The Top Five Feminist Myths of All Time | FACTUAL FEMINIST — Transcript

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1. 0:00much of what we hear about the plight of American women
2. 0:03if false, and some phony claims had been repeated so often
3. 0:08they're almost beyond the reach of critical analysis
4. 0:11coming up next on the factual feminist
5. 0:145 feminist Myths that will not die
6. 0:23myth number one
7. 0:24women are half the world's population working two-thirds of the world's
8. 0:29working hours
9. 0:30receiving 10 percent of the world's income and owning less than one percent
10. 0:35of the world's property
11. 0:36well this faux fact is routinely quoted by
12. 0:40advocacy group by the World Bank, Oxfam
13. 0:44The United Nations, but it's a fabrication
14. 0:47more than 15 years ago to Sussex University expert on gender and
15. 0:51development
16. 0:52explain that the slogan was simply made up by somebody at the UN back in the
17. 0:5680's
18. 0:57and you seem sorta right to that to that person there's no evidence that it was
19. 1:02ever accurate and it's certainly not accurate today in Africa for example
20. 1:06Yale economist Cheryl das
21. 1:08found that female and ownership range from 11 percent in Senegal
22. 1:11to 54 percent in Rwanda and Burundi. Next Myth...
23. 1:15between 100,000 and 300,000 girls are sold into slavery
24. 1:20each year in the United States. Now this sensational claim is a favorite of
25. 1:24celebrities journalist
26. 1:26advocates politicians both conservative and liberal by the way
27. 1:30the source for the figure is a 2001 report
28. 1:34on child sexual exploitation but that 100,000 - 300,000 figure
29. 1:39refer to children at risk for exploitation
30. 1:42not actual victims, and as one of the authors made clear
31. 1:46in an email exchange that he had with the Village Voice, the
32. 1:50actual number of children abducted and pressed into sexual slavery
33. 1:54is quote a few hundred and still a hundred too many
34. 1:57but they're not gonna be helped by a thousand-fold inflation of the number
35. 2:01Next Myth... in the United States
36. 2:0422-35 percent of women who visit emergency rooms
37. 2:07do so because if domestic violence. Now this claim has appeared in countless
38. 2:13factsheets, books, articles its in the penguin
39. 2:17Atlas on women they use this emergency room figure to justify placing
40. 2:21the United States on par with Uganda and Haiti
41. 2:23for intimate violence well what is the source
42. 2:27it seems that several feminist scholars misunderstood a 1997 study by the
43. 2:32justice department
44. 2:33the correct figure is not 22% - 35%
45. 2:37but get ready... less than one-half of one percent
46. 2:41Next Myth one in five college women will be sexually assaulted
47. 2:46this incendiary figure is everywhere in the media today
48. 2:50the one in five figure is based on a survey called the cap a sexual assault
49. 2:54study
50. 2:55but two prominent criminologists have noted fatal flaws
51. 2:59it had a very low response rate a non representative sample of respondents and
52. 3:04an overly broad definition of what counts is assault I mean it included
53. 3:07such things as attempted forced kissing
54. 3:10or intimate encounters while intoxicated. Now defenders of the one in five figure
55. 3:15will apply that the finding has been replicated by other studies
56. 3:18but the study suffer from the same sort of flaws
57. 3:22now the best study that we have on sexual assault on campus suggest the
58. 3:26figures for closer to
59. 3:28One in 40 not One in Four. 1 in 40 is still bad
60. 3:31but apparently not bad enough for the activist.
61. 3:34And now for the mother of all feminist factoids, women earn 77 cents for every dollar a
62. 3:41man earns for doing the same work
63. 3:43now no matter how many times this wage gap claim
64. 3:46is decisively refuted by economists including feminist economist it always
65. 3:51comes back
66. 3:52the bottom line 23 cents gender pay gap is simply the difference between
67. 3:57the average earnings have all men and women working full-time
68. 4:00it doesn't take into account differences in occupation positions education job
69. 4:05tenure
70. 4:06hours worked per week when such relevant factors are considered
71. 4:10the wage gap narrows to the point vanishing
72. 4:14now wage gap activists will say no, women with identical
73. 4:18backgrounds in jobs is man they still earn less
74. 4:21but they always fail to take into account critical variables i mean why play
75. 4:25this game
76. 4:26all these reckless claims are nearly impossible to correct
77. 4:30because armies of advocates, journalists, political leaders,
78. 4:34they depend on killer stats to promote their cause
79. 4:37and I guess there's also an admirable human tendency to be protective of women
80. 4:42and stories a female exploitation are readily believed
81. 4:46killer stats undermined good causes
82. 4:49and they send scarce resources in the wrong direction
83. 4:53my advice to women advocates,
84. 4:56Take back the truth. and any of you have questions about anything I've said or
85. 5:01would like to see
86. 5:01other dubious feminist facts investigated please leave comments below
87. 5:06if you appreciate what I'm doing here please subscribe to the series
88. 5:11and follow me on twitter.
89. 5:13... and remember check your fax not your privilege