One of the worst aspects of feminism historically has been the willingness of certain feminists to make up "facts" and misrepresent others.  It is this tradition of intellectual dishonesty that has brought us such noteworthy gems as "all men are rapists, and that's all they are." (Marilyn French)  "Every year nearly four million women are beaten to death." (Katherine Hanson)  "Women's income level drops 73% post-divorce." (Lenore Weitzman)  "As the river of a girl's life flows into the sea of Western culture, she is in danger of drowning or disappearing." (Carol Gilligan)  "95% of married women are dissatisfied with their sex lives." (Shere Hite) "Women just are better." (Cokie Roberts)

Needless to say, I could go on almost indefinitely.  The mere fact that books and articles criticizing feminist claims so often contain the word 'myth' says more than I ever could.  Indeed, it's not at all unheard of for feminist academics (Gilligan and Weitzman come to mind) to base their claims on "data" which has the suspicious quality of never having been seen by anyone else.  And when other academics ask to see their data, even time and again over many years, they never produce it.

With that in mind, it seems there's an ongoing dispute between Christina Hoff Sommers and feminist law professor Nancy K.D. Lemon over some patently false claims Lemon's latest text on domestic violence makes.  Sommers has pointed out Lemon's errors before, and now, inthis article, Lemon attempts to defend herself (Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/10/09).

Several of Lemon's statements are at issue.  One has to do with the "rule of thumb," which feminists in the DV industry have long informed us originated with an ancient legal tradition which allowed husbands to beat their wives as long as the rod used was no thicker than his thumb.

Lemon claimed in her book that this originated during the reign of first king of Rome, who she claims was Romulus I and who reigned from 753 B.C. to 717 B.C.  The only problem with that claim is that, (a) Romulus is probably fictional, and (b) essentially all historical records of Rome prior to 390 B.C. were destroyed by the Gauls rendering our knowledge of the origins of Rome "hazardously hypothetical" according to historians more reputable than Lemon.

Never mind, though.  Lemon tells us that "Livy and Plutarch" both said that Romulus existed and so, well, it must be true.  Unfortunately for her, Livy and Plutarch suffered from the same lack of historical material on the origin of Rome and its first kings that present-day historians do.  Writing some 700 years after the fact, they were essentially recycling (albeit elegantly) folktales about the early days of Rome.

Lemon seems to think that the discipline of ancient history was the same as that of modern history.  She seems not to grasp the fact that Livy and Plutarch were engaged in an enterprize entirely different from what we understand as history today.

What ancient historians did was closer to mythmaking than to empiricism.  As historians Will and Ariel Durant describe it, "Roman historians looked upon history as a hybrid child of rhetoric and philosophy: if we may believe them, they wrote to illustrate ethical precepts with eloquent narrative - to adorn a moral with a tale."

This is lost entirley on Lemon.  To her, if Livy and Plutarch said it, it must be true, however unlikely it is.  Of course Livy also said that Romulus was conceived from the sexual intercourse of the god Mars and the vestal virgin, Rhea Silva.  Maybe Lemon believes that too.  Why wouldn't she?  After all, Livy said it.

From citing mythology as historical fact, Lemon plunges on to claim that the "rule of thumb" was a fact of British common law.  Again, unfortunately for her, British common law contains no such thing, as Sommers points out.  In neither the authoritative compendia of William Blackstone nor in any other source does it appear.  A few American cases mention it, but never as authoritative and never do they cite a source.  It's clear that some people may have believed that the 'rule of thumb' at one time existed, but there's no evidence that they were right.  Lemon is no more so.

No feminist text about domestic violence would be complete without some outright falsehoods about the incidence of DV itself, and Lemon's is no exception.  She claims, for example, that "Between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence."

That, of course, is completely false.  In fact, the closest thing she can get as a source for that claim is the Centers for Disease Control figure that 35% of women in emergency rooms because of injuries caused by violence were victims of DV.  To Lemon, it's all the same, but in fact if her claim were true, between 8,000,000 and 14,000,000 women would be treated for DV-related injuries each year.  In fact, the number is about 192,000.  Lemon's figure is off by a factor of 40 - 70, but who's counting?

I won't go on.  Sommers is far better than I am at tearing the hide off Lemon's claims that are already bare of facts and reliability.  Read the whole exchange; it's a nice primer on the intellectual dishonesty with which feminist discourse is rife.

But what I will say is this: in most cases, feminists don't bother to try to back up their false claims.  They count on their echo chamber to repeat unquestioningly what they say and are content with that.  But here, much to her chagrin, Lemon actually responded to Sommers and tried to justify her book's assertions.

My guess is that she won't make that mistake again.

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