Virginia state senator says 20 percent of female students at University of Virginia are sexually assaulted; he is wrong - PolitiFact did an excellent write-up on the faulty 1 in 5 stat used by feminists and they thoroughly debunk it in this piece. Definitely worth saving for debates on the topic.

2014-12-11T06:41:28+00:00

It disappoints me considering he has a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Maryland. You'd think that with a degree in econ, he'd understand the importance of how you arrive at statistics rather than simply what the numbers are. Then again, being in politics makes you forget everything you know about economics and just focus on yourself basically.

iggybdawg · 2014-12-11T04:36:06+00:00

It sort of touches on the main problem, that "sexual assault" is way too broadly defined, inflating the number, then falsely conflated with rape to stir up crises call to arms in politics.

tectonic9 · 2014-12-11T14:28:58+00:00

His stats are bunk. Actual crime stats and reasonable inferences indicate that the figure is closer to 1%. Allow me to demonstrate.

0.02% of the population of the enrolled student population reported forcible sexual offences to local/campus police in a given year [http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/rape-sexual-violence/campus/Pages/measuring.aspx].

Let's make the following assumptions (some of which are generous):

Only females reported these crimes.
Females make up 60% of the student body.
Undergraduate programs last 4 years.
Students report such crimes in one year only (i.e. no repeat victims).
Just 1 in 10 such crimes are reported.

The figure becomes:

0.02 * (5/3) * 4 * 10 = 1.33 %

That is to say, according to the statistics, female students have, at worst, a 1 in 75 chance of being sexually assaulted whilst at university.

He is out by a factor of 15.

firex726 · 2014-12-11T15:06:16+00:00

Also consider, Congo; UN has named it the rape capital of the world, with between 12%-22% of the women being raped/sexually assaulted; so these Feminists are claiming that the rape on US college campuses is so bad, it's beating the rape capitol of the world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8650112.stm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/12/48-women-raped-hour-congo

a_personification · 2014-12-11T03:13:52+00:00

I didn't see a thorough debunking? A call for recount, yes.

SnowyGamer · 2014-12-11T10:28:38+00:00

With that conclusion, how can they give it a "mostly-false"? There should be a "full-of-shit" metric on that scale.

expert02 · 2014-12-11T19:43:21+00:00

"one in five women is sexually assaulted in college though only about 12 percent report it to police."

If you don't report it, it wasn't rape.

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