If you had asked me when I was a first year in college, would I personally have worked in politics or run for office, I would have laughed, like hysterically.  Well the joke was on me, three years later, I ran to be Vice President of the Student Council at my University. I was compelled to be part of changing how things were done on campus, and the only way to do that was to run for leadership in student government. I had no idea what I was doing, was TERRIFIED of public speaking to the point of shaking, and while I volunteered and organized events on a committee for Student Council for 3 years, I worried people would doubt my qualifications, but I set my mind to it. Little did I know that that experience would begin to lead me away from a career in journalism and toward a career in politics and public service.

Recently, perhaps with women like me in mind, Emily’s List, a PAC dedicated to encouraging and electing pro-choice Democratic women, launched their new campaign to help elect a woman to the highest office in the land, President of the United States.

Also called MPOTUS, the campaign inspired Emily’s List from research produced by Anzalone List Grove Research: Almost unanimously (90%), voters in the battleground states would consider voting for a qualified woman candidate from their party… 72% believe that it is likely that America will elect a woman president in the next presidential election including 86% of Democratic primary voters.”

Regardless of political affiliation there is still a gap in political leadership for women but the ground is shifting. Despite Hillary Clinton not winning the Democratic nomination in 2008, her run did leave 18 million more cracks in the ceiling to the highest-ranking public office in the US.  And it appears so did Sarah Palin, with her run for Vice President on Republican John McCain’s 2008 Presidential ticket.  After the election in 2008, it didn’t seem extraordinary for women to put their names forward to be considered for President. Michele Bachmann expressed interest and did run for President in the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary and  Sarah Palin toyed with the idea of running herself.

In the year of 2013, we have 18.5% representation of women in Congress. While there are many women’s organizations dedicated to recruiting, training and encouraging women candidates to run for office that have been instrumental in game changing the arena for women in politics like the National Women’s Political Caucus, Women’s Campaign Fund, or Emily’s List the gap is not decreasing significantly.

Why?  Current Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and Associate Professor of Government Jennifer Lawless researched this for a 2008 Brookings Institution report, “Why are Women Still  Not Running for Office?”  Her report reviews women in the highest tiers of their professional expertise Men enjoy more encouragement and confidence and support to run for office. “Women are less likely than men to be willing to endure the rigors of a political campaign. They are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less likely than men to have the freedom to reconcile work and family obligations with a political career. They are less likely than men to think they are “qualified” to run for office” the report stated.

I’ve seen this all play out in many different scenarios working on campaigns for many women candidates, volunteering in the community, and advising other women who are thinking of running for office. I know this feeling myself.

A young woman who was the Virginia Young Democrats President at the time recruited me to run for a state officer position in the Young Dems. Though I was thinking of it, I was greatly buoyed by her encouragement. Years later, I went from the state chapter leadership to the national level in the Young Democrats of America, (YDA) an organization who can count among its alumni, Congressman Barney Frank, Minority Whip and Congressman Steny Hoyer, and Congressman Jim Clyburn. I now serve as one of YDA’s National Vice Presidents and I’ve embarked on a new journey, running to be President of the Young Democrats of America.

In Facebook COO’s Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In” she discusses why she thinks women achieving leadership roles across the various sectors has stalled. The key premise in her various offered solutions is that women need to “lean in” to life’s opportunities not step back. For me, I took a deep breath and believed I had a right to take a seat at the table of leadership like anyone else. Too many women have fought for our right to vote and be considered equal citizens in society to not take that seat. So women don’t be afraid to claim that seat.

Don’t be afraid of campaigning you never know what you’re made of until you try. Turn to others who’ve done it before for help.  Go to campaign trainings.  Seek counsel from others. I’ve counseled many other fellow young women who’ve run for public office or run for party leadership positions. And many have counseled me along the way.

Studies show that women need to be asked a total of seven times before they will consider running for office. Don’t wait to be asked. Don’t get me wrong, it’s flattering to be asked and considered. But men don’t wait to be asked. Seriously, if I had a nickel for every guy I knew in college who wanted to “Guvnah of V-uhgini-ah” I’d have paid for half my tuition easy. If you have demonstrated commitment, and you think you have perspective to bring to the table and  you think you can make a difference, well by all means step up. Have some faith in yourself, because no one else will, if you don’t.

Sheryl Sandberg also emphasized the need to make your life partner a real partner. “The single most important career decision that a woman makes is whether she will have a partner and who that partner is. I don’t know of one woman in a leadership position whose life partner is not fully—and I mean fully—supportive of her career. No exceptions” I CANNOT agree more. I would not have made it this far in my life working all hours on political campaigns or traveling around the country running for a national position in a national political organization if I had not had the unyielding support of my fabulous husband. I urge fellow young woman with their eye toward public office to seek partners who are as equally supportive of their ambitions as you would be of theirs, especially straight women. Straight men for years have sought wives that are perfect “political spouses”: a steady rock who is supportive of their ambitions, and is able to spend more time helping to manage the family. Straight women, I strongly encourage you to settle for no less either, because they wouldn’t.

I often look to the past and think of the women who rose to leadership in much harder and legally restrictive times to be a woman and I am inspired by Ann Richards or Shirley Chisholm and so many others. We are the generation that has the privileges and power that the women before us never commanded. Let’s be fearless and use it.

The Virginia State Board of Health voted just yesterday to adopt stricter building regulations for abortion clinics. These new regulations are designed to – you guessed it – force the clinics to close as it is virtually impossible to comply with the new standards in the time frame allowed.

This is the new front of the abortion battles – anti choice lawmakers pushing through legislation with absurd building requirements so as to force abortion clinics to close when they can’t comply. It’s not just in Virginia, either. Four days ago, Alabama’s Governor Robert Bentley signed a TRAP bill (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) requiring these clinics to have such things as wider hallways and bigger parking lots, as well as be staffed only by doctors who have admitting privileges at local hospitals. (For what it’s worth, these restrictions are so severe that even most hospitals would not be able to obey the regulations.)  Mississippi is another state whose TRAP law makes such strict requirements.

