Trump's Campaign Manager Says 'Rape Would Not Exist' If Women Were Stronger

Kellyanne Conway became Donald Trump's campaign manager a few weeks ago.

Thanks to her new high-power position running a presidential campaign, her past is under more scrutiny.

That brings us to this 2013 clip from PBS that was unearthed this week. Conway was on a roundtable in an episode of "To the Contrary." During her appearance, she said,

If [women] were physiologically -- not mentally, emotionally, professionally -- equal to men, if we were physiologically as strong as men, rape would not exist. You would be able to defend yourself and fight him off.

So according to Conway, if women were as physically strong as men, poof! Rape is gone forever.

Conway has a point, to some extent -- some very minor extent. Sure, there are a few cases of rape that may have been stopped if the women were strong enough to fight off the men and get away.

But a majority of cases of rape would have been stopped if men just, you know, stopped forcing themselves on women without consent.

Conway's 2013 argument is completely unfounded in reality.

First of all, women are not the only survivors of rape, and men are not the only attackers. She ignored the many men who have been raped.

Second of all, Conway put the responsibility on the survivors to stop rape; rather than saying rape would not exist if people stopped raping people, she said rape would not exist if people could just physically stop the attacks.

Third of all, physical strength is not necessarily a major factor in rape.

Unlike Conway's assertion "professional" strength isn't an element of rape, attackers can be in professional positions of power and use that to coerce victims into sexual assault and rape, like former Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw did, preying on vulnerable women.

Most rapes are not committed by strangers in alleys. Three out of four rapes are committed by people the survivors know. This means there are psychological elements to the crime -- not just physical.

Conway's assertion "mental" and "emotional" factors are not elements of rape is wrong. Survivors can be frozen in fear and trauma and become unable to act. Survivors can be in an abusive relationship. Survivors can be intoxicated. Survivors can be confused, and still, none of these elements makes a rape the victim's fault.

There are a lot of elements that lead to a rape occurring, but mostly, it's that a rapist rapes someone, not that a survivor isn't strong enough.

Citations: Huffington Post, RAINN