In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Domestic Violence

VAWA held up by Republicans. Again.

This time over their “concern” about the Constitutional issues posed by allowing non-native people to be subject to tribal courts if they commit acts of domestic violence on tribal land. Republicans object to what they say are inadequate protections for criminal defendants — an issue they really only seem to care about when violence against women is involved.

Your Must-Read of the Day

The Longest War, by Rebecca Solnit, details the ways that physical violence against women and political hostility toward women are part of the same epidemic of gendered violence and control, leveled almost entirely by men. Women are beaten, raped, killed, harassed, controlled and abused by men at astounding rates. We write these incidents off as isolated or personal, tragic but certainly not epidemic. On other pages of the newspaper we talk about conservative encroachment on women’s bodily autonomy as if that’s totally separate from violence, as if it’s a “social issue” or a difference of political opinion. But all of it — the violence, the domestic abuse, the street harassment, the online harassment, the gang-rapes, the abortion debates, the contraception battles — comes down to a desire to control women, and rage when that control isn’t maintained.

Restorative justice and domestic violence

The lead story in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine is about a young man who shot and killed his girlfriend, turned himself in, and largely because of forgiveness and empathy from her family saw his sentence partially influenced by a legal process called restorative justice. I read the article with interest, since I’m a big fan of restorative justice practices and think they should be instituted more widely across the United States. But this story as an illustration for restorative justice troubles me.

On hating Chris Brown

I love Ann Friedman and I think this piece about Chris Brown and Rihanna is good, but I also think she’s wrong. It’s worth a read, and the content isn’t exactly what the headline says — Ann makes the argument that hating Chris Brown isn’t particularly helpful for Rihanna, and that bad-mouthing abusers isn’t effective since most women who are abused go back to their abusers many times over and repeated negative comments may further alienate them from support networks. She also says that we can’t (and shouldn’t) be telling Rihanna what to do when it comes to Brown.

If you only read one thing about the Kasandra Perkins murder

Make it this at What About Our Daughters. Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and then himself; she did not bring that on herself by going to a concert. She was not, as published in Deadspin, a “catalyst” to her own death (also, it’s apparently now totally cool and responsible to publish anonymous, unsubstantiated hit pieces on murder victims penned by the murder’s friends. Because “context,” or something).

When is an ill-fitting bra like domestic violence? When you ask Amante. (Or Jezebel.)

[Warning for references to domestic violence.]

The ad says, “Suffocation is the worst kind of abuse.” Is it really the worst kind of abuse? I don’t know, frankly; considering the range of horrible things done to women by partners and family, it’s kind of hard to rank them all. But I feel comfortable saying that suffocating one’s breasts with an overly tight bra ranks so far down the list as to not warrant even joking comparison.