But back to Virginia.  Where do all these laws come from? In Virginia’s case (which as I mentioned is just the latest state to pull this trick), it can be traced to Ken Cuccinelli.  If you’re not familiar with him, if his name doesn’t roll off your tongue (as you sport a look of total disgust of course), practice saying it a few times. Because if you don’t start paying close attention to him, he’s going to be Virginia’s next Governor. And he’s going to bring the 1950s back with him.

This is pretty much what we mean when we talk about “extreme” – extreme abortion restrictions and extreme politicians.  ”Extreme” should really be Ken Cuccinelli’s middle name as far as the pro-choice advocacy community should be concerned. Because it goes much farther than his recent efforts to overturn a court’s decision deeming the Virginia’s anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional.

Let’s just take a quick look at some of his choiciest anti-choice sentiments:

Here’s a sample of what he thinks about women’s decision-making capabilities when it comes to their own bodies:

Here he is bragging about trying to deny women access to basic health services:

And my ultimate favorite: here he is comparing the fight to combat abortion with the fight to end slavery.

Yes you read that right -SLAVERY.

And so we see where we are – a man who thinks the Catholic church is too dependent on government, who thinks there’s no such as thing as safe homosexual sex, and who is proud of his efforts to deny medical procedures to women in need. And make no mistake, he’s been making his mark on Virginia.

The majority of the members on the 15 person VA Board of Health were appointed by Governor Bob McDonnell, another gem in the anti-choice movement’s roster of politicians who just want to “protect women.” However, even these members thought the call for new restrictions was too much, and they tried to amend the regulations by grandfathering existing clinics from the new building requirements.  Here’s what the Richmond Times Dispatch reports happened next:

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli refused to certify the regulations saying the board lacked the authority to make a change that in the attorney general’s view was inconsistent with the original law. The memo from Cuccinelli’s office also suggested that board members might not qualify for representation from the office if they deviated from the legal advice that had been offered.

I’ll give you one guess as to whether the Board members stood their ground (hint: the answer is no). Luckily, there was at least one Virginia government official who took a stand here – Karen Remley, the Health Commissioner (in case you’re wondering, appointed by pro choice advocate Tim Kaine, current VA Senator and former VA Governor).  For Commissioner Remley however, it wasn’t just about standing up for women. She ended up resigning her position over the issue, declaring that the regulations had “created an environment in which [my] ability to fulfill [my] duties is compromised.”

Duties such as promoting the public interest? Protecting the public’s health? Yes, I agree, Ken Cuccinelli’s involvement does seem to bring about an inability to do that job.

Now that the Board of Health has voted to adopt the regulations, they will again return to Ken Cuccinelli and Governor Bob McDonnell for final review. And we can add yet another state to the list.

This piece was originally posted on the Left Standing Up Blog and it’s cross-posted it here with permission

Photo credit: KenOnTheIssues.com

“Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.”*  During his State of the Union Address, President Obama again reiterated his economic equality message that he eloquently spoke about in his inaugural address and on the campaign trail. His intent is clear. Congress should vote to pass and implement the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The Paycheck Fairness Act builds upon the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and closes loopholes in the 1963 Equal Pay Act.  And while not a panacea, it is another tool at a worker’s disposal to challenge income disparity in the workplace itself while putting employers on notice that it’s no longer socially and culturally acceptable to pay women less for the same exact work.

The act would make it easier for those who are the targets of wage discrimination to address the issue, while allowing employees to disclose salary information with co-workers without fear of retaliation. The key bit is that employers would be required to show that any wage discrepancies are based on genuine business requirements and are related to specific characteristics of the position that are not based on the employee’s sex.

The empirical evidence is clear.  Women earned 77 cents for each dollar earned by a man, while the corresponding ratios were 61 cents for African-American women and 52 cents for Hispanic women as compared to wages of white males. There is ample empirical evidence that shows that women, despite degrees, experience, and qualifications are underpaid compared to men at every point in our lives and that the wage gap has us loosing $400,000 over a lifetime of work!

Passing this bill will not be easy. It’s been introduced and defeated a number of times in the past but we need to keep advocating and talking about how this impacts us.  Paycheck fairness is not just a ‘women’s issue’ but an economic issue that effects the bottom line of every household in our country. More and more, women head households and are the main breadwinners.

The social and cultural shift the Paycheck Fairness Act would provide cannot be underestimated. It would send a clear signal that women’s work is valuable and necessary. And that we expect to be compensated equally for our equal  time and effort.  Work that women perform is not a click above volunteering and a few clicks below the ‘real’ work that men do. The amount a woman loses to the pay gap could feed a family of four for 37 years.

Conservatives like to repeat the myths that women ‘chose’ lower paying careers and jobs and also ‘opt out’ of the workforce to perform caretaking roles. The evidence clearly shows though that at every step along her career, she will earn less. The pay gap starts early. One year out of college, women make 82 cents for every dollar earned by their male peers for doing similar work. A woman’s pay, on average, stops growing when she turns 39. For men, wage growth doesn’t stop until age 48.

National Women’s Law Center has a great myth and facts guide on the act along with other resources. Pass this stuff on.

Pen this in. April 9, 2013  pay equity day. This day symbolizes how long a woman must work in 2013 to earn equal what a man was given in 2012.  Keep talking about the Paycheck Fairness Act.  Call and write to your Congresscritters and tell them how this bill affects you personally.  Let’s keep the pressure on for another win for workers!

* Yes, I hope President Obama reframes this important message, but I think his intent is meant well and made in good faith.

In the last four years, President Obama has done some great things for women: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, expansion of women’s health services under the Affordable Care Act, support for Planned Parenthood. And I was happy last night, in his State of the Union address, to hear him push for Congress to vote on the Violence Against Women Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

But I was disheartened by his reasoning for why Congress should do these things: “We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence.” [emphasis mine]

My worth as a woman, and as a person, is not imbued by my relationship to someone else.  I should not be granted rights and protections because I am somebody’s wife, mother, daughter, or sister. I deserve those rights and protections by virtue of my status as a person and as an American citizen. (NB: Immigrant women absolutely deserve those rights as well, but let’s save that for another post.)

