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Feminism Run Amok: So-called 'Rape Culture' Redefines and Trivializes Real Rape

The Factual Feminist Christina Hoff Sommers, former philosophy professor and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, joined Glenn on radio Tuesday to discuss contemporary feminism and how it's damaging to both women and men.

"The feminist establishment is not celebrating the empowerment of women. They act as those things are worse than ever and getting worse every day. I find this baffling, and it's very destructive. It's very harmful to the young women who are told to be victims and taught to be paranoid," Sommers said.

Sommers also addressed her fear for mothers of sons, as well as her theory that the purpose of many college classes is to tear down Western civilization.

GLENN: Hello, America. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. We're glad you're here. We have Christina Hoff Sommers with us. She's a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She hosts a series on YouTube -- fantastic -- called The Factual Feminist. Each episode corrects a feminist myth.

And tomorrow, she is going to be giving a lecture at St. Olaf College. She joins us now to talk about the state of feminism and the -- this new push into the -- into the realm of, I think, insanity.

Welcome to the program, Christina, how are you?

CHRISTINA: Hi. Nice to be here.

GLENN: Thank you very much.

So where do we even begin on this new rape culture and what we're teaching and what millennials are now believing about this rape culture?

CHRISTINA: Well, it -- it's all fiction. It's a fantasy. It was created by radical feminist scholars with an agenda eager to indict the average man in a social atrocity. They have exaggerated statistics. And they change definitions beyond, you know, the meaning of words. And most of us do think of rape as a horrible crime. They now have definitions that include seduction. So if you're willing to do that, you will get a rape epidemic. There is a lot of seduction.

GLENN: So doesn't this -- doesn't this -- you know, I've said for 20 years with the Al Sharptons of the world and then in the last eight years, you know, the cry that everything is racist -- to say the word Chicago was called racist. To do that takes all of the cries of actual racism and makes them meaningless.

CHRISTINA: Exactly. It trivializes it. This is what happens with rape. And the students are not asking that the cases be turned over to the police, which would be reasonable. Because they have the ability to investigate. They turn it over to a campus tribunal that then determines guilt and innocence through what look to be kangaroo courts. And we have over 100 young men suing. And if you read through these cases, it's absolutely terrifying if you're the mother of sons because a boy can be accused -- he's perceived to be guilty because he's accused because along with this idea of a rape culture is the idea that women don't lie. You have to believe women.

Well, women lie. Not because they're women. But because they're human. Human beings lie, especially about sex.

GLENN: Christina, may I take you to probably a different place than you expected.

I am really concerned that we are imploding as a species because we are -- hear me out for a second. I know that's a crazy thing to say.

CHRISTINA: No, no. I worry about that too.

GLENN: Right? We're imploding as a species. We're taking technology and we're going to give you the ultimate pleasure by creating your own little sexual world. You can live in it any way you want. You don't have to interact with anyone. And the -- and the more we go down that road, while at the same time making common sense completely driven into the wilderness, you won't want to have a relationship with somebody. Because it -- you'll be accused as rape. You'll be --

CHRISTINA: Oh, I know. You'll be brought before a tribunal and told that every --

GLENN: Right.

CHRISTINA: -- and told that -- you know, without any possibility of defending yourself.

You can't -- you're just presumed guilty, and you are shamed. They've created a shame culture on campus, based on these strange definitions. And it's -- it is very disturbing.

I worry because our colleges are now just so carried away with this so-called social justice agenda, but it's an agenda of -- of authoritarianism. So this is where we are.

STU: Christina Hoff Sommers is with us. And legitimately one of the bravest people you're going to find, talking about this.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: Any issue --

GLENN: You must just be a pariah. Why do you hate women so much?

CHRISTINA: You know, I have been a feminist in the reasonable sense of the word for more years than I care to mention. I was a philosophy professor. I encouraged the young women in my class. I watched as women surpassed men in education. And only to turn around and find that the feminist establishment is not celebrating, that -- you know, the empowerment of women. They act as though things are worse than ever and getting worse every day. And I find this baffling. And it's very destructive. It's very harmful to the young woman who are told that they are victims and taught to be paranoid.

