WHY BELIEVE ALL WOMEN? Shapiro defends due process & slams radical feminism — Transcript

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1. 0:04Student: Obviously, in light of everything that's going on
2. 0:05at the moment, we all believe rape and sexual assault are heinous crimes.
3. 0:08We all want rapists behind bars, but I feel that, in this climate,
4. 0:12logic, evidence, and data are, kind of, being lost in translation.
5. 0:15And also, there's a very pervasive, "You're with us or against us"
6. 0:18mentality that's really doing a lot more harm than good.
7. 0:20So my question to you is: how can we best stand up for the importance of
8. 0:24due process and the presumption of innocence, while also doing what
9. 0:27we can to support survivors?
10. 0:28Shapiro: I think that there is actually a third question that I want to address
11. 0:32that you didn't even ask. So I'll address the first two, and then
12. 0:34there's a third one that I think is implicit in the first two.
13. 0:36When it comes to standing up for due process, the answer is
14. 0:39we actually have to stand up for it, even in cases where it make us
15. 0:41uncomfortable, or even where we believe that the person may be
16. 0:44responsible for something bad, because once you lose due process
17. 0:46for one, you lose due process for everybody, obviously.
18. 0:49When it comes to standing up for sexual assault survivors, I think
19. 0:51the idea that we ought to take everybody's first account with the
20. 0:57respect it deserves means not dismissing, not downplaying,
21. 1:02but it also means asking the proper questions in order to get
22. 1:04at the truth. That doesn't mean intimidating people. It doesn't
23. 1:06mean calling people liars without evidence that they're lying.
24. 1:08It doesn't mean mocking them, obviously, God forbid.
25. 1:10It doesn't mean doing any of those things.
26. 1:12Throughout the Christine Blasey Ford thing, I kept saying over, and over, and
27. 1:16over, "I'm not calling her a liar. I'm not mocking her. I don't know
28. 1:19if she's lying. I don't know if she's telling the truth. I don't know if
29. 1:21mis-remembering. I don't know any of that stuff.
30. 1:23All I know is that due process requires such and such to happen."
31. 1:27Now, the real answer, in the end, to a lot of what's happening...
32. 1:30And here's the really unpopular part with the Left.
33. 1:33The Left destroyed traditional mores with regard to relations between
34. 1:36the sexes. Destroyed them wholesale. So, the original idea was that men
35. 1:40were supposed to act with honor and chivalry in protecting women,
36. 1:43and women were supposed to look for, for example, relationships,
37. 1:48just as men were. Sexual activity was supposed to be confined...
38. 1:51This was, at least, the ideal. It was supposed to be confined to committed
39. 1:54relationships, particularly marriage. Not everybody lived up to that.
40. 1:58But a huge number of people did. In fact, once people got pregnant,
41. 2:02people basically got married. Studies from the 1930s, 1940, and 1950s
42. 2:06show a lot of seven month marriage babies, right? People who were
43. 2:09sleeping together, getting pregnant, and then the couple gets married.
44. 2:12When you don't teach men to protect women, you get men who will
45. 2:15victimize women. And when you don't teach women that they ought to
46. 2:19cherish men who are responsible and good, all you end up doing is
47. 2:24incentivizing bad male behavior. The feminist movement was
48. 2:27not wrong when they said men are acting like pigs.
49. 2:29They were wrong when they said women also ought to act like pigs,
50. 2:32and that this is the solution to our problem. Because now, what's
51. 2:35happened is they got rid of traditional mores about how sex ought to be
52. 2:38connected with love and ought to be connected with relationships.
53. 2:40They got rid of all of that. It's just a bodily function now,
54. 2:43except when it comes to actual sexual assault. We treat that differently than
55. 2:46any other bodily function, obviously, but that's the problem. They create
56. 2:50this standard where sex is basically a throwaway item, sort of like eating.
57. 2:54And then we treat sex very differently when it comes to what we all know it is,
58. 2:58which is a deeply important and intimate part of a person's life,
59. 3:01and then we attempt to backdoor standards of consent that, frankly,
60. 3:06don't make any sense in a real-life context. You get college campuses
61. 3:09in California saying that what you is a "yes means yes" standard,
62. 3:12where you have a legal checklist, I guess, where every time you do
63. 3:17anything in the bedroom, you're supposed to ask: "Am I allowed to
64. 3:19touch your hand? Am I allowed to touch your shoulder? Am I allowed
65. 3:20to touch your hair?" Which has never, ever resulted in actual fulfillment
66. 3:25of a sexual encounter. It's sort of like Zeno's Paradox. If you have
67. 3:31a "yes means yes" standard, the closer you get, the further away you are.
68. 3:34And the... [Audience laughter]
69. 3:37Shapiro: And again... Women really gave up on marriage a lot too soon.
70. 3:44Marriage was the best thing ever for women. It is an amazing thing for
71. 3:49men too, because it civilizes them, it cultures them, it teaches them
72. 3:51to be protectors of their family, and to take care of people,
73. 3:54and to think beyond themselves, and think beyond their generation.
74. 3:56Women gave up in marriage a way to teach men to do those things.
75. 4:00And also, women gave up the idea that a commitment was going to
76. 4:04come along with this intimacy. And let's be real about this.
77. 4:07Every scientific study ever done has shown that women actually do have
78. 4:10better sex in the context of committed relationships.
79. 4:12All the crap that you see in "Cosmo Magazine" about sleeping with
80. 4:15100 guys and being sexually happy is just garbage.
81. 4:17It is just sheer, unadulterated garbage.
82. 4:20[Audience applause]
83. 4:28Shapiro: I know, a long answer to a short question, but reinculcation of
84. 4:30traditional roles of male and female with the same feminist respect that
85. 4:35we ought to have for women at all steps of the process is the answer.
86. 4:38Student: Thank you. I hope people are listening.
87. 4:40[Audience applause]