It’s also tremendously insulting to the women who serve in our Congress and Senate, and assumes that the default for a legislator is male. Believe it or not, some of those women vote on equal rights legislation because they want those protections for themselves (Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Virginia Fox notwithstanding, who as traitors to their sex last night actually shook their heads while President Obama talked about the Paycheck Fairness Act).

President Obama actually used that phrasing twice last night. The second time was when referring to the newly lifted ban on women in combat: “We will draw upon the courage and skills of our sisters and daughters, because women have proven under fire that they are ready for combat.” Is the strength of the incredibly brave women in our military really so important because it comes from someone they’re related to? I’d think the achievement of these women is extraordinary because of what they, as individuals, have gone through. Disappointing, also, is the focus on women’s ability to serve in combat roles to protect the United States, without mention of the United States failing to protect these women from unprecedented levels of sexual assault while serving in our military branches and academies.

I’ve noticed this trope time and again in President Obama’s speeches and decision-making. He has used this “our wives, mothers, and daughters” phrasing many times before. But focusing on the women and girls in one’s life when considering the consequences or benefits of a decision has not always helped women. President Obama cited concerns about his daughters having access to emergency contraception when going against the science- and evidence-based recommendations of the Food and Drug Administration to make Plan B available over the counter to girls under the age of 17.

Boys and men are frequently implored to think of abstract women in relation to themselves – what if she, the woman you’re harassing or thinking of raping, was your sister, your girlfriend, your mother? How would you feel if someone did that to her?

Well I am someone’s sister, someone’s girlfriend, someone’s daughter. But I don’t think that I should be able to walk down the street without being cat-called or followed or assaulted because someone suddenly realizes that I could be their sister, their girlfriend, their mother. I should have the right and the freedom to walk down the street unmolested because I am a person. Because I am a woman who should have all the same rights and bodily autonomy as that man who yells as I pass that he wants to touch my breasts and then calls me a bitch and follows me home when I have the gall to ignore him or call him out on his misogyny.

So please, Congress, don’t deign to grant me rights because I could be a woman that you know. Grant me those rights because I am a woman, and because that alone is enough.

* There is also a We The People petition that has started, “Stop using the ‘wives, mothers, & daughters’ rhetorical frame that defines women by their relationships to other people.”  Sign if you agree!

This post is originally published on 19th an I. It is cross-posted with permission.

Photo credit Leader Nancy Pelosi via the Creative Commons License.

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her final goodbyes to her employees of the State Department. As she left and gave her final waves before the cameras, she closed the door, on what was nothing short of an extraordinary 20 years in public service.

As Secretary of State, Clinton achieved many things not the least of which is earning  the distinction of one of the most well-traveled of our nation’s diplomats. She traveled 956,733 miles spent 2,084.21 hours traveling, and visited 112 countries.

But besides the enviable acquired frequent flyer miles and countries seen, she was definitely a major player in an eventful four years in US foreign policy. During her tenure, Clinton was an advocate for the eventual US support of the liberation of Libya from Moammar Gadhafi. She also became the first secretary of state in 50 years to make an official visit to Myanmar, building our nation’s alliance with a newly burgeoning democracy. Many credit Clinton’s use of diplomatic resources and meetings in the Middle East that helped broker a continuing peace between Israel & Arab militants along the Gaza Strip when things became violent.

Clinton’s often criticized emotionless exterior was an advantage in the spring of 2012 while she visited the President of China and Chinese human rights dissident Chen Guangcheng escaped house arrest taking refuge at the U.S. embassy. She maintained major economic discussions with the Chinese Government while she and State Department staff negotiated Guangcheng’s release behind the scenes.

Clinton took on Iran on behalf of the Obama administration to win international support to isolate Iran economically. The Iran economic sanctions have severely affected the country politically in the US’ efforts to curb nuclear weapon development in Iran. Similarly, she went before the UN as a major player in the Obama’s administration’s efforts to gain support against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But, even with diplomatic successes there were struggles, the tragic deaths of US embassy staff in Libya including Ambassador Chris Stevens led to Clinton’s receiving extreme blowback for the handling of the September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. As the nation’s top diplomat she took the heat in media interviews and then in the public Congressional hearings in her final weeks as Secretary of State. One thing was clear, even if the agreement on if there was enough done in Benghazi was not, Clinton was grace and cool under the barrage of fire from a predominantly male panel.

Also it bares mentioning, as a major diplomat, Hillary Clinton never let go of her undying public support of the rights of women always seamlessly integrating the causes of women and children into her speeches, interviews, and townhalls across the world.

And if nothing else, Hillary Clinton worked HARD, displayed not only in her endless mind-boggling jet lagged filled travel but in her work ethic and energy in spite of even injury or illness. After breaking her elbow in a fall on the way to a meeting, Secretary Clinton returned to the State Department in a few days with her arm in a sling, working on speeches and trips to Asia combined with physical therapy. Humanity caught up to her in the form of an awful stomach virus in late 2012 that led to her concussion and blood clot from a fall while ill again.

To make it clear, I’ve always been a huge fan of Hillary Clinton from her time as First Lady of the United States. I was a year younger than her daughter Chelsea, when her husband, Bill Clinton, became President of the United States.  Back even then in my burgeoning feminist consciousness, I felt a fierce kinship with her. I thought it annoying how often they talked about her hair, clothes and looks and still do as if that was her sum worth. I found it infuriating that the media and legislators chided her for her attempts to play a major policy role in her husband’s administration.  As a black immigrant girl, growing up in a small Southern town, I understood what it was like to be dismissed for your ideas and feel out of step with the majority of girls around you in your ambitions.  And so when she decided to run for the US Senate, taking her first definitive step out of her husband’s long shadow, I cheered. She worked in the Senate to distinguish herself. And after a successful re-election in 2006, made the steps to run for US President in her own right, a cause on which I made my life at that time. While she was not the first woman to run for President, she was the first woman to win more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history falling short to then Senator Barack Obama.

