Sexual assault on college campuses has been one of the hottest topics for a couple years now. Many universities are being investigated by the Department of Education for Title IX violations. The recent Rolling Stone article about rape on the campus of the University of Virginia that was partially retracted and has landed the publication in hot water over concerns about its journalistic ethics has seriously reignited the discussion. There are a lot of moving parts to the debate about sexual assault on college campuses, and I think that one of the many, many reasons that the conversation gets so easily muddied is that we don’t all agree on definitions, or statistics.

While this is obviously an extreme example, watch this video of “Princeton Mom” Susan Patton who I’m still a little bit sure must be running the world’s longest satirical performance. She begins the video by talking about how rape is no longer just defined as a woman being held at gunpoint and assaulted, and then spends the next ten minutes pretty much going on about what a shame that is. She also thinks that rape is often women falsely accusing men after “regrettable sex.” Then she talks about how it’s women’s responsibility to protect themselves from rape by not drinking, making good decisions, and choosing better friends. It’s a charming exercise in a game I like to subject myself to called “Holy Shit, People Actually Think This Way.”

Now the Department of Justice (DOJ) has weighed in with statistics from a study it conducted, and it’s probably going to all get even more confusing.

The new DOJ report dealt with not just college students, but college-aged females more generally. The DOJ report included the statistic that six of every 1,000 college females are sexually assaulted, and now everyone who thinks like Patton is using it to prove that sexual assault on college campuses isn’t a thing we should be worried about, and that this talk of “rape-culture” is overblown.

First, what we need to do is remember that anytime this sort of study is undertaken–one that relies on people’s word, memories, and stories, rather than say, hard facts in a laboratory–is that it needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

There have been other studies that indicate that the rate of college sexual assault is much higher than what the DOJ reports. A survey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) concluded that 17 percent of female students and 5 percent of young men were sexually assaulted as students. Then there’s the Campus Sexual Assault Study from 2007 that gave us the now-infamous and oft-cited “one in five” statistic.

There are a few reasons why two studies can have such radically different numbers, and they’re excellently detailed here, by the Marshall Project. The main takeaway is this though: neither is necessarily right and neither is necessarily wrong. They asked different questions, they talked to different people, and at the end of the day, it’s really very much an inexact science. We’re not sure how many students are sexually assaulted; more studies to come might help us pinpoint that number, but probably not.

But we do know that at least some are. Furthermore, the same DOJ report stated that eighty percent of students sexually assaulted don’t report it. And 80 percent were assaulted by someone they know. Both of those statistics are deeply troubling.

No matter how many people are being assaulted on our college campuses–whether it’s one percent, twenty percent, or somewhere in between–it’s too many.

But that “less than one” percent is probably going to get thrown around for a while. Because, unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who, for whatever reason, don’t want to see change. They just got some ammunition, for now.

That’s why we need to keep having conversations about rape culture. Why we need to keep educating our young people, and for that matter, all our people, on consent. Why we need to stand up for rape victims when they’re accused of making up their stories. It doesn’t matter how many–any at all are too damn many.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Twenty-something women of the world, are you married yet? Because according to Susan Patton, a.k.a. The Princeton Mom, you should be.

In her new book, Marry Smart: Advice for Finding THE ONE, Patton urges young, college attending women to spend their undergrad years husband hunting. According to her, finding a mate before graduation is imperative, because otherwise, your eggs will dry up in your ovaries and you’ll die alone with your seven cats. Or something like that.

Princeton Mom is all kinds of fascinating, and not just because she’s depressingly anti-feminist. Let’s run down the top five reasons why Susan Patton should be your new conservaturd celebrity obsession, mmkay?

1.) Lady is a tiger.

As a Princeton graduate, and a mother of two more, Patton is completely obsessed with orange and black. Her Upper East Side apartment is dripping with it — she’s got tiger tails hanging on the walls, orange and black craft projects strewn about, and she’s currently dreaming of a second wedding on the Princeton campus complete with orange roses.

If she wasn’t busy having New York Magazine features written about her and making appearances on the Today Show, I’d say Patton peaked during her college years. But maybe this tiger is just finding her stripes?

2.) Patton is recently divorced, which is totally a bummer.

She prefers not to talk about her former husband, although he “went to a college of almost no name recognition.” Ouch. Anyway, as it turns out, she frittered away her undergrad years at Princeton, you know, actually getting an education, and then wound up marrying whoever she happened to be dating at 31 in a race against the fertility clock.

I feel like it’s not a coincidence that that didn’t work out, no? Husband hunters, keep that in mind while you’re tracking down marriageable sperm donors. Marrying for the sake of your fertility timeline does not guarantee wedded bliss.

3.) The Princeton Mom is not COMPLETELY anti-feminist.

As a young woman, she eschewed immediate marriage and motherhood in favor of getting a top-notch education and developing her career. She even went so far as to legally emancipate herself from her “women don’t need to be educated” parents so she could attend Princeton.

Points, Princeton Mom. Feminist points.

4.) But don’t get too excited. She’s still pretty anti-feminist.

She doesn’t think date rape is a thing, and she thinks it’s a woman’s responsibility to keep herself out of situations where she might be violated. After all, we can’t expect men to act responsibly! Penises have a mind of their own, clearly. She totally freaked out Savannah Guthrie with this one.

Oh Mama Patton, I was rooting for you for a minute there.

5.) The Princeton Mom might be a tiger, but she’s also a cougar.

Embracing her newly found singledom, she’s dating multiple men at once, at least two of them Princeton grads. Free of the pressure of biology, she’s dating men who are fun and sexy — not potential sperm donors — and she’s having an awesome time doing it.

She just doesn’t really think YOU should be doing that, because, tick tock ladies. Those eggs of yours WILL NOT last forever.

So what do we make of the Princeton mom? Well, she’s a beacon of anti-feminist nonsense, the kind of self-help guru who sets women back a few generations.

She’s also kind of a badass. She’s unapologetic in her opinions, she’s going after it with all she’s got, and she’s feeling awesome about it.

So you do you, Princeton Mom! You be your fierce, tiger self.

The rest of you, don’t listen to her craze-tastic advice unless you’re inventing some kind of drinking game out of her TV appearances. In that case, please share.

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Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Andrew_Writer via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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