I expected there to be some silly reactions to CJR's devastating takedown of Rolling Stone's dreadfully inaccurate "A Rape on Campus." And the sillier corners of the Internet didn't disappoint!
Consider, for instance, Amanda Marcotte's response:
You can always tell you're dealing with a serious person when they use a term like "rape deniers." Really sets the tone for a constructive conversation, you know? Anyway, here's one of Marcotte's key takeaways from the CJR piece:
But more than that, what this report makes clear is that "Jackie" makes a piss-poor poster girl for the anti-feminist claim that many rape accusations are nothing more than a woman lashing out at a specific man in retaliation for rejection or some other perceived mistreatment. Because, whatever else she has going on, this report completely eliminates the possibility that it’s a "woman scorned" scenario.
Emphasis mine. This is a fascinating sentence. Because it's definitely true! Jackie didn't invent a rape in order to get back at a "specific man in retaliation for rejection." No, she seems to have invented a gang rape in order to win the attraction of a specific man in response to his rejection of her. And, honestly, isn't that a whole helluva lot weirder? Does she really want to admit that there are actually a wider variety of reasons for which mentally unhinged people will invent claims of rape?
Here was Jessica Valenti's opening graf:
Rolling Stone just doesn’t get it. Months after the magazine published a widely-criticized article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia, the details of which proved unverifiable, those responsible still refuse to take any real responsibility. Instead, editors at the magazine once again placed the blame for their errors where it so often ends up when it comes to sexual assault: on a young woman who alleges she was raped.
Now, hey, I'm with Valenti when it comes to punishing Rolling Stone for their lapses in journalistic integrity. They dropped the ball, and in a big way. But let's be honest: It's not like they invented Jackie's story from whole cloth. It's not like they, say, forced her to lie repeatedly. It's not like they went to Jackie and said "Tell us a story in which every possible verifiable fact—the name of the perp, the location of the assault, the night on which it took place—is easily disproven. That's what we need for a boffo piece!" I mean, Jackie probably deserves a little bit of the blame here, you know?
Elizabeth Bruenig, meanwhile, took a break from making delightfully tasteful limp biscuit/ookie cookie/soggy cracker jokes on Twitter to find the real culprit for this journalistic malfeasance:
This is a remarkably precious argument. According to Bruenig, the left is more concerned about "structures" and the oppression that comes about as a result of them; the right, on the other hand, is concerned about individuals. Here's Bruenig:
Thus, the right tends to pore over the specific details of high-profile cases like those of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, concluding that if those particular situations were embattled by complications or mitigating factors, then the phenomena they’re meant to represent must not be real either.
Yes, it was definitely the rightwing outlets calling for justice for Trayvon. National Review was first on the ground in Missouri, chanting "hands up, don't shoot" with the protesters. Doesn't she realize that by pointing to these examples, she's disproving her point? That they were almost exactly like Jackie's case: prettied up falsehoods designed to make the case for larger structural reforms? "Oh, sure, Trayvon had some run-ins with the law and clearly attacked Zimmerman, but this is about larger problems." "Oh, sure, Mike Brown had literally just committed a strong arm robbery and was attacking a cop rather than surrendering to him, but this is about larger problems." "Oh, sure, Jackie is a liar and a fraud, but this is about larger problems." The right didn't invent these people. The right didn't bring them to light. I bet she also thinks it was also the right that tried to turn Deamonte Driver into a cause célèbre.
There's a reason why basically every story about gay marriage has a graf that looks something like:
Jane and Paula knew that when they committed themselves to each other in a civil ceremony, there'd be good times and bad. But they didn't realize that, thanks to the fact they couldn't get married, the bad times would be even worse. "In sickness and in health" takes on a whole new meaning when you can't visit your wife in the hospital, when you can't plan for the future and leave her your possessions.
Et cetera. Indeed, most people, I think, would argue that the left is at a great advantage in these and similar situations because they can point to individuals who need help from the government. "Why are you in favor of cutting food stamp benefits, don't you know little Johnny will starve?" "Why are you in favor of slashing medicaid, don't you know that little Billy will die of cancer?" Republicans, meanwhile, have to make arguments about abstract ideas.
The best piece of the day, however, had nothing to do with Rolling Stone or Jackie's lies. Instead, it had to do with the Hugo Awards, sci-fi fiction's highest honor. There is currently a power struggle between liberal and conservative fans of the genre: broadly speaking, liberals are pushing for message-oriented, more "diverse" works to win, while conservatives want the focus to be on the work, rather than the message the work pushes.
I was tempted to write about this over the weekend but refrained, not really understanding the ins and outs and what have yous of the whole thing. A lack of understanding didn't stop Isabella Biedenharn from getting in on the action, though:
That's the original headline. For a news piece. Not an op-ed. A news piece. It only got worse from there. Ace broke it down last night, so I won't get into it in depth here. But it was clear that Biedenharn had no idea what she was talking about. Indeed, I think it's pretty clear that she hadn't even looked at the "sad puppies" slate that conservatives were pushing. If she had, she couldn't possibly have written a sentence like "The Hugo Awards have fallen victim to a campaign in which misogynist groups lobbied to nominate only white males for the science fiction book awards." Emphasis mine, because if she had taken mere seconds to 1.) Google "Sad Puppies slate 2015" and 2.) looked at the slate, she would've realized how remarkably wrong that lede is. It has a number of women! And some of the more exotic names suggest they weren't all white!
I know, I know: proving that they weren't all white would've meant literally tens of seconds, maybe even minutes, of extra Googling. And there's an agenda to push! But I think EW's readers deserve at least that much. Don't you?