Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped, claim scientists. Not.

If the subject matter weren’t so serious, this would be quite the fun tale of bad journalism attempting to cover its tracks.

To begin at the end of this sorry tale: on the 13th July, the following appeared in the Telegraph:

British Psychological Society: Miss Sophia Shaw

Published: 2:27PM BST 13 Jul 2009

Owing to an editing error, our report “Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped, claim scientists” (June 23) wrongly stated that research presented at the recent BPS conference by Sophia Shaw found that women who drink alcohol are more likely to be raped. In fact, the research found the opposite. We apologise for our error.

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Note the search engine unfriendly headline. Not many people are searching for these terms, not many people will find this apology. Anyway, this was no boating editing accident. As readers of Ben Goldacre’s quite sublime Bad Science blog (also run as a column in the Guardian), which covered the story in-depth will know, this “editing error” was far from the small copy-based slip-up such a coy apology implies: it was a whole article purporting to discuss the research, run under the fairly unambiguous headline ‘Women Who Dress Provocatively More Likely To Be Raped, Claim Scientists’. Of course, the Telegraph could link from their brief apology to the original article. Or from the original article (which, incidentally, has a much more search engine friendly URL and title) to the apology. But it hasn’t. Indeed, as Carl Zimmer observed on Twitter (and in a later blog post):

Vanished!

This is what you find if you visit the Telegraph page where the article used to be:

We never make mistakes

It’s still available in their search database at present and as the cherry on a very queasy cake, would you just look at that targeted advertising! Nice:

Rape solicitors are waiting to take your call

What a proud day for automated adverts. Been raped? Call our friendly solicitors. While you’re waiting for them to take your call, why not read an article about how it was scientifically proven to be something you could have avoided if you didn’t dress like such a slut.

Love that standfirst too – “the likelihood of them being raped”.

Yep, that’s right, “them”. The women, not you, dear reader, a man.

Anyhoodly doodle, is there anywhere we can still see some of the original article, see whether it might have merited a greater apology than this “editing error” brush off?

Why, yes. Current TV have a copy:

Current TV: keeper of record

The underlying message this piece sends is that if you’re outgoing (what does this even mean? That you have something to say for yourself? That you socialise? You tramp!), wear a short skirt (asking for it) and drink alcohol (women: know your limits), men will find it harder to control their urges, so you should stop making their lives difficult otherwise you will have turned them into rapists – and they really shouldn’t have to deal with the guilt of that, girls, when it’s clearly all your fault for wearing a skirt to the pub for a pint.

The apology doesn’t deal with any of the prejudices running rampant through the article, and if The Telegraph wants to run vile opinion pieces on who is to blame for rape, that’s their business, but they shouldn’t cloak it as science reporting, then, when they get busted, hand out apologies written in a tone that implies something as trivial as a typo. With rape convictions at a pitiable low, do we really need another muddled excuse for a judge to decide – scientifically, mind – that she meant yes when she said no and probably enjoyed herself anyway?

You can read the nitty gritty of the original research, how it was misinterpreted and what the scientists actually found, over on Ben Goldacre’s blog, which I can’t recommend highly enough.