In Defense of Knowledge

And a plea for nuance

I usually write about literature, but today’s piece is about viral posts and essays. I wrote it through the lens of sexual assault (aka rape) because that’s a topic I have deep knowledge about, but I hope anyone reading this takes away that informed critical thinking should be applied to other topics. All too often, pieces that go viral ask simple questions, reach simple answers that lack nuance, and trend more toward thought pieces with inaccurate conclusions because they aren’t fact-checked, nor backed up with information or research. Instead, they go viral because of emotional engagement; the reader feels good about themselves, or righteous, angry, offended…some emotion you, dear reader, have likely felt yourself after reading/viewing that sort of material.

I’ve been a sexual assault survivor advocate for eight years. Before #metoo. Ironically, but no, not really, I began around the time our (U.S.) current and former president, a man who has been found liable for sexual abuse and credibly accused of misconduct by twenty-six women, was first elected into office. The election signaled a disregard for sexual assault¹. I’m passionate about the topic. Although I cover literary fiction, I also read about sexual assault, and have several excellent books about it². I also read articles about current rape news. Mostly, I dislike posts and thought pieces from people who don’t have experience or knowledge of the dynamics of rape because it get so much wrong.

For example, the question this viral piece, What Would A Woman Do To An Unconscious Man If She Thought No-One Would Find Out? asks ³:

And so back to the question I asked at the top of this page, what would a woman do to an unconscious man if she thought no-one would find out?

I don’t think Mesdames Tout Le Monde would harm him, we don’t carry the same weapons they do. I think she would take his shoes off, let him sleep in his socks. I think she would lay a blanket over him, perhaps put a glass of water beside his bed.

Then she would turn out the light and leave him to sleep.

It is the wrong question, and the wrong answer. The essay mostly discuss the behavior of men, then makes a conjuncture about the behavior of women that isn’t discussed or supported by the rest of the essay. Sure, the vast majority of rape involves a man perpetrator, and a female victim. Over 98% of the sexual misconduct incidents I’ve helped with involve a man as the accused-attacker, and a woman as accuser-survivor. Yet, to tell men they’re the problem, while women wouldn’t behave that way without evidence of the behaviors of women make the conclusion a divisive statement. The technique is to blame and shame, and does more harm than good. It’s counterintuitive in the way that consent education often is: during consent education, men often shut down⁴. They feel as they’re being blamed, told they’re “bad people”, the problem. Thus, the training is not only not useful, but that “shutting down” is thought to be more harmful than helpful. Instead, of saying women behave better toward men than men do women, I’d reframe this as: men shouldn’t rape, and that most rape is still committed by men. It’s a small difference, and the nuance is helping in having men not shut down - which might be the men we want to reach the most. I’d also argue that it’s not just men who are the problem, our culture(s) not only condone it, we enable it. Rape is vastly underreported, laws around burdens of evidence and defamation/libel/slander make it near-impossible to speak, and thus, it continues.

The essay, and other articles and thought pieces emphasize that the men who raped Gisèle Pelicot came from all walks of life, men of the world. Yet, they were not the average man, they didn’t stumble upon an unconscious women. They were actively looking for women to rape; Pelicot’s ex-husband found them in a website (coco.fr) that’s now being investigated for facilitating rape and pedophilia (thankful, now taken down). Let’s ask instead what would the average man would do if given the opportunity to rape? A small study of just over a thousand men asked if the men questioned if they would rape a woman if there was no chance that they would be prosecuted or caught. Around half of those men said yes. Half of men would rape if they could get away it. It’s uncomfortably high for most of us. To be honest, the author of the viral essay is probably correct in that far less than half of women/trans/non-binary would not, but neither of us have evidence to support our view.

A more provocative way to look at the behavior of men and women in rape culture would be to ask: what would a woman do to a vulnerable woman? Vulnerable, not unconscious. One of the worst reports of abuse I’ve collected concerns a popular (afab) femme who organizes events for queer and trans folks; this person physically abused two people in the same week so egregiously that both survivors needed medical care: one emergency room care, the other ongoing medical treatments that have still going two years later. If you google the statistics around abuse in lesbian relationships, aka, women dating women, the few studies out there show that over 50% of women who date women have experienced both emotional abuse and sexual abuse in women-loving-women relationships. That’s grim, and it’s higher than the rates for heterosexual relationships⁵. I’ve asked a handful of lesbians about dating and cited this statistic, the answer I’ve received is that one should compromise their boundaries and standards because the selection is so small, lesbians are the smallest of the “LGBT”, and if you want to date, well, expect to compromise. Further, to speak to the statistics might increase homophobia, which, don’t get me wrong, is a problem, but to not speak to the abuse of women by women means you’re inadvertently allowing it to flourish in the shadows.

