By Erick Erickson -
Marshall University, like many other universities, takes “rape culture” seriously. What is rape culture? According to Marshall University on its website, “Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.”
The editors of the leftwing Nation magazine declared “Rape culture exists because we don’t believe it does.” The Atlantic chronicled “Rape culture in the Alaskan wilderness.” Mother Jones ran an article entitled, “How to fight fat shaming, internet trolls, and rape culture.” The Huffington Post, with an article titled “Every adult should listen carefully to this teen’s speech on rape culture” implored Americans to listen to Nadia Goldman, an 18 year old who, according to the Huffington Post, “dropped some serious knowledge about misogyny and sexism in a speech she made.” BuzzFeed ran an article entitled “What is rape culture?” It began with a bold subheading that read “anybody can be a rapist.”
Rape culture is taken so seriously by the American left that progressive pundits were quick to seize on a Rolling Stone magazine article about college rape at the University of Virginia. The journalist who wrote the article, Sabrina Erdely, documented an alleged rape at a fraternity house at the University of Virginia. When people started pointing out things in the story that did not add up, Erdely and others on the left were outraged that the claims were not believed. Now Erdely and Rolling Stone are being sued because the story did turn out to be the fabrication of Jackie, the student who supposedly was the victim of a rape that did not happen.
But, as with so much on the left, it is not the truth of the matter asserted that is important. Rather it is the seriousness of the charge that matters. Rape culture, according to the American left, is rampant in the country. The Obama Administration is committed to stamping it out.
Now, however, there is a new twist on rape culture. The Obama Administration insists that any school that accepts federal dollars allow boys to use the girls’ bathroom. In a culture the left claims is filled with rapists, the left led by the Obama Administration, wants to let the rapists have free reign in bathrooms across America. If you disagree, you support Jim Crow laws according to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The issue, in truth, has nothing to do with actual transgender people, who are estimated to be no more than 0.3 percent of the population. If an authentically transgendered person went into a bathroom, the odds of anyone ever knowing are slim. But there is no standard definition of transgenderism. It is a feeling. If a boy suddenly decides he feels like he is a girl, he can go to the girl’s bathroom.
But what of the legitimate rape victim? Suddenly, the actual victim of violence is cast in the role of bigot for not wanting a member of the opposite sex in her bathroom. In fact, the whole of transgenderism leads to absurd results that fly in the face of other accepted doctrines of the left.
For example, if, as the left claims, our sexual orientation is something we are born with and the male husband in a heterosexual relationship suddenly decides he identifies as a woman, is his female wife suddenly to be a lesbian or will she be labeled a bigot and transphobic for not wanting to stay with her husband who is now supposedly a woman?
None of it makes sense, and the Obama Administration is willing to govern based on feeling while ignoring contradictions and the concerns of others. In a nation where the left believes every man is a potential rapist, they are fine with letting him in the girls’ bathroom if they feel like a girl that day. If you disagree, the Attorney General of the United States and the political left think you are a bigot.
