Violence Against Women Overload

It can all be quite overwhelming sometimes.

I woke up to this: a reminder that some people have a very different definition than I do of “life,” and skewed ideas about who decides whose lives are worth saving.

Then I stumbled upon this discussion of the sexual assault in the Watchmen and the general narrative of a rape victim falling in love with her rapist. Apparently, some people laughed at the rape scene in this movie. I worry that some of those people that laughed may live near me, or may even be people I know. I also worry what message this movie sends to young people, especially boys, about sex.

I not only found the scene not funny, but felt that it was rather explicit rape apologia and victim-blaming. Dr. Manhattan was evidently violating Laurie’s trust and expressed wishes in a sexual context, and then justified his actions by pointing to her alleged failure.

Last night at dinner, the waiter joked with my friend that if she wasn’t careful, he might have to Chris Brown her. Because punching your girlfriend in the face until her mouth fills with blood is hilarious. Yet the discourse surrounding that incident managed to allude to the fact that Rihanna was at least somewhat to blame as well.

Then I just came across this article, discussing how we’re still blaming women for the violence perpetrated against them.

The findings of the poll, conducted for the Home Office, also disclosed about a quarter of people believe that wearing sexy or revealing clothing should lead to a woman being held partly responsible for being raped or sexually assaulted.

Several reminders of why International Women’s Day is important, Obama’s new post for international women’s issues is necessary, and how far we have to go.

 

Women and Children Are Not Pork

Why is it that when it’s time to find places to tighten our belts, the first programs to go are those that benefit women and children? Who decided that education, health care and the Violence Against Women Act were pork? ThinkProgress notes that the proposed cuts to make the bill more “stimulative” (which of course leave tax cuts untouched, contrary to Economics 101), disproportionately affect women and children.

These cuts would include:

$150 million cut to the Violence Against Women Act

$50 million to the Victims of Crime Act

$25 million to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces

$1.1 billion to Head Start

$50 million to Teacher Quality Partnership Grants

$5.2 billion for Prevention And Wellness (including diabetes screening and HIV testing)

$13.9 billion for Pell Grants

$2 billion for Child Care Development Block Grants (ThinkProgress)

Basically, the conservatives have decided that anything that isn’t tax cuts is “pork.” So, like President Obama, when you hear their criticisms just ask yourself, “Are these folks serious?” What I want to know is, how are they planning to face their constituents after voting against programs like Headstart and Pell Grants in these tough times?

 

Speaking Out

A brave mother describes how her husband killed their daughter, in the name of “honor.”

‘Even now, I cannot believe my ex-husband was able to kill our daughter. He wasn’t a bad person. During our 24 years of marriage, he was never aggressive. But on that day, he was a different person.’

The girl’s father says

‘If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,’ he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city’s Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

He continued:

[I] was released from the police station ‘because everyone knows that honour killings sometimes are impossible not to commit. The officers were by my side during all the time I was there, congratulating me on what I had done.’

Read the full article here: “My daughter deserved to die for falling in love” (The Observer).

Five weeks after the brave mother spoke out against her husband, she was murdered.

It was two weeks after Rand’s death on 16 March that a grief-stricken Leila, unable to bear living under the same roof as her husband, found the strength to leave him. She had been beaten and had had her arm broken. It was a courageous move. Few women in Iraq would contemplate such a step. Leila told The Observer in April: ‘No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq. But I would prefer to be killed than sleep in the same bed as a man who was able to do what he did to his own daughter.’

“Mother who defied the killers is gunned down” (The Observer).