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Whenever the subject of feminist narratives comes up on this forum, one of the recurring arguments is that feminist messaging is ineffective, self-defeating even, the usual reason being given that it doesn’t reach the men it’s supposed to reach, and only reaches men who don’t need feminist messages in the first place because they’re pretty much acculturated in a feminist milieu anyway. (I know all this doesn’t necessarily sound fair or unbiased, but let’s ignore that for a moment.)
The most fitting example of this that is usually mentioned is the message that “we need to teach men not to rape”, which is supposedly a favorite of feminist activists on college campuses, corporate HR boards and elsewhere. Apparently they promote essentially the same idea as a great tool to combat sexual assault and harassment.
I don’t think I need to explain in detail why this argument sounds so dumb to the average man. Even when I come up with the most benevolent interpretation of this tactic that I can think of, it still seems misguided and, well, dumb. But then it occurred to me: the message makes 100% sense if we start from the assumption that modern feminists, eager to right cultural wrongs of the past that they perceive, really want to make sure their messaging never ever entails even a hint of the notion that women need to exercise any level of agency in order to avoid rape, assault or harassment of any type i.e. avoid bad men, because in all cases that would be “victim blaming” and horrific etc.
From that perspective, it all makes sense, sort of. Am I correct, or is there something else going on as well?
You're missing at least one thing that's going on - some rapes (or at least rape-adjacent behavior) are genuinely dissimilar to other crimes in the lack of mens rea from the perpetrator. The canonical example is a guy that takes a girl that's obviously blitzed out of her mind upstairs at a party. Sure, you can provide the admonishment that she shouldn't have gotten so drunk in the first place and you're going to be correct, but it's also plausible that it's feasible to shift the culture around hooking up with very drunk girls from it being funny to it being socially unacceptable. You're not going to convince Ted Bundy to not rape with a social awareness campaign, but you might convince some men that it would be a bad thing to take advantage of a girl that doesn't have her wits about her.
There are many objections to the above that can be offered, but my impression is that this is the type of thing that "teach men not to rape" is referring to.
You're probably right. But I dislike this behavior of expanding the definition of rape. At least 15 years ago, rape was a violent brutal crime, one where someone was trying to dominate someone else. Not something someone could do by accident. Mens rea was almost definitely necessary for a rape to occur.
Expanding this definition makes it so that people who probably haven't done anything that terrible or didn't intend to do anything that terrible, and maybe made a bad decision now are lumped in with violent psychopaths. It also takes away nuance from language. It may have also had the effect that you're positing, too, of making people less likely to hook up with drunk girls.
This definition changed more like 150 years ago than 15. Webster's dictionary lists rape as "In law, the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will" in 1828, but as "Sexual connection with a woman without her consent." in 1913.
I do think it's a better policy in general to make up a new word when you need one, rather than overloading an old one... but more than a century?! At some point thou movest on.
Whether or not the 1913 definition means what you're implying it to mean probably depends on exactly how you define consent, and how you define the boundaries of consent. Suffice it to say, based on what I was exposed to growing up in the late 20th century, it was my impression that rape referred to a violent brutal crime, and I'm sure that most others of my generation and geographic location would agree with me. Ymmv, perhaps
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