Fatigued

 [Content note: rape culture]

I haven't written about Todd Akin's comments because, well, this article resonates with me. A lot.

That a man who wants to limit women's bodily autonomy can be so ignorant of women's bodies, display this ignorance and aggression publicly, and yet still be leading his female opponent in a political race.... I just... what can you do, really, except go drink vodka straight from the cat dish?

No.

I know more productive things can be done, should be done, and are being done. I receive about a zillion action alerts about reproductive rights on a daily basis, and I take action in other concrete ways.

Hillary Clinton is right to note that extremists always focus on women. She says:

"It doesn't matter what country they're in, or what religion they claim, they all want to control women, they want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions that we make about our own health and our own bodies."

They want to control us, and despite society's stupid jokey "what do women want?" lingering question, many extremists simultaneously don't seem to want to know much about women, our bodies, our thoughts, or our experiences. They just aren't germane to some men's governing process [over women's bodies].

And that's what gets me most of all about some of the statements these Republican men have been making.

For a man to think he doesn't know any rape victims and/or to have such fundamental misunderstandings about rape and women's bodies is incredibly scary. These ignorant, aggressive male musings are the Ultimate Mansplanations whereby they wrongly explain things to us, to society, to women as though they Know Things better than we do. But, they don't. The problem is, they don't know they don't.