And I will also mention -- I don't want to say most. Many college classes. No one has done a good study of this. They should. The purpose of the class is to tear down western civilization. It's not something to be proud of. Don't be proud of American history. It's a rape culture. It's -- and it's defined by its worst injustices. Don't be proud.

So they're replacing pride with shame. I don't know that this is a way to progress. I don't think people react well to being shamed. They recoil or they -- you know, in this case, at the campus, they're acting out these -- lots of mob justice. So it's very unhealthy.

STU: Christina, let's take on one of the big ones here. People hear this all the time. That depending on who you hear it from, one in four or one in five women in college will be raped when they're there. Can you walk us through that statistic and what it actually is talking about?

CHRISTINA: Yes. That sort of statistic comes from -- not from the Bureau of Justice statistics. Not from the FBI. Legitimate data-gathering organizations. You know, they use careful methodology. And they will come up with a figure like one in 50. That's still too many. But it's far different from one in four. One in four is worse than war-torn Congo. They're telling us that, you know, your daughter enters Wesleyan or Bard or Stanford, and she's basically entering a -- you know, a society more dangerous than anyplace on earth for a woman.

How do they get that? Well, the first thing to know, they don't ask on these surveys, were you raped? If you ask that, you get a fairly low number. They describe events, and then they say, did this ever happen?

And some of them do sound like a -- every woman agree that someone said, "Yes, I was violated. Assaulted and penetrated." You would agree that's rape. But they would include things like, did you have sex that you regretted because you were drunk? And if you say yes to that, that counts as rape.

So they change the definition from, you know, an assault to a bad -- a bad hookup, essentially. So that's one thing they do. They enlarge the definition. They ask a nonrepresentative sample. A lot of these studies are computer generated. And they will go send it out and see who responds. They'll send it out to 200,000 people and maybe 1,000 respond. But that's a self-selected group of respondents. It may be people that feel more strongly about it. So you have to be very careful. So they do that. They ask a nonrepresentative sample. And then they project it on to all college students.

So bad definition. And a bad sample. And you can have an epidemic of anything that way.

GLENN: How do we --

CHRISTINA: Claim to have it.

GLENN: How do we look at things like what's happening with Fox News? Where I believe -- we don't know the facts yet. But I believe that there were bad things that happened at Fox. I worked there. I never saw anything. But I believe that some of these things happened. Some of these things most likely also did not happen. And that's for the courts to work out.

But they just fired Bill Shine yesterday, who was the vice president and really one of the stabilizing factors of Fox News. There's no charges that I -- that I'm aware of, that he was assaulting anybody or coming on to anybody.

When you have this witch hunt, nobody wants to stand up and say, "Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute." Because it's just -- it just becomes, I want to protect women. And we should believe the women. And men are bad. And all of a sudden, anyone can be swept up into this.

How do we stop that?

CHRISTINA: Well, it's a moral panic. And those -- you know, it creates a lot of hysteria. And going back to what you said. There was a problem with some people at Fox News.

CHRISTINA:

GLENN: Yes.

CHRISTINA: And here's what -- and here's what distresses me the most as an equity feminist, an equality feminist. Is if we want to help women, we should tell the truth. But it shouldn't be done in an atmosphere of panic and hysteria. Women who are victims need sober analysis. They need truth. Not hype. Not spin. Not panic. We have too much of the latter. So if you want to help people who are at risk for sexual harassment, for sexual assault, these are real criminals -- if we want to help them, then we should tell the truth and not cry wolf and not get hysterical. That helps no one.

GLENN: But how do you do that when -- I mean, I found as a father of three women, I am -- I was -- I found it beyond offensive what President Trump said about women when he was on the bus with Billy Bush. Just like shocking. I thought that was the end for sure.

The left, of course, came out against that. The right suddenly was quiet. But when this happened in the 1990s, they were musical chairs. They were on the opposite side, when it was Bill Clinton.