I always wondered why people didn’t see what I saw, an awesome self-declared feminist using her platform in public service and politics to make a genuine difference in the lives of others.  So it’s funny to see just how popular as Secretary of State she has now become. In four years, her coolness always derided by many as an inauthentic interest in people, is celebrated in a popular internet meme of Clinton in shades calmly reading her smart phone while chaos erupts around her.  Her fun and warm side seen by those who worked and volunteered behind the scenes on her campaigns was finally on display for the world as she danced away the night at international trips after diplomatic work was done for the day.

I’m glad more folks love and see the Hillary Clinton that I’ve always seen. While I’m sure her legacy as Secretary of State will be debated amongst the scholars and experts will be debated, and whether she intended to or not, she has set herself to be a serious contender for President again in 2016. Whatever Clinton decides, I do know she’s has not only made it possible for more women to dare to be a leader in politics and public service but challenged us to be the absolute best we can be and that alone is a great lasting legacy.

Photo credit: US Consulate Chennai via photopin cc.

For a country that built its reputation on the storied rugged individualist, its laws sure as hell don’t match the rhetoric.

Are single people discriminated against? According to evidence out there, American singles take a financial hit on income taxes, health care costs, social security, and IRA choices to name a few. And it goes without saying that unmarried women take a bigger financial hit due to the wage gap than their single male counterparts.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against marriage. It’s come a long way from being a mere contractual obligation to one of spending your life with, presumably, a love match. But it’s not for everyone. In 2011, the Census Bureau announced that married couples in the United States are in the minority for the first time.

At what point do we view these laws and company policies as archaic? Currently, the laws do not help the majority of Americans succeed financially, so why are they still around? Are we anticipating that the single trend will reverse? Perhaps there is no clear answers, but I think a part is that we all on some level, without question, accept that it’s better to be married than not. Tradition, culture, family, and nostalgia push us to seek coupledom, though more and more, people are cohabiting or living alone.

Arnold and Campbell in their wonderful and jaw dropping article “The High Price of Being Single” crunch the numbers on a hypothetical single women making $40,000 a year for 40 years. She will pay $245,000 in taxes compared to her married sister in the same scenario who will pay $209,000 in taxes! The joint return penalizes singles.

They then take the same hypothetical women making 40K and compare health care costs. The singleton spent $189,600 over 60 years and the married spent $165,600 over the same time. A single woman would fall further behind if she becomes disabled.

Additionally, single people have no death benefit that would go to someone. Singles should have a choice to who their social security benefits go to when they die. It shouldn’t be put back into the general pool.  Why can’t a sibling, niece or nephew, or friend be the beneficiary? Just because someone isn’t married doesn’t mean they don’t have family or caretaker obligations.

And single people have less choice when it comes to  IRA’s, including but not limited to, being unable to list another person on the IRA and being hit with required minimum distributions that married folks can dodge. If a single person has a health issue that requires her to withdraw money early, she will also loose 10% of the withdrawal amount while marrieds do not incur that cost.

The shape of our households has changed and continues to change. We’ve known this for years. Our laws need to keep up with the times. Marriage is no longer the bedrock of American society, and it’s a shame that some will get angry or sad or nostalgic about that statement of fact because we need to get past that emotional response to tackle this structural inequality. Unfortunately, little organizing has occurred around this issue. Part of the reason is that there are many types of singletons: single parents, cohabitators, and unmarried and childfree.

Everyone should agree to end the privileging of marriage. It’s kind of shocking that there isn’t more outrage given that Americans who do marry, do so later in life. That means more time as a single person loosing money, which ultimately mean bringing less economic resources to the marriage.  And even if you are married now, you lost out on money when you were single and who knows, you may be single again someday.

If we can agree that the ‘solution’ is not to get married, that’s a really good start.  There are enough awful unions out there already. Let’s not bribe people into bad relationships thinking that it will solve money problems. It’s not smart and we can do better.

Photo Credit: donbuciak via Compfight cc.

Nobody warned me.

When I started to “come out” as a feminist activist – not just talking with friends, but sharing articles on Facebook, writing extensively about women’s rights, and participating in advocacy movements – nobody warned me.

Nobody warned me that friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, and sometimes total strangers who’d come across my writing online, would come to me with their stories. With their problems.  With their worries.

And come they did.  First it was Susan, who had seemed in a perfectly happy and healthy relationship. Except that as it turns out, her boyfriend pressured her to have sex with him every night, and was aggressive when she refused.  She was petrified of him. Then it was Rachel, who read about the tweet chat Fem2.0 hosted a few months ago at #EndtheSilence, where survivors of domestic violence spoke out on twitter about their experiences using anonymous Twitter accounts.  Rachel wanted to learn how to use Twitter so she could share her story, too. Then it was Nick, an acquaintance who sent me a Facebook message because one of his best friends from high school never spoke about her husband, but kept showing up at the emergency room with suspicious bruises.  Another time it was Roxanne, who’d been to court twice already to get restraining orders against her former boyfriend who was by all definitions of the word, stalking her.

And then there were the rapes.  My friends will sometimes talk as openly about the second time they were raped as my male friends will about the second time they had sex.  My girlfriends post social media updates about the sexual harassment they face on a daily basis (often detailing the exact intersection where it happened so as to warn others), will caution one another about the violent and controlling tendencies of a particular guy they met online, or else ask each other about the safety of a new neighborhood – particularly for a woman living alone.

The truth is, violence against women is everywhere. And not just in India, Syria, Somalia, Sri Lanka, or Ghana.   Here in America, it is a pervasive part of our society.  Even for those of us who believe our friends, our circles, are less susceptible to such violence than are others – still, it is everywhere.  When we open our eyes, when we are exposed to what is happening around us, in even the most seemingly unlikely of corners, we realize that none of us is immune to it.  Violence against women has come to be seen as almost inherent to the female experience.

