I was thoroughly dismayed (and honestly, a bit peeved) when I saw this piece in the Globe and Mail yesterday. Author Margaret Wente wrote the story, which derided the new movement of SlutWalks — people marching in the streets to denounce the victim-blaming of rape culture and ramp up perpetrator-shaming — and cited AAUW’s research on campus sexual assault. Wente writes, “The highly educated young women who join SlutWalks are among the safest and most secure in the world. But you’d never know it from the fevered rhetoric. According to one widely cited scare statistic cooked up by the American Association of University Women, no fewer than 62 percent of female students say they’ve been sexually harassed at university — a figure that is credible only if you include every incident of being groped by some 20-year-old drunk.”
Yep, you read that right: She claims that AAUW cooks up scare stats, and she didn’t even really do her homework. The definitions used for AAUW’s Drawing the Line: Sexual Harassment on Campus are very clearly laid out on page six, and AAUW used a broad definition because all kinds of harassment affect students. If she wants to see the recipe for the rest of the report, all Wente has to do is read the methodology section, pages 42–45.
Also, yes, being groped when you don’t want to be — regardless of sobriety — does count as sexual harassment. Just sayin’.
It’s true that AAUW found that “when asked about specific kinds of harassment, two-thirds of students (62 percent) say that they have been sexually harassed, and a similar number (66 percent) say that they know someone personally (such as a friend or classmate) who has been sexually harassed. … Expressed another way, on a campus of 10,000 undergraduate students, about 6,000 students will be harassed.”
The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network has some other startling statistics about sexual harassment and assault (or should we call them scare statistics?) as well: Every two minutes, someone in the United States is sexually assaulted.
Obviously, this is a huge social problem, and insensitive discourse only adds fuel to the fire. Rather than condemning the work AAUW’s research team does, let’s focus on the actual reasons why movements like SlutWalks exist. These numbers aren’t made up, and what Wente calls “scare statistics” are scary, though not in the sense that she means — they’re scary because we live in a society fraught with sexism, victim-blaming, and sexual violence. These problems are far too prevalent in our society, and they need to stop. Now.
AAUW Dialog 
Well said – Wente inadvertently proves the opposite of her statement that rape culture is “solved” in North American culture, by her own hand.
It’s definitely a question of focus – the more the focus gets skewed this way and that, the more “insensitivity” as you’ve pinned it, is thrown onto those who’ve experienced assault/rape/rape culture, and really only works to re-victimize them.