The GOP War Is A War On Everyone

Tags

fascism, feminism, immigrants, LGBT, War on Everyone, war on women

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The Republicans continue to say there is no War On Women. I believe this is a tactic of the war. They continue to make attacks on people’s rights as they say we are delusional and there is no War On Women. There is a War On Women, but it’s not just women, it’s a War on Everyone, with specific groups being targeted in the overall interest in conforming America to be a homogeneous group.

This is not only impossible because there are so many different people, it is anti-American. One amazing thing about America is the many different people within our nation. This also means that we have many different families.

This is a War on Everyone and our freedom as individuals.

Why it is not just a War On Women:

* The GOP is pushing legislation that says Native American women and Alaska Native women should not receive the same protection or support from the Violence Against Women act. This puts Native American women at greater risk for more violence. Nationally, Native women are raped and assaulted at 2.5 times the national average. The U.S. Department of Justice has found the current system of justice “inadequate to stop the pattern of escalating violence against Native women.” Although Alaska Natives comprise only 15.2 percent of the population in Alaska, they comprise nearly 50 percent of the victims of domestic violence and 61 percent of the victims of sexual assault. By not protecting Native women, more women, children and families will be hurt.

*The GOP is pushing legislation that keeps immigrant women out of the VAWA act and pushes for them to have no confidentiality so that authorities can call their abusive partners and tell them they want to apply for citizenship. It caps the number of visas available to immigrant victims of violence and will cut options to apply for papers if victims work with law enforcement to stop abusers. This legislation gives abusers more tools to use to abuse immigrant women. This affects immigrant women and their children and other family members.

*The GOP is pushing legislation that excludes LGBT Americans from receiving benefits of VAWA. This is an attack on LGBT Americans. Using the term War On Women doesn’t include people who don’t fit into gender stereotype boxes. This means that a person whose gender identity doesn’t match the role society says is appropriate for their sex, might be identified as transgender but may not identify as women. The GOP changes to VAWA do not help them or protect them from violence. When there is no help available, people may not be able to leave abusive situations.

*The GOP continues to push an agenda that does not include rights and responsibilities for LGBT Americans that other Americans are afforded, like marriage. North Carolina just passed the amendment saying the only unions that will be recognized will be marriages between one man and one woman. Same sex couples are not only unable to marry in North Carolina, their relationships will not be recognized under the law, meaning benefits will be taken from them and their children and families will suffer.

North Carolina is one of 30 states to amend their constitutions in this way. These changes also affect families and partnerships where people are not married but are in committed relationships. It affects gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, and unmarried heterosexual couples.

Constitutional amendments like the one in North Carolina shape how LGBT people are seen in the country. If they are not afforded the rights of other people, they are seen as inferior and therefore at greater risk for violence.

*The GOP has launched extensive anti-immigrant laws that hurt immigrants and divide their families. Mexican immigrants in particular seem to be the target for these laws. The U.S. has a long history of recruiting Mexicans to work in the U.S. then kicking them out when it’s economically inconvenient for them to be here. Now, there is a major prison system being constructed that will economically benefit, more than any other prison system has benefitted in the past (this is major), from immigrant detention and labor. Companies creating this immigrant-prison system are informing the laws. This is BIG money and will continue to push stricter anti-immigrant laws. Here in a country of immigrants, this is a war on all immigrants.

*It has also been argued that the reproductive rights being taken away from women will mostly affect poor women and poor women of color. Are they included in the category of women? Of course, but if they are being targeted in these laws that take away peoples rights, we need to be clear about who is affected most to further define the tactics of war being used.

For more on how the War On Women language isn’t inclusive, please read the article by scATX: “WhyI Don’t Like the War On Women”

The War on Women slogan has caught on, and it is a War On Women, but it is also a war on everyone as all people of our nation are affected by legislation that pushes inequality and fascism. The GOP tries to use “tough love” in order to make people conform to who they want people to be and who they want in the country for what purpose, often (if not always informed by economics- and possibly religion).