The most prevalent type of harm is around rape is from women toward the survivor of the rape. It’s psychological; victim-blaming, gaslighting, gossip, and ruining reputations. This something that I’ve heard from survivors I have worked and from survivors in passing; it’s a phenomenon my mentors have⁶ found through their work as well. Most survivors say most of the emotional and mental distress they’ve felt came from reactions to their rape rather than the incident itself, which is why it’s crucial to educate and inform on the dynamics of rape as well as to prevent rape⁷. I’ve frequently spoken up of a woman who sought to have me commit suicide via a longer plan that concluded in a page-long text encouraging me to do so. Since then, I’ve spoken to seven other survivors who have experienced harm from that person, though none as severe. Two other survivors have spoken to me about women encouraging them to commit suicide. With nearly every rape reported to me, the survivor has been distraught because one or more women are her rapist’s strongest, most vocal supporters⁸. This is strategic, for a woman to call a woman crazy or a slut is going to be far more effective in discrediting her than it would for the accused. If you follow to footnote eight, I explain some of the theories I and my colleagues have come up with for this.

The survivors I speak to live through experiences unlike Gisèle Pelicot or Chanel Miller. In Gisèle Pelicot’s case, there was a mountain of evidence. And her family supported her. With Chanel Miller, there were bystanders who helped, a rape kit, a supportive family, and socio-economic privilege. That makes it easier to believe the women, and it also makes it easier for those women to report and go through the legal system. What about the average survivor, the ones I and my mentors speak to? They’re largely women of color⁹, there’s no evidence nor a rape kit, they often process for a month or two before they can admit to themselves that they were raped/abused. What hurts me that is that so many come to me because they’re not feeling supported in their normal support networks, which leaves them more traumatized. Reporting itself is often retrumatizing and dramatically increases the likelihood of PTSD. This is why I’m an advocate and what I keep planning to fight for: I want better outcomes and greater support for survivors.

The reason I titled this “in defense of knowledge” with the subtitle “a plea for nuance” is I hope that we are working toward both. Less than two years in the U.S. current president’s first administration, the first wave of the #metoo movement began in the U.S., built on a foundation of feminist activism that immediately followed the election. In light of darkness around women’s and LGBTQI+ rights, the resistance became stronger, emboldened, and I hope this time, more unified and remains active. This isn’t an American phenomenon, there are backlashes to progressive and/or liberal values around the world. Citizens and organized resistance work against in them in other countries, such as India with massive protests and activism following the 2012 rape and killing of nirbhaya¹⁰, later, Taiwan with activism around the true story of author Lin Yi-Han's Fang Si Chi's First Love Paradise. Through my work and activism, I’ve seen the change in attitudes that followed the dissemination of knowledge spread by #metoo. Back in pre-#metoo 2016 and 2017, too many people around me were either dismissive or down-right horrified by anti-rape advocacy, speaking of the harm that rape accusations causes men, and their belief that women lied. Now, some of those same folks have learned that the data shows that women seldom falsely accuse or lie¹¹, or have heard the slogan “believe women” (at least listen to them without bias) and are much more likely to believe or support accusations, especially when the accused has been accused by multiple women.

The issue is complex, there’s a reason I recommended books instead of essays or articles: there’s a lot of missing information about rape. I believe that education, training, spreading knowledge is the key to ending rape culture. I hope my essay shows that we need a lot of nuance when providing that information and education. Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously said “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” There is change. It’s slow, but it’s there. And the slowness is a good thing, because it signals that it’s more likely to stick. I’m working toward that change, even in writing this piece, and in asking you, dear reader, to think critically think, gain knowledge, and to help with that fight.

I also shared this essay on my anti-rape blog; please comment or message me if you’d like a link to that.

1. Trump numbers citation: Nelson, Libby; McGann, Laura (June 21, 2019). "E. Jean Carroll joins at least 21 other women in publicly accusing Trump of sexual assault or misconduct". Vox.