And like the rest of society, the House of Representatives chose to not provide additional help and support to female survivors of violence for one reason – they don’t recognize it as a real problem.

I know what some of you are thinking – the House Republicans were just trying to derail President Obama’s agenda.  Or else they were using women as a political football, and it was all strategy.  These things aren’t false.  But the truth is that just as the establishment of the Republican Party doesn’t believe in government spending or in education for undocumented children or in investment in clean energy alternatives, they also don’t believe that women need and therefore deserve special protection or assistance.

The Violence Against Women Act

First, some quick background.  The Violence Against Women Act has been renewed with overwhelming bipartisan support since its inception in 1994.  This bill strengthens the criminal justice system and provides support to survivors of domestic violence.  Unfortunately, it also expired in October 2011, and with the 112th Congress officially finishing at the close of 2012, the Act is officially dead, requiring the 113th Congress to start from scratch.

VAWA is, quite literally, a life-saver for millions of women.  The bill has funded the training of 500,000 law enforcement officials in relevant issues, established the National Domestic Violence Hotline which receives 22,000 calls each month, and has led to a significant increase in not just the reporting of such violence, but also in the strengthening of legal protections and services for survivors.

This year, we wanted to do more.  The Senate version of the reauthorization bill included increased protections for LGBTQ, undocumented, and Native American women, all of whom are at significantly higher risk than other demographics. The reauthorized bill would have expanded protections to 30 million more women.

But the question of equality and human rights is what is really the issue here.  Because apparently these Republican Representatives who blocked the bill from coming to a vote believe that being gay, entering the country without a visa, or else living on a Native American reservation are all crimes that prohibit you from being entitled to protection and assistance in the event that you are assaulted.  Or maybe it’s just that the crime of being a woman simply means that there’s no such thing as a gender-based crime being committed against you, because your crime in existing means that frankly, you got what was coming to you.

Republicans did not want to extend special protections or resources to these special groups of women.  But the truth is that just as not all men are created equal, neither are all women created equal.

Does “Equality” Help or Hurt Our Cause?

In her 2006 book, Are Women Human?, feminist advocate and law professor Catherine MacKinnon explores the legal difficulties inherent in seeking “equality” for women. She writes:

Aristotle defined equality as treating likes alike and unlikes unalike. Treating those who are the same the same, first class equality in this approach, is termed gender neutrality for sex, colorblindness for race. Its secondary rule, accompanied by an aura of inferiority, treats diffrently those seen as different; it is typically termed “special benefits” or “special protection.”

So here we are with an understanding of the 14th Amendment, or more specifically the Equal Protection Clause, which states that the law cannot deny protection and rights to one person or group of people that is enjoyed by another person or group of people.  If you are alike, you must be treated alike.  If you are different, and you experience that difference in a way that is degrading or violent, it does not defy “equal protection” because you are experiencing that difference in a context of different.  MacKinnon explains further:

Sexual violence seems assimilated to the difference between the sexes, so a woman is not considered treated unequally when she is sexually victimized, just treated differently for her differences. Sexual assault is seen as inevitable. The fact that women are generally victimized and men generally perpetrate is not considered subject to equalization. When women are treated “differently” from men, from sexual objectification to sexual murder, the traditional equality rule is not seen as violated because the distinction made by the practice fits the empirical definition of the group. Women being defined as rapable, raping them doesn’t violate them; it merely treats them as women – unlikes unalike.

What does any of this have to do with the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act? Quite a lot, actually.

When the House of Representatives put forth their own version of the VAWA, the provisions and protections for these additional groups – LGTBQ, undocumented, and Native American women – had been stripped.  When asked about it on NPR, Representative Sandy Adams (R-FL) responded as follows:

Let’s not look – let’s not have a solution in search of a problem … What we have to remember is you start listing the groups. Eventually, you’re going to get to a point where you’re excluding people. 

And that’s the real problem, isn’t it? That Republicans don’t want to acknowledge that women are different – and not “good” different.  Different in the fact that we face scenarios and life style requirements that they can never understand or appreciate.  And that even within that very broad definition of “women,” there are specific demographics of women who experience violence at higher rates and in different ways.

Republicans refuse to understand this.  These legislators – almost exclusively men – who control our government and our public policy.

Why were additional protections and assistance written into the law for these demographics of women? Because these demographics of women are facing higher risk of violence and lower rates of support than other demographics of women.  This is what the evidence shows.

While the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs estimates that the rate of domestic violence for homosexual couples is roughly the same as heterosexual couples, the former are significantly less likely to seek or receive help, and women are the overwhelming majority of the victims when such cases end in death. Native American women suffer from violent crime at some of the highest rates in the U.S., particularly at the hands of non-Native American men, because the tribes have no authority over such men.  And as I’ve written about before, immigrant women face unique challenges in seeking aid for domestic violence cases. Immigration status is just an additional tool used by abusive spouses or partners to control their victims and exert power over their lives.  If the abuser has legal status in the United States, he can use that status to his victim’s disadvantage, often by threatening to report her to authorities or refusing to file the petitions and paperwork that would give the victim legal status in the U.S.

But Republicans don’t want to acknowledge this.  In their view, women are either the same, equal to men, or they aren’t.  But we can’t have it both ways. They don’t support affirmative action because they don’t want to acknowledge or officially recognize that racism and poverty and class do, in fact, play a role in higher education admissions or in hiring practices.  Even though we all know they do.

So what’s really going on here?  As far as I can see it, Republicans who blocked the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act from coming to a vote simply do not see this as an urgent need.  Or as a problem at all really, it seems.

Maybe it’s because they secretly don’t really believe that women are really victims here.  Maybe, like the New Delhi police, they secretly believe that women who are the victims of rape really deserved it.  Maybe they are all like Democratic Congressman Jim Moran, who, after his son was arrested for beating up his girlfriend, released a statement calling it “an accident,” instead of a crime.