CHRISTINA: Oh, when it was Mr. Clinton.

GLENN: Yeah. How do we -- how does the average effect something when these big powerful groups don't really care? They're just using it.

CHRISTINA: Exactly. They're using it. And in this case, it's a little harder to fight because it's -- the source are these scholars in the gender studies department. People have to realize, their work is not carefully reviewed. They don't even -- many of them don't even believe in the basic protocols of scientific research. They have their own methods they've invented of just listening to stories and believing people.

And so -- but journalists and even legislators, they take them seriously. They take these scholars seriously. And I'm just saying -- I've been watching this for 20 years -- at the heart of the women's movement today is a body of recklessly false information, and it's not helping women.

GLENN: Is there a movement -- a legitimate movement that is out there?

CHRISTINA: You know, right now, there are small groups. There are groups like the Independent Women's Forum. There's a group called the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education. It's a civil libertarian group, not exclusively about women. But it addresses these issues.

Both of those groups are very good, FIRE and IWF. But they're small. It's nothing compared to this juggernaut of women's organizations. And they're all marching in solidarity. And they reinforce one another's messages. It's in the colleges. I've never seen anything like this. It's -- you know, usually, people can only go so far with -- that are alternative facts. And their concocted studies and pseudoscience. This has gone very far because I think a lot of men hesitated to correct the bad scholarship. They would be called sexist. A lot of women didn't want to belittle a cause they believed in at heart. They just thought they would be quiet. And so, well, now we're copying with it. Now we've got this rape panic. And it's very -- it's very destructive on campus. It's leading to fanaticism.

GLENN: Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She hosts a series on YouTube called The Factual Feminist, where she corrects in each episode a feminist myth. And it's fantastic. It's really good. Tomorrow night, she's going to be giving a lecture at St. Olaf College. It is great to have you on Christina. Thank you so much.

CHRISTINA: Thank you.

TV

The ONLY Trump/Epstein Files Theories That Make Sense | Glenn TV | Ep 445

Is the case closed on Jeffrey Epstein and Russiagate? Maybe not. Glenn Beck pulls the thread on the story and its far-reaching implications that could expose a web of scandals and lead to a complete implosion of trust. Glenn lays out five theories that could explain Trump’s frustration over the Epstein files and why Glenn may never talk about the Epstein case again. Plus, Glenn connects the dots between the Russiagate hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up, and the Steele dossier related to the FBI’s new “grand conspiracy” probe. It all leads to one James Bond-like villain: former CIA Director John Brennan. Then, Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA operations officer, tells Glenn why he believes his former boss Brennan belongs in prison and what must happen to prevent a full-blown trust implosion in American institutions.

RADIO

Rumors explained: Is Fed Chair Jerome Powell OUT?!

After rumors spread that President Trump would soon fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Trump has said that he's "not planning" on it right now. But is it possible for Trump to fire him? Will he resign? And how is the Fed Chair even chosen in the first place? Glenn and his head researcher Jason Buttrill explain ...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Well, last night, I was rapidly looking the lie some of these rumors, on X.

Pretty incredible people on what's going on with Jerome Powell and the fed.

What the heck?

I was actually popping popcorn and watching this. It was so crazy.

GLENN: So it's just the rumors, that he is going to be stepping down?

JASON: Well, yeah.

Yeah. Anna Paulina Luna. Congresswoman. She was saying, it was almost imminent, that he was about to be fired. Actually fired.

There were other rumors saying, well, we're not sure about fired.

But he's considering resigning.

GLENN: Yeah. You know why.

JASON: We were like, what the heck is going on?

GLENN: So do you know why?

Do you know why he's resigning? Any guesses? I mean, you had popcorn out. I would love to hear what you have come up with.

JASON: So there was the CPI stuff coming out. The interest rates going up.

We know that the President wants interest rates to come down. I'm assuming that is what the deal is, and there's some sort of internal battle going on.

GLENN: Well, and the president can't fire the Fed chief. Okay?

