Kate Clancy’s post is a must-read response to all the controversy surrounding Todd Akin’s remarks over the weekend:
Think of all the illnesses and conditions that make the news regularly. Take gluten intolerance, for example. The incidence for gluten intolerance is somewhere around 1% (more or less, depending on how you define it). Think on how many people you know are gluten intolerant. You know at least one, don’t you?
Now think of the women who have been raped compared to this number – about 17%. There are so many more of us out there who have been affected by sexual assault, unwanted sexual touching, sexual violence, rape and abuse that the number is likely greater than this. And though I display my gluten intolerance every time I ask an annoying, pointed question about a menu item at a restaurant, other ways I and other women identify are not exactly the subject of normal conversation.
And so, you know survivors of sexual assault. You know many of them, in fact, an astounding, upsetting number of them.
Read the whole piece.
