The Telegraph's Pro-Rape Agenda

If that sounds like an inflammatory headline, well, it's not intended to be. It's quite literally the only excuse I can conjure for the Telegraph publishing an article headlined "Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped, claim scientists" and subheaded "Women who drink alcohol, wear short skirts and are outgoing are more likely to be raped, claim scientists at the University of Leicester," based on a press release titled "Promiscuous men more likely to rape," summarizing incomplete research done for a dissertation project that found the exact opposite of what's blared as if fact in the Telegraph headline and subhead:

I rang Sophia Shaw at the University of Leicester. She was surprised to have been presented as an expert scientist on the pages of the Daily Telegraph, as she is an MSc student, and this was her dissertation project. Also it was not finished. "My findings are very preliminary," she said.

She had been discussing her dissertation at an academic conference when the British Psychological Society's PR team picked it up, and put out the press release.

…Shaw spoke to about 100 men, presenting them with "being with a woman", and asking them when they would "call it a night". The idea was to explore men's attitudes towards coercing women into sex.

"I'm very aware that there are limitations to my study. It's self-report data about sensitive issues, so that's got its flaws, and participants were answering when sober, and so on," she said.

But more than that, she told me, every single one of the first four statements made by the Telegraph was an unambiguous, incorrect, misrepresentation of her findings.

Women who drink alcohol, wear short skirts and are outgoing are more likely to be raped? "This is completely inaccurate," Shaw said. "We found no difference whatsoever. The alcohol thing is also completely wrong: if anything, we found that men reported they were willing to go further with women who are completely sober."

And what about the Telegraph's next claim, or rather, the paper's reassuringly objective assertion, that it is scientists who claim that women who dress provocatively are more likely to be raped?

"We have found that people will go slightly further with women who are provocatively dressed, but this result is not statistically significant. Basically you can't say that's an effect, it could easily be the play of chance. I told the journalist it isn't one of our main findings, you can't say that. It's not significant, which is why we're not reporting it in our main analysis."

So who do we blame for this story, and what do we do about it?

Shaw said: "When I saw the article my heart sank, and it made me really angry, given how sensitive this subject is. To be making claims like the Telegraph did, in my name, places all the blame on women, which is not what we were doing at all. I just felt really angry about how wrong they'd got this study."

Emphasis mine.

Despite the inaccuracies having been brought to their attention, the Telegraph continues to run with the same misleading (to put it charitably) headline and subhead, satisfyingly confirming the prejudices of rape apologists and victim-blamers. They have, however, subtly made changes to the article's text since its original publication.

Even as the dangerously erroneous title still stands—a deliberate error that speaks to a dark agenda.

[H/T to Jess.]