by Alyn Pearson

About the author: Alyn Pearson is an occasional contributor to Off Our Backs, a feminist publication. She was a student intern when this viewpoint was written.

Rape is the common cold of society. Although rape is much more serious than the common cold, the systems are the same. We have assimilated rape into our everyday culture much as we have the cold. Like the folklore surrounding the common cold, there is folklore about rape, like the notion that if a woman wears revealing clothing or goes to a bar alone, she is likely to “get raped.” But in fact a woman is no more likely to be raped from these activities than from simply dating a man or being home alone.

There is a silence surrounding...