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LOCATION :  “Violence Against Women” in created section: The United States

Violence Against Women in the United States

When the Supreme Court of the United States resolves cases, the court sets precedents in interpreting the Constitution. Currently in the world of legal equality, there is limited protection under the law that ensures that survivors of domestic violence, stalking, and rape are protected. Castle Rock v Gonzales (2005) is a Supreme Court case that denied legal recourse for domestic violence. This case is an example of specific failures of the law when domestic violence is not responded to. There are laws to install protection, but they were not acted upon in this case. It was ruled that a town and its police department could not be sued for failing to enforce a restraining order, which led to the murder of a woman’s three children by her husband. Jessica Gonzales called the police station saying her ex-husband kidnapped her kids and that the restraining order had been violated. The police station failed to take action which resulted in the death of three Gonzales children.

The Supreme Court ruled that, due process principles under the 14th amendment did not create a constitutional right for police protection, despite the existence of a court-issued restraining order. Jessica Gonzalez was a survivor of domestic violence that wasn’t protected by the law because the involved police officers were not required to protect her or her children. When womens' cases are heard by the Supreme Court they often fail because of the fourteenth amendment, Title VII or other laws such as the Violence Against Women Act. They do not go far enough in protecting and upholding women’s equality.

STATISTICS according to the NationalOrganization for Women: Violence Against Women in the United States:

• Women ages 20-24 are at greatest risk of nonfatal domestic violence and women age 24 and under suffer from the highest rates of rape.
• African-American women experience intimate partner violence at rates 35% higher than their White counterparts.
• Immigrant and undocumented women in the U.S. often face higher rates of sexual harassment in the workplace and of battering than other women.
• A 2004 study in New York City found that 51% of intimate partner homicide victims were foreign-born.
• A 2008-09 study cited found that 4.7% of women in prison had experienced sexual assault by an inmate and 2.1% had experienced sexual misconduct by a staff member.
• 34% of Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped in their lifetimes and 39% of them will be subject to domestic violence.

LOCATION :  “Domestic Violence” in created Section: Domestic Violence & Black Women

Violence Against Women: Black Women

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:

• Black women are almost three times as likely to experience death as a result of domestic violence than White women.
• Black women account for 22% of homicides that result from domestic violence.
• 29% of all victimized women are black.
• Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of death for Black women ages 15 to 35.
• African Americans are the victims of 1/3 of the domestic homicides in the United States each year.
• African Americans have a domestic violence homicide rate four times that of whites.
• Black Women have the highest rates of intra-racial violence against them than any other group.

Racism and Sexism:

Women of color have a higher chance of becoming victims of domestic violence because of previous discriminations of racism and sexism. This issue is due to a misconception of racism being a larger issue than sexism by many black women. It isn’t uncommon for black women to decide to focus their efforts and activism towards racism before other issues.

Poverty:

These high rates of domestic violence in black communities are greatly influences by poverty and the economic class. Women who are poor and have a lower income are more likely to be survivors of domestic violence.  Lower income women are often stuck in abusive situations by their lack of financial resources and independence from their partner. For over the past 60 years, the unemployment rate for African-American men has been consistently double that of white men. Black women earn less than black and white men and women. Many women, particularly mothers, experience financial dependence on men, even partners that abuse them.

Reporting the Crime:

Over a third of black women reported one or more incidents of severe domestic violence in a single year. One-sixth of them reported at least one occurrence of being the victim of domestic violence. A 2005 Justice Department study, “Criminal Victimization in the United States,” found that black victims reported at consistently lower rates than white victims. While 44 percent of white victims report the crime, only 17 percent of black victims do.  A 2010 National Institute of Justice report, “The Historically Black College and University Campus Sexual Assault Study," focused specifically on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Findings reported that 14 percent of rape survivors who were physically forced and 7 percent of those who were incapacitated said they did not believe the police would think the incident was “serious enough,”. Almost 20 percent of those physically forced and 15 percent of those incapacitated said they did not report the crime because they did not want to get the person in trouble.

Religion:

Historically and Culturally, African American women have taken the role as the protectors of their family. Some women may feel they must receive and forgive their abusers behavior due to religious obligations under Christian doctrine. In the African American community, most women practice Christianity. Many times this puts women into the role as their husband’s protectors and makes it more difficult to report or leave their abuser. They often believe in God to protect and take care of them instead of leaving the relationship.

Risk Factors

Domestic violence is a factor in up to 1/4 of female suicide attempts. Female victims of domestic violence have eight times the risk for suicide compared with the general population. Fifty percent of battered women who attempt suicide undertake subsequent attempts. In "Risk Factors for Suicide Attempts among African American Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence" Thompson identified many risk factors for suicide attempts in African-American Women. Results showed that attempters were significantly more likely than nonattempters to report high levels of depressive symptoms, hopelessness, drug abuse, and childhood abuse and neglect. Results from the cumulative risk model revealed a linear association between the number of risk factors and the odds of making a suicide attempt. Many risk factors relate to high suicide rate among female domestic violence victims. Most commonly, the psychological and physical abuse by a partner may trigger suicidal thoughts.

