Topic: The ConWeb
Via Atrios, we learn that the New York Times issued a correction for its repeating of a claim in Kate O'Bierne's feminist-bashing book "Women Who Make the World Worse" that feminist professor Catharine MacKinnon said that "All heterosexual intercourse is rape." As the Times and Snopes point out, MacKinnon has denied saying that, and it's a statement repeated by conservatives to discredit her.
This sounds like the sort of thing that the anti-feminist ConWeb would be eagerly repeating. So we checked and found the following examples of this trope:
-- Glenn Sacks repeats the claim in a Nov. 6, 2001 CNSNews.com column. (We also found a bizarre March 3, 1999 "humor" item by David Burge imagining MacKinnon as a stripper at a "feminist" strip club to benefit President Clinton's legal defense fund.)
-- A Jan. 28, 2001, WorldNetDaily article by Julie Foster claims that MacKinnon "argues that male sexual desire can be compared to rape -- whether women consent to sex or not."
-- David Kupelian repeats the claim in a Sept. 15, 2003, article claiming that MacKinnon "in her recent book compares male sexual desire to rape – whether women consent to sex or not." Kupelian repeats it again in an April 7, 2005, article.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:02 AM EST