![\"140523Rush\"](\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/140523Rush.jpg\")
May 23, 2014<\/p>\nMay 23, 2014<\/p>\n
\u201c….The widespread belief that sexual abuse of children is endemic to society is a relatively new notion. In fact, it can be traced to a particular moment in history: April 17, 1971.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that day the New York Radical Feminists, a group that at its height boasted no more than 400 members, held a groundbreaking conference on rape. For two days, women held\u00a0forth on a subject long considered taboo…. A speech given by\u00a0Florence Rush<\/a>\u00a0(was) the\u00a0highlight of the event.<\/p>\n \u201cRush was an unlikely star for such a gathering. A middle-aged social worker, who had never been raped, she outlined statistical studies suggesting that sexual abuse of children, including incest, was a more widespread problem than was generally recognized….<\/p>\n \u201cBefore Rush’s speech, feminists had given little thought to incest. Author Andrea Dworkin recalled that before the conference \u2018we never had any idea how common it was.\u2019 In the\u00a0decades following Rush’s talk, feminists more than made up for their earlier unawareness, competing with each other in elevating the number of victims….<\/p>\n \u201cBelieve the women. Believe the children. These refrains became the mantra of the incest movement. While the women’s movement would be enormously successful in turning sexual\u00a0abuse \u2013 including incest \u2013 into a major public issue, women, ironically, would become the chief victims\u00a0of the hysteria it generated.<\/p>\n \u201cThe obsession with this supposedly rampant sexual abuse played out in two ways: \u2018Believe the women\u2019 became the repressed memory hysteria. \u2018Believe the children\u2019 turned into the day-care hysteria….\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013 From \u201c<\/em>Sex, Lies, and Audiotapes<\/em><\/a>\u201d by Rael Jean Isaac in the Women\u2019s Quarterly (summer 2001) text cache<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n