So the Fed chief is the one that nominated. The federal reserve is the biggest crock of bullcrap I've ever seen in my life.

It's nothing, but the five biggest banks. Okay? And you know which ones they are. They're the ones that keep getting bigger. And everybody else is falling to the wayside.

So the Federal Reserve is the arm of those five banks.

Okay?

And they suggest, who the president can select from.

So the president can't say, I don't want any of these guys. I want this guy. Can't do it.

He has to take a look at the list that all the banks have put together. Is. Say, pick from this list, Mr. President.

Did you know that?

JASON: It's kind of how Iran chooses their next president.

GLENN: It's exactly. It's exactly that way. Except, this religion is all about the almighty dollar.

Okay. So he can't -- he can't pick on his own. But the president has a right to pick one, you know, every term. If it comes up in his term.

The president wants this guy out. And I think he's been really, really bad.

Because he's been wrong on almost -- on almost everything. But show me the -- show me the Fed, you know, the guy who the Fed was right ever.

So he can't fire him. But he wants him out. Because he wants interest rates dropped.

And, you know, the jobs are coming back. Things are coming back.

But interest rates keep coming up.

And the -- and the interest rates, if we keep our interest rates high, we have a harder time borrowing money for our debt.

And it just gets more and more expensive for everybody all along. So the president wants him to back off interest rates. But the Fed chief believes that that could cause more inflation.

Which I think he's right on that one. And I hate to say he was right on anything.

Because I don't think he was ever right.

Makes me question myself. When he's like, well, I think he might have a point on that one. But the president is like, no. He can handle it.

I want them down. I want cheap money again.

He refuses. So what has the president done?

The president can only fire him, with cause!

So what do you do when you can only fire somebody with cause, and you want them out.

You find a cause, and this one is easy.

So the Fed has been the one leading the way saying, we can't keep borrowing money.

We've got to have some fiscal sanity. Right?

This is going to kill us. We have to keep these interest rates high, because you are borrowing too much money. And maybe this is the only way to stop you.

So we got to keep it high, because you've borrowed too much money. And how many times has he testified in front of Congress? We've got to cut. We've got to cut. You can't keep spending like this.

Okay? Well, did you know that the Federal Reserve, with our tax dollars, the five biggest banks, a/k/a the Federal Reserve, is redoing their offices. To the tune of two billion dollars!

Now, I don't know what kind of wallpaper they need there.

But that seems like a pretty hefty renovation, especially when everybody is looking at cutting things. And you're lecturing me about spending money. So they get money from the government, okay? They're telling us, stop spending.
Stop borrowing.

Except, okay. What you've borrowed. I need $2 billion of that, to redo our offices in Washington, DC.

Excuse me?

Why don't you do that yourself. Okay. I think banks maybe have some money.

So they're borrowing that money, and there's $700 million over.

So it's $2 billion. $700 million over budget. And they're still not finished.

And the problem is: They're putting in water features.

They have a rooftop garden they're building.

JASON: Okay.

GLENN: I mean, it is -- it's insane. The president now knows, really? You want to play this game with me. I will sit your ass down in front of Congress, and you answer to the American people, how you're lecturing us about spending. And you're putting in a rooftop garden and a water feature in your office. No! No.

So the president is now threatening, I'll fire you for this. You want to quit, now would be the time to quit.

Otherwise, I'm dragging your butt in front of Congress.

You answer to the American people for this. And they will beg me to fire you.

That's what's happening.

JASON: I looked at that a lot.

Because I was like. There's got to be some leverage that the president had, because they can't get rid of.

But that is a pretty big cut. That sounds like a Babylon Bee article. $2 billion.

GLENN: It does. It does. $2 billion, 700 million over budget.

JASON: Oh, my gosh.

GLENN: I mean, and these are the responsible bankers. No, I don't think so.

It just shows, they don't mean what they say. They'll just keep doing it for themselves. You know, if you really believed that America was really on that financial cliff, why would you do that?