Here’s why nuance is so important: Bill Clinton, democratic president, has been abused of misconduct by multiple women. Our outgoing democratic president, Joe Biden, has been accused by one woman, and he was critical of Anita Hill’s accusations against conservative/Republic justice Clarence Thomas. He’s since apologized for his actions in the 90s; Clinton was also elected in the 90s. Recently, republican Pete Hegseth was confirmed as the US secretary of defense despite allegations of financial mismanagement and sexual assault; republicans Matt Gaetz has been accused, two sitting republican SCOTUS justice (the aforementioned Thomas and Brett M. Kavanaugh have been accused of sexual harassment and attempted sexual assault). Where nuance comes in: the accusations against republicans far outnumber the ones against democrats, republicans and swing votes have continued voting for candidates such as Trump, but democrats have also been accused and voted in after the accusations.

2. The books I’d recommend include The Right to Sex by Amin Srinivasan, Sexual Justice, by Alexandra Brodsky (synopsis), The Will to Change by bell hooks (synopsis), Credibility by Deborah Turkheimer, Disgrace by Joanna Bourke, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook by Sara Ahmed…

3. Outside of this concluding paragraphs I shared, the piece has merit. It sums up the Gisèle Pelicot case for those who are unfamiliar. It cites the Marina Abramovic’s performance art powerfully. It cites the case of 10-year Sara Sharif less successfully because that case doesn’t lead to the conclusion, as Sara Sharif (male) father and her (female) step-mother were found guilty of murder.

4. To Combat Harassment, More Companies Should Try Bystander Training. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/10/to-combat-harassment-more-companies-should-try-bystander-training. There is also an EEOC report that asserts this more clearly, link to follow.

5. Famously, RAINN cites about one in five women have experienced rape or attempted rape. The rate is higher for non-binary folks, one in four (but the statistic does not clarify whether the person perpetuating the abuse is queer/non-binary or whether it might be due to targeting and vulnerability of non-binary folks).

6. One of the mentors I speak of here is a restorative justice advocate with over twenty-five years of experience, the other is an American-indigenous woman who has been an advocate for over thirty-three years. I bring up their identities because I think it’s important to note that while most of the survivors we see in the media are white, most of the women given a platform through large media outlets to report and investigate this, or as with the viral essay, white women writing about rape goes viral, even if it’s lacking research or accuracy. However, so many of us women of color are doing the day-to-day work of preventing assault and supporting survivors, and our voices deserve to be heard because we’re doing so much of the work.

7. Of course, if we lived in a world in which all rape was prevented, we couldn’t need to educate on the dynamics. However, we don’t, and we’re a very long ways from that, which means rape is likely to continue…and so education and information around how to handle rape after the fact, and how to support survivor is and will remain critical.

8. There are many reasons for this. The most common reason/explanation is victim-based based on an unhealthy way that women reassure themselves that if a victim is at fault, she can keep herself safe from rape. “That victim did XYZ, I’d never do that, so I won’t be raped.” Another I’ve found is that most women who support rapists have themselves been raped, or more frequently, were abused/molested in childhood. Defending their abuser was likely a coping mechanism. A third is that supporting powerful/wealthy men in light of the accusations often benefits the women who do so in their careers, networking, financially, in invites. A fourth reason is that some women compartmentalize in an odd way: your rape was not as a bad as mine, so you have no reason to be distraught, and I will speak out against you. Yet another is that the men accused are often partners or ex-partners of their defender…there are many reasons and explanations for this trend, all of them relate back to rape culture, and all of them speak to women harming women in a society were all women are viewed as lesser than, and are suffer because of it.

9. Chanel Miller is half-white, half-Asian American.

10. What is the Nirbhaya Case? August 19, 2024. Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/what-is-nirbhaya-case/articleshow/72868430.cms” Accessed Sunday January 26, 2025. and Pandey, Gita. Nirbhaya case: The rape victim’s mum fighting for India’s daughters. December 15, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63968198 Accessed Sunday January 26, 2025.

11. Studies at U.S. universities, including conservative red-state universities, such as the University of Utah, and through Britain’s NIH, show that only 2 - 4% of accusations are false. This means that 96 - 98% of accusations are true.