I've been a staunch feminist throughout my adult life, but I'm often labeled an anti-feminist and condemned for victim-blaming, at least, or enabling "rape culture" because I defend the right to engage in misogynist speech, as well as the due process rights of accused (in other words, unproven) rapists. The drive against sexual violence has sparked a drive against sexist speech presumed to cause violence, as well as a presumption of guilt in sexual assault cases, especially prevalent on college and university campuses.

"This is what rape culture looks like," one not atypical commenter said in reaction to my post on sensational rape allegations at Amherst. A recent (spectacularly uninformed) post at Think Progress included me among the presumably anti-feminist "conservatives" who protested the Obama Administration's latest demand that colleges and universities enact unconstitutionally vague speech codes barring sexually offensive speech.

I'm not suggesting that all feminists are anti-libertarian, anti-porn advocates. Some identify as pro-sex or pro-porn, but they don't dominate much less define the feminist movement. Nor am I ignoring other liberal groups opposed to free speech. Many gay-rights activists promote absurdly over-broad anti-bullying policies. The NAACP squelches dissent. Congressional Democrats sponsor potentially censorious anti-harassment laws. As I frequently lament, allegedly offensive speech that targets presumptively disadvantaged groups is now routinely labeled "verbal conduct" and considered a civil rights violation by liberal activists who elevate the collective equality interests supposedly served by censorship over individual freedom.

But feminists are more likely than other liberal pro-censorship groups to find themselves on the same side as conservatives. While bemoaning the war on women, they inadvertently support it, by advancing regressive, stereotypic notions of male and female sexuality. Feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon once memorably remarked that exposing a man to pornography is like "saying 'kill' to a trained guard dog." That is a dark, fatalistic view of male sexuality with which Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss might sympathize. He attributed sexual assaults in the military to male hormones: "The young folks coming in to each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23. Gee whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur."

It is not a great leap from these beliefs in a natural, masculine proclivity toward sexual violence (and feminine vulnerability to victimization) to a belief in traditional gender roles based on women's presumed status as a weaker but more nurturing and morally superior sex. 19th-century women's rights activists promoted and exploited a belief in their moral superiority to justify women's entrance into public life, while also advocating the censorship of pornography and prohibition of contraception as well as alcohol (both were linked with domestic violence.) 21st-century feminists intent on securing reproductive choice, among other freedoms, should seek stronger, more libertarian role models.