So You Think You Know Women?

I find myself a bit embarrassed to say that even after succumbing to the career path of a photojournalist, I still have to force myself to look for news. It really does feel like I'm pulling teeth sometimes, if not, ALWAYS.

The main reason for this is the OVERLOAD of information I find coming from every direction. This has been the exact case with this "blogging" assignment. I am in a world of news and I'm desperately trying to make sense of it all. What is credible and what is just a hunk of baloney. Do you get me?


All whining aside, I stumbled upon a few related articles on my never ending quest. As I'm sure most of you know (this did not include me) Republican Senate nominee, Todd Akin, was recently quoted saying he believed rape-related pregnancy was not only "really rare" but also that "If it's legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Pardon me for never hearing about this, but what?! Are you kidding me? Without any analysis into this, my initial reaction is to question his statement, obviously. So he's an expert in female anatomy now? What exactly does he mean by legitimate rape? and more so, what makes him think  rape-related pregnancy is rare? Once again, I am just wondering where he's getting his information from.

The original article my search branched from is here. It basically fact checks Akin and further, goes into some more statistics disqualifying Akin's statement as well as finding quite the opposite -- that rape results in more unplanned pregnancies than consensual sex!

Now, we can go into more statistics and facts here but 1) You can just read the article and probably find better contextualization there 2) To console my skepticism, I'd have to go on another search to verify those statistics 3) this post isn't necessarily supposed to be about Akin's statement being right or wrong

What I'm really concerned with here is the decisions other males are making about very serious women's issues. Abortion and birth control are certainly hot topics as well. Male politicians are suddenly taking interest in issues that frankly have been around for ages and while it's supposed to be a good thing, they're passing judgment without really UNDERSTANDING.

I may also be a little late in the game here, but please, would anyone care to explain to me why women's issues appear to be receiving more attention in this election, yet we're still finding a patriarchal view highly characterizing the candidates' perspectives?