I do appreciate the historical context. And I agree that sexual assault and harassment aren't acceptable.
But if the women profiled in TFA are credible, things have gone too far on college campuses.
But if the women profiled in TFA are credible, things have gone too far on college campuses.
As to “responsibility” it’s not an easy concept either. People who don’t create the coercive circumstances often knowingly take advantage of them. I’d point out that when McKinnon wrote the quote, it was still legally impossible in some states to rape your wife. (Marriage was essentially considered irrevocable consent.) Even today, social dynamics are geared toward what male expectations—sex on demand with no strings attached. Any given man many not create this framework, but they live within it and take advantage of it. (Although that’s slowly changing. They did an investigation at my kid’s school into widespread sex between male teachers and high school students in the 1970s and 1980s. At the time it was “bad” but tolerated. Today we would call it rape. The liberalism of the sexual revolution, which as Dworkin points out accrued largely to the benefit of men, is being recalibrated and that’s a good thing.)