000 girls and women are put in sex slavery each year. Nope. According to Christina Hoff Sommers:

The source for the figure is a 2001 report on child sexual exploitation by University of Pennsylvania sociologists Richard Estes and Neil Alan Weiner. But their 100,000–300,000 estimate referred to children at risk for exploitation—not actual victims. When three reporters from the Village Voice questioned Estes on the number of children who are abducted and pressed into sexual slavery each year, he replied, “We’re talking about a few hundred people.” And this number is likely to include a lot of boys: According to a 2008 census of underage prostitutes in New York City, nearly half turned out to be male. A few hundred children is still a few hundred too many, but they will not be helped by thousand-fold inflation of their numbers.

Conclusion

Feminists' exaggeration of how often women and girls are attacked, raped or abused is harmful, and it just reinforces their tendency to portray women as damsels in distress. These statistics are all exaggerated.