Why did Caitlin Flanagan write such a poorly supported article on fraternities and rape?

And why did the Wall Street Journal publish it? Was there a whole lot more material in the original article, which was then edited down to make Flanagan look utterly ridiculous?

It begins with the description of one horrible crime. It ends with Flanagan describing her own fear of men. It's lurid and emotional to tell us about one woman's victimization and another woman's feelings, but where's the support for Flanagan's proposition that fraternities should be shut so that women can achieve equality on campus? Here's the middle of the article, where the substance should be:

The Greek system is dedicated to quelling young men's anxiety about submitting themselves to four years of sissy-pants book learning by providing them with a variety of he-man activities: drinking, drugging, ESPN watching and the sexual mistreatment of women.

So... guys in college seek fun in addition to study. That's unremarkable. So do females. Characterizing study as inherently feminine — "sissy-pants book learning" — doesn't make the assertion any less shallow. It seems to me that many young males and females indulge in substances, sports, and sex. Those activities maybe be great fun or horrible (or something in between).

A 2007 National Institute of Justice study found that about one in five women are victims of sexual assault in college; almost all of those incidents go unreported.

How did they find it if it was unreported? Much of life is ugly but not criminal. If it's a crime report it. If it's not a crime, what was it? What are these statistics that get thrown at us constantly? I've been seeing them since 1988 when "I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting, and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape" was published. Over the years, college women have learned to call it rape, but why haven't they learned to report it, if it is rape or some other crime?  You can chose to think of something bad that happened as a crime but are you willing to hold your opinion up to the judgment of officials who have the obligation to treat the accused man fairly? Almost all of those incidents go unreported. Exactly why?

It also noted that fraternity men—who tend to drink more heavily and frequently than nonmembers — are more likely to perpetrate sexual assault than nonfraternity men, according to previous studies. Over a quarter of sexual-assault victims who were incapacitated reported that the assailant was a fraternity member.

Over a quarter?! Is this limited to the college situation? What are we learning from this flabby factual material? Young people drink too much.

It is against this boorish cartel...

Cartel? What cartel?

... that 16 Yale students and recent alumni asserted themselves in a Title IX complaint brought against the institution last month — a complaint that could cost the university $500 million in federal funds.

The claim concerns both the ways that sexual assaults are handled by the university and also the effect that various fraternity "pranks" have had on its female students. The last straw for the complainants seems to have been a Delta Kappa Epsilon initiation last fall in which a mob of pledges chanted "No Means Yes! Yes Means Anal!" and other enlightening slogans....

That was the last straw? A stupid chant? Why don't women use their immense power of being able to laugh at men? Give them the finger? Wasn't the idea of the chant to humiliate the pledges by making them say things that would make them look bad to women? Why don't women claim the power they have instead of running to Daddy (i.e., the government)?

The Yale complaint is a pathetic step backward for feminism. It is not empowerment.

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Here's a book I read a while back: "Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus." By the way, for a few years in the early 90s, I taught law school course on rape and wrote articles on the subject.