What Does Doug Wilson Believe?

Women & Domesticity

Women Who Refuse Male Protection Tacitly Accept Rape

But women who genuinely insist on ‘no masculine protection’ are really women who tacitly agree on the propriety of rape […] Men are designed by God to initiate and lead, and women are designed to respond.

In Douglas Wilson’s own words: 3 quotes from 1997 to 2026, from Her Hand in Marriage, Blog & Mablog and NPR, each cited to the source.

Women inescapably need godly masculine protection against ungodly masculine harassment; women who refuse protection from their fathers and husbands must seek it from the police. But women who genuinely insist on 'no masculine protection’ are really women who tacitly agree on the propriety of rape […] Men are designed by God to initiate and lead, and women are designed to respond.

— Douglas Wilson, Her Hand in Marriage: Biblical Courtship in the Modern World, Canon Press, 1997, Chapter 2: “A Brief History of Systematized Folly”, p. 13

Say a woman — for some egalitarian and very foolish reason, declines to have her dinner date walk her back to her car in some urban center after dark. Let us say she is raped and murdered. According to what RHE says, my response is going to be some variant of “served her right.” Now you would have to be a fool not to see the connection between her refusal of an escort and what happened to her, but you would also have to be pretty vile to say that walking to your car deserves the penalty of rape and murder. You would also have to be pretty high up among Obama’s advisers to falsely accuse someone of being that vile. One consequence of rejecting the protection of good men is that you are opening yourself up to the predations of bad men. I fully acknowledge that this is not what such women think they are doing. They think they are rejecting the patriarchy, or some other icky thing, but when they have walked away from the protections of fathers and brothers, what it amounts to is a tacit (implicit, in principle, not overt) acceptance of the propriety of rape. Does this mean they deserve to be wronged? Of course not. Does John Piper deserve to be mugged because he won’t carry a gun? Do I deserve to have my truck stolen because I left it unlocked? Did the oysters in The Walrus and the Carpenter deserve to be eaten because they were so stupid?

— Douglas Wilson, “Courtship and Rape Culture”, Blog & Mablog (dougwils.com), February 4, 2016 Source ↗ · Archived copy ↗

[Leila Fadel: “When they’ve walked away from the protections of fathers and brothers, what it amounts to is a tacit, implicit in principle, not overt acceptance of the propriety of rape. This is from a 2016 blog.”] Yeah, correct. I’m not saying anything about the propriety of rape. What I’m saying is the women who do these things, they’re the ones saying that. So, if you refuse the protection of good men, then I’m saying you’re the one asking for it. I’m pleading with you to stop asking for it... Let’s say someone parks his car in a bad part of town, leaves his wallet on the dashboard with $20 bills sticking out of it... What I’m saying is that the idiot who left his wallet on the dashboard, he was arguing for the propriety of theft.

— Douglas Wilson, interviewed by Leila Fadel, “The Pastor Who Wants to Repeal Voting Rights for Women Is Becoming More Mainstream”, NPR (Newsmakers), Timestamp 30:06, July 7, 2026 Source ↗

On the insults page: “asking for it”, “tacitly agree on the propriety of rape”