Word: rape
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...surprising to hear that issues of sexual assault, rape and discrimination at Harvard are indeed not "women's issues" or matters of "gender politics" but rather issues of "public safety," as Noah D. Oppenheim posits (Opinion...
With its emphasis on various forms of historical and social injustice, liberal rhetoric can be dazzlingly eloquent, blindingly inspiring. When we start talking about controversial policies regarding gay rights or rape or the distribution of wealth, feelings run so high that rational acknowledgment of the opposition can seem insensitive--almost degrading to the issues at hand. But the very severity of these issues demands that we clear the sparkles from our eyes for long enough to treat them more thoroughly and even-handedly than this emotionalism allows...
...Rape politics are a particularly difficult area in this respect. The more strongly we feel about the crime of rape--and the more we understand about its devastating consequences for its victims--the less inclined we are to care about the other side of the story. I have heard people say, with the most earnest passion, that if a woman says she's been raped that's enough for them--as if to need any more evidence than that was to insult and trivialize rape survivors everywhere, to perpetuate the abhorrent tradition of blaming the victim. But it should work...
Liberal ideology is full of these kinds of buzz topics--topics about which feeling is so strong and unequivocal that two-sided discussion becomes impossible. Rape is one such topic. Any kind of racial bigotry is another. At the most basic level, of course, these issues are no longer up for discussion. For the most part, people are not debating the question of whether rape is a severe crime or of whether racism is wrong and destructive. These are no longer liberal causes and it would be an undeserved insult to conservatism to suggest that they are. But there...
...Kennedy's personal failings, including the fatal car crash at Chappaquiddick, his flagrant womanizing and broken marriage, his excessive drinking, his enabling role in the boozy evening that led to his nephew William Kennedy Smith's trial (and acquittal) for rape--all are dealt with matter-of-factly and unsensationally, but not without judgment. Clymer describes these episodes as they were: egregious cases of irresponsible behavior that disqualified Kennedy from ever being President. But he also paints a sympathetic picture of a lonely man who finds love with his second wife Vicki...