It wasn’t just right-wing Christians either, a lot of respected feminists were involved.

I doubt that would happen. I think you’ll find that most activists are extremely easily convinced by arguments that their cause is righteous, themselves noble, and their enemies evil.

And those who are sceptical will mostly take the view that dishonest and misleading information is perfectly acceptable because it is useful. It is a “benefit in itself” “to get traction and awareness raising”, and so on.

The likelihood is that you will get a mutually-deluding group of people, with an ever-less-accurate view of reality whose actions, in consequence, will tend to become either useless or harmful, however good their intentions.

Probably this will tend to discourage new recruits, though.

Decentists: “the invasion has saved lives”
Epidemiologists: “no, it’s cost somewhere between 50,000 and 700,000 lives”
Decentists: “700,000 lives! Piss off, you’re having a laugh”
Epidemiologists: “well, we’ve actually done the fucking study, you’ve not even bothered to count the number of Iraqis you killed. Anyway, the point is, whatever the exact numbers, the invasion has certainly caused a massive increase in medium-term mortality rates”.
Decentists: “Ahahaha! so, you admit you don’t know how many people we’ve killed. See you, lying with dodgy statistics! Liars! We win”.
Epidemiologists: “fuck it, I’m going back to avian flu, at least that way ignorant genocidal hacks who know sod-all about my discipline, or what they’re talking about in general, won’t make up lies about my professional integrity to support their revolting political aims.”
Decentists: “Hooray! We win again! We are glorious liberators!”

“The invasion has killed a million people.”
“No it hasn’t – that figure is massively exaggerated.”
“Who cares? The point is that too many people have died.”

On CCTV, the argument has been:

“The average person is filmed by CCTV cameras 300 times a day.”
“No they aren’t – that figure is completely made up.”
“Who cares? The point is that there are too many CCTV cameras.”

In both cases, we have the rather dispiriting spectacle of people making an argument from dodgy statistics and then claiming that statistics are unimportant. Please don’t let it happen here.

Fair enough.

Not going to convince me on Tim though. I’ve seen him stir shit too many times.

That doesn’t mean rape isn’t a massively serious and underreported problem – it is – and it doesn’t mean that people who are concerned about rape and domestic violence are wrong – they are right – but using bullshit statistics to talk your cause up is stupid and wrong even when your cause is entirely right.

He’s correct, Amber is overstating and conflating figures. She might be right to say 1 in 10 may be raped over the course of their entire life, but her source most certainly does not say that for one ditinct year.

I’m reading it now, it’s talking about lifetime incidence, not annual incidence. It’s presented in a way that doesn’t make that 100% clear, but that’s what it’s talking about.

“1 out of 3 women worldwide has experienced rape or sexual assault. (2001)1″

Firstly, that’s rape and sexual assault, not just the rape that you claimed above.

Secondly, the figures you gave lead to 6 rapes per lifetime per woman on average. The figures that you have now pointed me to show a one in three chance of a rape or sexual assault (remember, a wider definition) over a lifetime.

So your number for rapes is at least 18 times overstated.

As I said, drivel.

Well, yes Sunny. But we have words to describe those who use untruths to get people aroused. “Rabble-rousers” is one, “demogogues” is another, “liars” a third.

That’s why where the stats come from, how they are calculated….you know, what is the truth of the matter….is so important.

“I think if you look at worldwide figures then 1 in 10 women will be raped this year.”

I very seriously think not you know. I very seriously indeed think that this is mindless bullshit.

Think through it for a moment. The average female lifespan, globally, is about 60 years or so. If on average, one in ten are raped in a year then all will be raped in a decade and over that average lifespan every woman in the world is raped….on average of course….six times.

Given that average fertility is now under 3 per woman per lifetime you’re claiming that rape is twice as common as pregnancy.

So that statistic is either complete drivel or you’re using a definition of rape that is so extensive as to be meaningless.

You know just ONCE, just ONCE I would like for something like this to be posted, and the first comment NOT to be “But what about the MEN!!!”

Jennie, i’ve had this twice this week already in response to saying i’m going to Million Women Rise on Saturday.

That is a benefit in itself.

Unfortunately I don’t think media types think about that.

From an Amnesty UK press release

This statistic has certainly had an effect on me. Specifically, it has made me resolve to distrust anything Amnesty UK ever tells me.

I’d be surprised if fewer than 9 in ten people had not experienced murder or other violence.

I remember the mockery Ross Kemp got when he was assaulted by his partner: the response…was that he was obviously some kind of wimp despite his hard-man image

I can remember an attempt to call out said partner and get her fired, she was at the time running a campaign against domestic violence after all.

There are a lot of double standards, yes, and Jennie’s point above is sound. Blaming the victim is wrong. Regardless of whether the victim is male or female.

That a lot of “campaigning journalists” are frequently hypocrites on this issue (and indeed many others) really doesn’t help.