The Musings of

Something full of magic, religion, bullsh*t.

Catherine MacKinnon, the Michigan Law professor and feminist theorist, is back in the spotlight again. Reason magazine is reporting that in a speech at Stanford Law the good professor stated that "[a] kind of war is being fought, but there is no name for this war in which men are the aggressors and women the victims." She went on to note that roughly the same number of women are killed by men every year as died on 9/11, which has to go in the ranks of great pointless statistics of all time. The gist of her harangue, I suppose, is that there is a "war" going on where men are trying to keep women down.

Ignoring for a minute that war is a two-way street -- something clearly not envisioned by Ms. MacKinnon -- where does all of this lead? As Reason points out, there are plenty of inconvenient facts that hurt Ms. MacKinnon's analogy: such as the fact that men kill men much more often than they kill women and the fact that few crimes are committed due to misogyny. It also notes that if Ms. MacKinnon's arguments are to be accepted, then we must also assume that blacks are at war with white Americans, and that all black-on-white crime is due to race. In short, Ms. MacKinnon is an idiot.

But we knew that. Even if she didn't say that "all rape is sex," [Ed.: Or, perhaps, as it should read, "all sex is rape"] she still has some serious issues with reality. What got me thinking was this exchange from Elliot Fladen:

When she brought up the need to protect rape shield laws so as to safeguard the equality of women, I asked her if she was willing to prevent inequality of men by making false reporting of rape provable beyond a reasonable doubt a felony. Her response was that she was unwilling to do so, because this would discourage rape reporting for the overall class of women.

If I may, here's Ms. MacKinnon's logic as I see it: Laws that encourage women to report rape are good, even if they result in false reporting of rape. There can be no doubt that false reporting of rape naturally leads to false convictions and imprisonment for rape. As such, Ms. MacKinnon is saying that she is willing to see innocent men get sent to jail rather than let some guilty men (rapists) go free.

Excellent. For years now the ethical debate has raged over the value of n in the equation "It is better for n guilty men to be set free than for one innocent man to be imprisoned." Now we can argue over whether it is better for 10 or 100 innocent men to be wrongly accused and/or imprisoned rather than have one guilty rapist wandering the streets. I think the snake of modern liberalism is finally eating its tail.

Update: Link to Fladen is fixed.

Update II: For those who care, here is Reason's take on MacKinnon's now-deceased partner in crime, Andrea Dworkin. (Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds). 

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