Children:

Exposure to violence during childhood has a great effect on involvement in violence later in life. Boys are most affected by the witnessing of parental abuse, and those who witness violence are more likely to become perpetrators of violence. There is a high percentage of men who abuse their wives who have witnessed parental violence as boys. Women who were sexually abused as girls are more vulnerable to becoming victims of domestic violence. In a study conducted in 1992 in Quincy MA, it was reported that a survey conducted of young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five who were incarcerated for violent crimes showed that 70 percent reported being physically abused by their fathers. Almost 90 percent of these same young men reported to have witnessed domestic violence between their parents.

Racism by Feminist Theorists:

Andre Lorde

Feminist Theorists Audre Lorde in Sister Outsider, speaks about a "women's" response to racism, "My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, ignoring it, feeding upon it, learning to use it before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life. Once I did it in silence, afraid of the weight. My fear of anger taught me nothing. Your fear of that anger will teach you nothing, also." (124) She believes that women responding to racism means women responding to anger, "Anger of exclusion, of unquestioned privilege, of racial distortions, of silence, ill-use, stereotyping, defensiveness, misnaming, betrayal, and co-optation." These causes of anger take the power and value away from a women, especially a women of color. "My anger is a response to racist attitudes and to the actions and presumptions that arise out of those attitudes. If your dealings with other women reflect those attitudes, then my anger and your attendant fears are spotlights that can be used for growth in the same way I have used learning to express anger for my growth. But for corrective surgery, not guilt. Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures." (127)

Claudia Rankine

Feminist poet Claudia Rankine in “Citizen: An American Lyric”, uses poetry to talk about race and the imagination. Ranking describes her book as "an attempt to pull the lyric back into its realities.” The realities include the acts of everyday racism like remarks, glances, implied judgments that occur in everyday life. The second chapter of the book focuses on Serena Williams and how racism has impacted her career. Examples include multiple controversial calls made against her throughout her career like in Indian Wells in 2001 and at the 2004 US Open. Rankine suggests that Williams has been mistreated and misunderstood, because of her race. She points out how race plays a role in her career when the media characterizes Williams as hyper sexual, aggressive, and animalistic which has led to the often labeling of her as the "angry black woman". When Caroline Wozniacki mocked Serena Williams "by stuffing towels in her top and shorts" (36), Rankine describes that this had "finally given[s] the people what they wanted all along by embodying Serena's attributes while leaving her [Serena’s] ‘angry n***** exterior’ behind" (Rankine 36). This highlighted the "expectations" of her race.

Rankine uses a youtube video, "ART THOUGHTZ: How to Be a Successful Black Artist" by Hennessy Youngman to point out how racial stereotypes are influencing the lives of black people. In the video, Youngman "advises black artists to cultivate ‘an angry nigger exterior’" (23) which expresses the expectations of how the perception of blacks in a white-dominated society are seen. Youngman implies that it is better to remain vague and ambiguous or "be white" (36). According to him, this is the only way that a black person can be truly successful. Youngman makes the claim that if "a n***** paints a flower it becomes a slavery flower…" (34), pointing out how race is and will always be associated with black people they do.

The ERA:

There are several laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex including the 14th amendment and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These laws were crucial in achieving equal legal rights for women, but they do not protect women entirely. When women’s cases are heard by the Supreme Court, they can fail because previous laws that prohibit discrimination do not go far enough. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would achieve the equal legal rights for women. Specifically, the ERA would protect survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and rape under the law. An ERA could make states meet gender equality standards in the enforcement of their laws against gender-based violence.

Activism:

American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence: The Commission seeks to address domestic and sexual violence from a legal perspective. Its mission is to increase access to justice for survivors of DV, sexual assault, and stalking by engaging the interest and support of members of the legal profession.

Battered Women’s Justice Project: BWJP offers DV-related training, technical assistance, and consultation to members of the criminal and civil justice systems. The Project analyzes and advocates for effective policing, prosecuting, sentencing, and monitoring of perpetrators of domestic violence.

Futures Without Violence: FWV aims to advance the health, stability, education, and security of women, men, girls, and boys worldwide. To that end, the organization was a big player in developing the Violence Against Women Act (passed by Congress in 1994) and continues to work with policy makers and train professionals (doctors, nurses, athletic coaches, and judges) to improve responses to DV and educate people about the importance of healthy relationships.

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence: INCITE! describes itself as a “national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our communities.” Comprised of grassroots chapters across the U.S., the organization works with groups of women of color and their communities to develop political projects that address the violence women of color may experience both within their communities and individual lives.

Institute of Domestic Violence in the African American Community: Run out of the University of Minnesota, the Institute has several clearly defined objectives: to further scholarship in the area of African American violence; to provide outreach and technical assistance to African American communities experiencing violence; to raise awareness about the impacts of violence in African American communities; to influence public policy; and to organize violence-related trainings on local and national scales.

National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence: The mission of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence (NCDSV) is to design, provide, and customize training and consultation, influence policy, promote collaboration and enhance diversity with the goal of ending domestic and sexual violence.