One way or another, these Republicans didn’t view the safety and lives of women as being worthy of protection or support.

The 113th Congress

Less than two weeks ago, with the 112th Congress coming rapidly to a close, the 12 Democratic women serving in the Senate sent a letter to all 25 Republican women serving in the House of Representatives.  ”We are reaching out to you to ask for your help,” they wrote.  The letter urged the House Republican women to pass the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act, which included the increased protections and aid for the three additional groups of women. Because the truth is that despite differences, there exists a shared experience of being female in a male-dominated world.  A shared experience that women serving in government recognize.  And this extends beyond even just the officeholders – the Women’s Congressional Staff Association has over 100 members from both sides of the aisle, providing mentorship, guidance, support, and shared professional fellowship in their quest to support one another, regardless of party affiliation.

This morning, a record number of women were sworn in to serve as part of the 113th Congress: 20 in the Senate and 81 in the House of Representatives.  In fact, all kinds of gender-related records were broken in the 2012 Election cycle: women who filed for Senate races (36), women who won primaries for Senate seats (18), women who filed for House races (299), women who won primaries for House seats (166).

And, as has been documented, the women from both sides seem to have a way of coming together civilly (not, for instance, screaming the F word at one another on the floor), to actually get things done.  Women in Congress have crossed party lines – happily – to pass legislation not just on issues relating to women specifically, but also on children’s safety, national security, public health, transportation, and recommendations for Supreme Court nominations.

Senator Patty Murray, a longtime advocate for the bill, has vowed to absolutely bring up the Violence Against Women Act in the 113th Congress. Will her new female colleagues – from both sides of the hill and the aisle – aid her in its passage?  This new Congress is the most diverse Congress in history – it includes 19 new people of color, the first Hindu Representative and the first Buddhist Senator, the first openly gay Congressman of color, and the first openly bisexual Congresswoman, that our federal government has ever see.

Perhaps this new diversity will bring about the change we wish to see in the world.  Perhaps this new, diverse Congress with more female members than ever before, will be able to move forward on protecting and providing for survivors in a way that the previous Congress refused to do.

Maybe we can stop saying that “gender issues have to take a back seat to other priorities… [because] there is no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project.”  Because after all, even with the fiscal cliff negotiations, Sandy relief funding, and other issues that faced the 112th Congress in its dusk, can we really continue to claim that the health and safety – the lives – of women, aren’t worth the effort it takes to protect them?

Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.  Every 15 seconds, somewhere in America, a woman is battered, usually by an intimate partner.  But every day, we also have a chance to do more to support and protect women, uniquely at risk for unique types of violence.

I don’t mention here the costs associated with violence against women.  What it costs us – in billions of dollars a year, what the court costs add up to, what the lost economic productivity of battered women amounts to.  Is it important? I suppose.  But ending violence against women and prosecuting perpetrators and providing help to survivors isn’t about cost.  It’s not about capitalism and about making our country as financially robust as possible.

It’s about women being people and people being women.  It’s about women’s rights being human rights and human rights being women’s rights. It’s simply the right thing to do.  Because women shouldn’t need to be men to be considered human.  For their rights to be considered as worthwhile.

Women are different from men.  There’s no doubt about it.  But being different doesn’t mean being less human.  It doesn’t mean violations against our minds and bodies, the denial of our freedoms or our liberties, aren’t human rights violations just because they didn’t happen to men – that status quo of humanity.

The 112th Congress failed in its quest to represent the American people in its failure to pass the Violence Against Women Act.  Let’s make sure the new Congress does better.

Lives – human lives – depend on it.

Photo Credits: PolicyMic and EMILY’s List

Mary Robinson: highly educated, civil and human rights campaigner, feminist, passionate, driven, courageous and the first female President of Ireland.  The more you learn about her the more you cannot help but admire her.  Throughout her life she has never been afraid to stand up for what she believes in and was at the root of most of the social changes in Ireland.

She studied in Trinity College and Harvard University.  In 1969 at the age of 25 not only she became Ireland’s youngest professor of law when she was appointed Reid Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law at Trinity College, she also stood for and was elected to the Senate where she remained for 20 years (while still practicing law), this started her on a semi-rocky road to try and bring Ireland into the 20^th century.  She wanted to push reform bills through the Senate regarding contraception, abortion, adoption, the rights of women and homosexuality.  She received some hate mail and bad press for her efforts but this did not stop her.  She was more than happy to take on cases for women who wanted to go to court for a number of discriminations.  This included Josie Airey in the late 1970’s, as a result of this case Ireland started to provide free legal aid in family law which was not available before and it was a breakthrough in Irish marital law reform.

In 1989 she left the Senate but was eventually persuaded to run for President.  Until then Ireland had never had a female President or a President who had not been a member of a political party.  Although she was backed by a political party she ran as an independent and when she eventually won the election she distanced herself from them and their politics even more.

On her presidency she said:

“I was elected…above all by the women of Ireland, mná na hÉireann, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system and who came out massively to make their mark on the ballot paper and on a new Ireland”

The mná na hÉireann (women of Ireland) were not forgotten even in her inaugural speech:

“As a woman, I want the women who have felt themselves outside history to be written back into history”

During her presidency she occasionally went against the wishes of the then Taoiseach (Ireland’s equivalent to a Prime Minister) in 1991 she met the Dali Lama.  She felt that as a campaigner for human rights it was something that she had to do.  Also controversially in 1993 she met and shook hands with Gerry Adams the Sinn Féin President and made an official visit to Queen Elizabeth in London.  She was the first Irish President to do this.

In 1997 while coming to the end of her term as President she decided not to go for a second term instead she took a post as UN high commissioner for human rights after being nominated for it by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.  In doing so she had to resign as Irish President 10 weeks before her term was due to end, this would be something she would later be regretful of.  As high commissioner she traveled to numerous countries including China promoting human rights, her term ended in 2002.  After that she went to New York where she started up an advocacy group Realizing Rights it ceased operating in 2010 but their mission was “to put human rights standards at the heart of global governance and policy-making and to ensure that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable are addressed on the global stage”.

