Anytime I bring up rape in a discussion on this site or outside of Reddit, a man inevitably will tell me to specify “not all men”. I know this has been brought up on FDS before but I think men don’t realize how many men are rapists.

Since between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 women will be a victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime (source) that means a lot of men have forced themselves upon women at some point. It’s statistically impossible for only a “few bad men” to be rapists.

I’m supposed to specify “not all men” when discussing domestic violence against women, when 1 in 3 women will be a victim of physical domestic violence in their lifetime. Once again, it is statistically impossible for domestic abusers to only be a “handful” of “bad men”. (Source)

I’m also supposed to specify “not all men” when almost every woman I know has been a victim of sexual abuse or an attempted/completed rape. And I don’t think I know a single woman who hasn’t been sexually harassed either.

It’s difficult to estimate what percent of men are indeed rapists because of the amount of rapes that go unreported and are never prosecuted. But, based off of the percentage of women who’ve been victimized by men, the number must be high. The best estimate I’ve seen was 1 in 10 men are rapists from self defense instructor C. R. Jaun. Another estimate from a Binghamton University study found in 2002 that between 1 in 7 and 1 in 16 men are rapists. (Source).

Yeah, it’s not all men, but it’s too many.

(Repost: attempted to post this before flaired)