You would lead the way and say, guys, we are going to be the only responsible ones here.

We will lead by example.

No renovation. You know what, go to IKEA?

You need a new desk. Go to IKEA, and get a new desk. Well, we have to keep up our image. We're not going to have a country.

So what do you say, we go to IKEA?

Our image should be, we are going to lead the way out of this madness!

That's what a leader would do.

JASON: So, Glenn, I still don't think I get this disconnect between Trump and Powell on -- we know Trump wants to lower interest rates.

Powell is standing back and saying, basically, he doesn't want to do it.

Is he trying to undermine President Trump on this?

GLENN: President Trump thinks so. President Trump thinks so.

I think so, to some degree.

I mean, I'm worried about inflation.

Look, you know what happened. Do you know what's happening with yap?

JASON: What's happening with Japan?

GLENN: So what's happening with Japan, is Japan has always had this really amazing image of, we're solid. We're absolutely solid.

This is target to crack. The foundation.

1989.

Let me go back to 1989.

This was the crown jury trial of the global economy.

Back in 1989, you probably aren't old enough to remember.

All of a sudden, Japan owned everything in America. We were just becoming Japanese, and everything was being purchased by Japan. Kind of like it feels a little bit like China now.

JASON: They even owned Nakatomi Plaza, Glenn, that Bruce Willis had to save -- they owned everything in every '80s movie!

GLENN: Oh, yeah, they owned absolutely everything.

Okay? And the -- things were so insane in Japan. The grounds of the imperial palace, in Tokyo, on paper was worth more than the entire value of the state of California.


JASON: Wow!

GLENN: Okay?

So their land. Everything just shot up. And so they had all of -- they were flush with all this cash.

And people believed that Japan had suddenly, you know, cracked the formula for, you know, eternal prosperity.

That's the problem. Then it all started to fall apart. And the asset prices. That they had mortgaged against.

Okay?

They had borrowed. Well, the imperial palace was worth more than California.

That doesn't make any sense. You wouldn't mortgage it like that. At least long-term. I will do this real quick, and pay it off.

You would never, ever mortgage, because you know that's inane. Well, nobody ever wanted -- and it seems in governments, nobody ever wants to believe that this is just a fluke. Okay?

So the asset prices collapse. The stock markets plunged. And for three decades, they have gone into this very polite political coma.

Okay? Economic coma. And so the central bank did something radical. They were the first ones to set your interest rate at zero. They lowered the interest rate. They made money so cheap, it was nearly free. Zero percent interest. Sometimes, they would pay you to take out money.

So the -- they had negative interest rates. Can you imagine that? Now, you're not fixing the problem. You're just printing wallpaper to cover the mold. All right?

So they've done this for decades.

Now their debt is I think 260. Or 280 percent of their GDP.

I think, what is ours?

100?

80 percent.

Something crazy. 120. You never believe back.

The death threshold is usually 120, 140.

They're 260 percent of their entire economy is debt.

That's not a crack. That's a fault line.

So this week. Or was it last week? Things started to creek and grown in Japan.

And the government bonds, which are like our treasuries. Is this getting too complex.

Are you following this still?

JASON: Yeah.

GLENN: Okay. So their government bonds.

They were the safest investments on earth.

One of them. Okay?

It's us. Japan, Germany.

They started to fall.

Hard. And when bond prices fall, interest rates were the easily go up.

All right?

So they borrow all this money.

260 percent of their GDP is borrowed. Okay?

So they borrowed all of that money. And they had it at like 3 percent interest. Whatever.

2 percent interest.

And they were paying people.

2 percent.

Well, all of a sudden, the cracks started to appear. And people were like, I'm not sure this is stable at all.

And then the belief of the system started to -- to go away. So people started selling their Japanese bonds.

Once they do that, now the yields have to go up.

What happens when yields go up?

What happens when interest rates go up? For a government. You have to pay more interest on your debt!

Okay?

You add two or three points.

Just imagine, you have an adjustable rate. Okay?