Her latest initiative is The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ).  It is

“a centre for thought leadership, education and advocacy on the struggle to secure global justice for those people vulnerable to the impacts of climate change who are usually forgotten – the poor, the disempowered and the marginalised across the world.”

The foundation wants to develop a universal concept of climate justice.  It links human rights with the impact of climate change so it is not just seen as an ‘environmental’ issue.  The world’s resources are being depleted in a very uneven and unfair way.  This depletion is having a negative effect on the world’s poorest countries.  The foundation wants “the benefits and burdens associated with climate change and its resolution fairly allocated.”  The foundation and Mary are truly passionate about this cause.

It is hard not to be impressed by Mary Robinson and all she has accomplished in her life even if it is just reading about it in a few short paragraphs.  She did so much for Ireland before, during and after her time as President and she continues to do so much for people all over the world who are in need of help.  Bhí sí ana inspioráideach – she is very inspiring.

 Photo credit: Oxfarm International via Creative Commons 

Another year is winding down and in 2012 we successfully staved off the reactionary right wing’s war on women and common sense. Women re-elected President Obama in staggering numbers and instead of playing defense, it’s time to move the ball down the court.  Here, in no particular order, are 13 policy priorities I’d like to see addressed in 2013.

1. Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. This would be a fantastic accomplishment for Congress to end the year on. The fact that VAWA is now seen as partisan issue truly shows that the Republicans are a fringe regional party.
2. Effective gun control legislation: I’m happy to see the President’s task force, but am a wee bit skeptical. Concrete regulations and policy recommendations need to be drafted, stat, before our collective attention gets taken over by the next fire that needs putting out.
3. Over-the-counter birth control: Hey, France allows 15-18 year old girls to buy birth control over-the-counter without parental notification. It’s almost like France recognizes that girls are individuals who don’t always have adults in their lives that are working for her best interests.  Even GOP Governor Bobby Jindal made a case for this. Looks like this issue may be low-hanging fruit.
4. Repeal the Hyde Amendment: A draconian amendment made by an obtuse man decades ago that keeps getting renewed by other obtuse and out-of-touch individuals.   The ladies won the election for Obama and the Senate Democrats. Time to push forward and end this bit of stupidity.
5. Subsidized child care: The cognitive dissonance of the forced pregnancy crowd never ceases to amaze me. Got to have those kids but who takes care of them and pays the exorbitant costs while mom works a not- so -spectacularly paying job?
6. Entitlements for stay- at -home moms: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Every quarter a woman takes off to raise her kids is one where she is not paying into Social Security. Time to put our money where our mouth is. If being a mom is the most important job in the world we need to our society to officially recognize that and give SAHM’s a basic safety net when their time in need inevitably comes.
7. Equal pay: I’m very happy that the Lilly Ledbetter Act is law, but it isn’t enough. Let’s get serious about this issue which negatively affects the bottom line of almost every household in the country.
8. Push again for a public option in health care: The Affordable Care Act state exchanges are going live soon. Awesome. It’s working pretty well in Massachusetts. But there are still gaps. A public option and actual universal, government run health care is the answer. It’s less expensive and less cumbersome for American consumers/citizens.
9. Make anti-stalking laws stronger: This is an issue where state legislatures can really make tangible, meaningful change quickly.
10. Rewrite rape laws: Because if we don’t, the Paul Ryan’s of the world will continue to try. And why be on defense when we can get out in front? Again, there’s a lot we can do on the state level to make some positive change.
11. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) moratoriums: This is quite possibly the biggest energy, public health, and economic issue that faces our country and unless one of the big energy companies has set up shop in your town most people are blissfully unaware of the natural gas industry’s impact.   Big congratulations to New York State activists for advocating and getting a moratorium on drilling against an industry that is hell-bent on continuing to operate in secrecy and without normal federal oversight. Again, this issue is being decided at the municipal and state level. The chemicals that are being pumped into our soil, water, and air affect our health and well-being.  This is a public health and environmental crisis in the making that can no longer be ignored.
12. More federal funding for alternative energy sources development: Oh hey, did you know that for a decade, federal money—our tax dollars—were given for research and development for fracking? Yeah, let’s keep doing R&D but for photovoltaics and wind turbines and all that. Wouldn’t it be nice to actually be energy independent and not rely on fossil fuels?
13. Foreign policy focused on women’s security worldwide. Put the book “Sex and World Peace” on your reading list. It is chalk full of empirical evidence that shows micro-level gender violence and macro-level state peacefulness are connected. Or more plainly stated, the personal is the political. P.S. I’m going to miss Hillary as Secretary of State and I might just send a copy of the book to John Kerry’s office.

There it is. I’m sure I’ve missed many more important issues that need to be worked on in 2013 and please leave them in the comments. And one more thing for you to think about and act on in 2013, a New Year’s resolution, perhaps? Start working on running for office. It’s easier than you think. School boards, township commissions, city councils, and your state legislatures need you. These policy initiatives are bread and butter issues that get minimized or ignored because they are seen as “women’s issues.” Electing forward-thinking feminist women to all levels of government helps make sure that common sense legislation sees the light of day and is enacted.

Photo credit: SimonWhitaker via photopin cc

Like millions I am filled with profound sadness and will have to talk to children about others just like them who should be alive and are not. We will all now know Sandy Hook Elementary School for the most tragic reasons. Tragic because these children are dead and their families shattered forever. Tragic because a mentally ill young man killed them, their teachers and his mother. Tragic because it is easier in our country for him to get guns than help for his mental health problems.

Into this safe place 20 -year old Adam Lanza took a 22-calibre rifle shotgun and killed at least 28 people, most of them young children. He then shot himself. This mass shooting becomes part of the too-long list of mass-shootings that we are all familiar with and the  12 murder-suicides that we have per week in this country.  Mother Jones, in a piece called A Guide to Mass Shootings, reports that of 61 cases of mass shootings, 11 have been in schools.

