Heh

A good sign that you're doing well in the world of public discourse is that your critics will use ad hominem attacks against you. Case in point, this response to my letter in yesterday's National Post.

Letter writer Richard McAdam will have to apply himself more carefully to his reading if he wishes to earn his MA. Both Ms. Kay and Mr. Dutton made it quite clear that they were talking about partner abuse or, in Mr. Dutton’s terminology, intimate partner violence. Mr. McAdam may be quite correct that 86% of the reported sexual assaults target women. I would also lay odds that 99% or more of the perpetrators are male, but that is not the subject of the discussion. Kendall Carey, Toronto.

Unfortunately I don't have the means to get in touch with Kendall Carey of Toronto, so if anybody does, please let that individual be aware that my dedication to applying myself carefully to my reading has resulted in a bibliography for my MA thesis that is almost frightening in both quantity and quality. Please also inform Kendall Carey of Toronto that in the cases where women are targeted for sexual violence, 80% of sexual assault survivors knew their abusers. About 10% were assaulted by a friend and 41% were assaulted by an acquaintance. 28% were assaulted by a family member, while the remaining 20% were assaulted by a stranger. (Statistics Canada, 2003). If he were to do the math, that's a very high number of women, out of the total number of reported (key word is reported) sexual assaults, that are being sexually assaulted by partners, family members, and friends. Also mention that there is a nearly 4:1 ratio of women to menbeing killed by their spouses over the period 1974-2000 in Canada. (Stats Canada, Assessing Violence Against Women: A Statistical Profile, 2002). So if Kendall Carey of Toronto wants to discuss levels of violence among intimate people, the numbers will quite clearly demonstrate that women, who constitute the largest segment of the population targeted for sexual violence, often experience it at the hands of the ones they love. Finally, please let Kendall Carey of Toronto know that this field of study has nothing to do with my MA studies, given that I primarily study American foreign policy, and everything to do with my belief that we have a long way to go before we can, as Barbara Kay did in her article, proclaim that we live in a matriarchal society where women are accorded the same measure of respect and human dignity as men and do not have to be constantly vigilant against sexual assaults from people that are close to them. So yeah, if you can pass on that message, that'd be great.