This is a government having an adjustable rate. Except, they have 260 percent of everything they make, in debt!

And it's all leveraged.

And now, their adjustable goes up two, three, four points.

You're not able to afford that anymore, okay?

So massive problem.

Because what it really means is. People don't believe in Japan.

They know the con game is now over.

And investors are saying, you know, I want a whole lot more in return.

Because I just don't believe you anymore.

And it's not just Japan's problem. This is not a neighbor's house on fair.

This is -- imagine we're all living under the same roof. This is the neighbor's apartment, on fire.

We're all under the same roof. We all have the same foundation. And so when this happens to Japan, you should pay attention. And I'll show you the ripple effects in just a second.

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GLENN: Okay. So now if Japan -- that means there's a stampede out of Japan.

And people are starting to look and reprice the risk of their money.

Now they're like, wait a minute.

The most stable. You know, if you're driving a car and it is the safest car in the world and all of a sudden, they just start blowing up on the highway.

You're like, I don't think that's the most -- that's the safest car on the highway.

And if that's the safest car, what does it mean for the car I'm in?

You know what I mean? So now, this is going to push US interest rates going up.

Which makes our mortgage rates go can up. And our car loans more expensive. And the national debt. Which is already costing us $1.2 trillion a year, just in interest.

Now, they can't sell their treasuries. People are skittish on treasuries. Maybe they come to the United States, but they're not so far.

They're getting out of the Japanese interest. Or the bonds there.

Japan has to pay their bills.

What do you do when you have to pay a bill?

And you don't have any money coming in.

You don't have enough money coming in. What do you do?

You sell something. Right? You sell your car. You sell something that you have of value.

Well, what do they have? What do they hold of value? US Treasuries.

So now, we are trying to sell our bonds, for our new debt, they hold our old debt.

They're saying, hey. Anybody want to buy this debt? Because I have to sell it. Fire sale. What do you give me for it?

Okay?

Which makes that debt more attractive, because they can get a better deal there.

Which means, if we want to have new debt, we have to raise our interest rates. Which means, we pay more for interest for our mortgages and everything else.

And it floods the market with bonds, crushing the prices, skyrocketing the costs for us.
And causing even more trouble, in other countries, that have US bonds. Because they start to look and go, nobody is buying these bonds.

Well, of course not. You have two countries. The two stablest countries besides Germany.

You have the two stablest countries now selling US Treasury bonds.

Okay? Really, really bad.

Now, let me add this on.

Germany is now having to pay for their own army.

And so they said, they're going to borrow money.

To build the army.

And they're going to lower their interest rate. So they can borrow more money. All right?

And now, the German bund, which is -- you know, like our Treasury. That's now starting to fall apart.

Well, Germany has some assets, they can sell.

What do you think that asset might be that they want to sell?

US treasuries.

We have been playing an extraordinarily horrible game.

This is why I believe the president wants somebody else in charge of the Fed, because the Fed can say, we're lowering the interest rates.

Because he's got to get more money into the system. So people can spend money, can start businesses. Borrow money.

Get things moving, so we can increase the amount of taxes that we collect.

The more people money -- the more people make, the more taxes we collect.

So he's like, we've got to grow the economy. And the only way we can grow the economy is to lower the interest rates.

But at the same time, interest rates around the world because of what's happening with the bonds is going through the roof.

We are in a very -- we've never been in this position before.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Why the Term "Conspiracy Theory" is CIA-Created Weapon for Control

Conspiracies are of course real and occur every single day. But yet, many in the media and elite political circles attempt to use the term "conspiracy theory" to smear and discredit those who are skeptical of conventional narratives. Where did this term come from and how should we understand it? Journalist Alex Newman joins Glenn Beck to break this down and how it impacts the world as we see it today.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Journalist Alex Newman HERE

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Chalkboard Breakdown: How George Soros & the 'Deep State' funnel YOUR money to radical groups

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Watch the FULL Episode HERE: Deep State ON NOTICE: New Tech Traces the USAID, Globalist Money Trail