By truly awful coincidence, yesterday, Michigan changed its concealed weapons law to allow trained gun owners to carry their weapons in formerly forbidden places, such as schools, day care centers, stadiums and churches.

I’ve heard at least six media commentators in the past 30 minutes explain how extremely rare this scenario is. I’ve heard others talk about the particular psychological make-up of mass shooters.  There is a man right now, on the radio, saying how we need to find ways to make sure people with mental illness don’t have access to guns. They are all saying how “this situation” is unique. People are asking, again, “Why did this happen?”

I think it really depends on how you look at “this situation.”  Yes, mass killers, one can only hope, have serious mental illnesses that lead them to do what they do. It’s beyond shocking that armed young men enter spaces filled with innocent people with the catastrophic intent to kill them all. Mass killers, who tend to be young, mentally unstable white men, plan what they are going to do, systematically, with malice of forethought. I don’t think young white men are uniquely, genetically, suited to being mass killers.

Many people might have propensities that are not unlike those that lead Adam Lanza to kill so many people today. They don’t do it.  Adam Lanza’s “makeup” meant that he experienced some part of the culture in a way that took his propensity and pitched it over into actuality.

Although we are not unique, young men here are subject to unrelenting definitions of masculinity as integrally informed by violence. We have no shortage of violence-enforcing ideas in our culture.  We also have no shortage of male, particularly white male entitlement.  While perhaps not so methodical in execution, and as truly awful as this shooting is, the truth is that in the next 24 hours least three women in the US will die at the hands of violent men, many of them with guns.  In 10 days, the aggregated number will exceed the number of people, children and women, Lanza himself,  killed today.

Today 28 people died. We aren’t even sure yet how many were children. According to the Children’s Defense Fund:

• In 2008, 88 preschool children were shoot to death.
• In 2009, 85.
• The number of children and teenagers killed by guns in 2008 and 2009 would fill “more than 299 public school classrooms of 25 kids each.”
• This is twice the number of law enforcement people killed by guns in the same period.
• Fully 87% of children killed in this way, in the industrialized world, are killed in the United States.
• This is 42.7 times greater than the rate for all the other nations combined.

This isn’t a “crime problem.” It’s a GUN PROBLEM. It isn’t a psychosis problem. It’s an entitlement problem. Our gun problem is a symptom of a much deeper, cultural one. One in which our national identity is tied to violent masculinity.

Although more men die of gun violence than women, the fact is, that this is overwhelmingly a male perpetrated crime – whether the victims are male or female. Ninety one (91%) of domestic murders are committed by men, 88 percent of these murders involve guns. And, I know, even though this year marks the 25th anniversary of The Montreal Massacre and six years since the Amish school shooting,  most mass shooters do not set out to kill by gender.  They do however, kill as a gender. These deaths happen because guns are readily available when they should not be in a culture that is optimized for their tragic use.  The same culture that results in so many unplanned, domestic, gun-enabled murders, part of  15,000 single victim homicides a year, is the one that produces mass killers like Lanza. They aren’t separate places.

We’ve tolerated too many of these deaths.  How many bodies do we have to count?  What will it take for the same people grieving deeply today, silent with disbelief, to realize that people are being hunted and to stop electing legislators opposed to gun control? 

GUNS ACTUALLY DO KILL PEOPLE. And we have 270,000,000 guns in this country. Although we are not a militarized zone in technical terms, the US ranks No. 1 in the world for guns/per capita, with 88 guns/100 people — far exceeding the second on the list, Serbia, at 58.2/100

Less than 24 hours before this shooting the National Rifle Association tweeted the following victories and news excitedly:

“‪#Florida nears 1 million permits for concealed weapons

“Did you hear? Our ‪#facebook page reached 1.7 million “likes” today! Thanks for being a friend!”

‪”#ArmedCitizen: A gunman retreated from a ‪#Wyoming nail salon after realizing one of its customers was packing heat

“Victory for self-defense and the ‪#SecondAmendment! ‪#Illinois’ ban on carrying hanguns ruled unconstitutional”

“‪#NRA prevails in Shepard v. Madigan, striking down ‪#Illinois’ ban on carrying handguns! More details to follow.”

But, this one from December 8th this one was special. It was a warning to gun owners:  “Anti-Hunters Want You Labeled as a Domestic Terrorist”

I’m not labeling Adam Lanza a domestic terrorist. Adam Lanza was a domestic terrorist. These children and their families, this country have been terrorized by his actions and the actions of others like him – whether they dramatically fire into movie theatres full of strangers or shoot their wives in the head in the kitchen.

We don’t know for sure yet if the shooter at Sandy Hook knew his victims. Chances are he did – the speculation is that his mother was at the school and may be dead. Access to firearms increases the chance of deadly domestic violence five-fold in the U.S. I just researched an extensive list of facts about this type of violence. Domestic violence was my first thought when I heard about this shooting. Especially in the wake of the Kasandra M. Perkins/Jovan Belcher murder/suicide. Gun proponents suggested that Belcher’s gun wasn’t important – he would have killed her anyway. This is a lie. Gun possession exponentially increases the chances of violent homocide. It increases the rate of accidental gun-related deaths of children. It increases the opportunities for mentally unstable men, living in a society that glorifies violence, to walk into schools in the middle of the day and kill 26 people.

Every year, since 1991, the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers, coordinates 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. This year’s theme, From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World, is focused on how the worldwide proliferation of small arms exponentially increases the threats that women and children face.  In the past few years, 6,614 troops have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the same period, 11,766 American women died at the hands of men they knew intimately. Many of them shot to death. Many others, so many children, shot accidentally, “collateral damage.”

What does it mean that Republicans in Congress have degraded and continue to hold up passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)?  What does it mean that “no  major gun control legislation” has made it out of committee during the 112th Congress? Why would anyone persist in thinking that these facts and today’s tragedy are not dimensions of the same problem?