Adele M. Stan

About the author: Adele M. Stan is a writer.

Females should feel free to direct both verbal epithets and physical force at males as a means of negatively reinforcing offensive behavior. By thus claiming their own power, women will be rebuffing the too-narrow definition of rape tendered by revisionist feminists such as Katie Roiphe and the notion that women are powerless often implied by protectionist feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon.

Were it not for an event in my own life I might view the current debate over date rape and the rape crisis movement with detached amusement, the way one does whenever opposing pockets of the intellectual elite have a go at each other. But for me the issue runs far deeper than that and it seems to me that neither side...