When will America stand up for everyone to have rights rather than just a few people? Now is the time.

Immigrant Women, VAWA and the Party of Hate: GOP

Tags

feminism, GOP, immigrants, sexism, VAWA, war on women

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is being contested by Republicans because it offers protection to Native Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Americans, and immigrants. They have made provisions to get rid of support for any people who fall within these categories and tucked them into the bill which has the backing of the full House leadership. It is headed for a vote in the Judiciary Committee tomorrow, Tuesday 5/8/12.

I have to ask: Do we want all of the people in our country to be safe from domestic/intimate partner violence and have measures in place to assure that safety?  

The world we live in is a world that does not, in most places, afford equal rights for women. It is a world that objectifies and sexualizes women. And it is a world that not only permits violence against women, but in some places, mandates it and almost everywhere encourages it.

When societies do not view women as equal participants or as equal people and do not reinforce those beliefs legally, more violence is inflicted upon women. This is the encouragement of violence against women. This violence means more rapes, more domestic violence, more street harassment, more sexual harassment in the workplace and in schools, more sexual violence of all kinds, more intimate partner violence, more psychological and emotional violence, more murder of women.

The United States of America is in the context of a world that does not view women as equals. Women who are citizens of this nation are at risk of violence for the simple fact that we are seen as less than or second class citizens. Women of color, transgender women, disabled women, and lesbian women are at an even greater risk because of those identities.

And immigrant women who don’t have citizenship? They are also at greater risk.

If an immigrant woman is in a relationship with someone who is a citizen, that person ultimately has power over them. So even aside from the gender privilege, just starting out, there is a power differential in the couple because of citizenship.

For a relationship between a man citizen and an immigrant woman, where there is violence by the man toward the woman, she is often led to believe she has very little recourse.

I speak fluent Spanish and have worked, as a clinical social worker, with hundreds of Spanish speaking immigrant women over the years, many of them dealing with domestic violence and rape. Immigrant women who are battered, are often told that if they call the police, they will be deported. Some are told that if they leave their homes, they will be deported. They may be told that they can’t do anything without their partner who is a citizen. They may be told they will never see their children again. Their immigration status is often held over their heads.

Many people think that when you get married you are automatically a citizen when in fact it is a long drawn out process that you must apply for.

Immigrant women who are battered often don’t know that there is anything they can do or that they have any rights at all. In the past, they have had some options with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Now, Republicans are pushing for immigrant women to have none.

In 1994, VAWA created a “self-petitioning” process that allows immigrant women who are married to U.S. citizens to confidentially apply for protected immigration status on their own so as not to tip off the violent husband that they are thinking of leaving. Protections for immigrant women have been strengthened in subsequent reauthorizations of the bill. The Republicans want to take that away because they say they think women are taking advantage of the law to get citizenship. There aren’t that many visas given to victims of domestic violence as it is, but not only do the provisions in the bill not add more, it virtually takes those away and it takes out confidentiality.

By notifying their husbands that they are applying for citizenship, immigrant women are not only put at greater risk for violence, they are clearly identified as their husbands’ property.

Without the options and protection afforded by VAWA as it is, undocumented victims will be discouraged from working with law enforcement officials and therefore also from leaving perpetrators of violence to go free. These provisions would eliminate any path to citizenship for victims/ witnesses who cooperate with police on criminal cases.

The provisions are tucked into a bill that reauthorizes the act, and the bill has the backing of the full House leadership, and is headed for a vote in the Judiciary Committee  tomorrow 5/8/12.

With the new provisions, more women will be killed (as cycles of violence escalate), more children will grow up in violent households, more children will have difficulty concentrating at school, more boys will grow up angry and being perpetrators of violence, more girls will grow up to be victims, more women will be enslaved to a life they hate and more women will hate themselves.

More and more women’s rights are being taken away. More women are being hurt and are at risk for more violence. This is my country too. To answer my own question: I do not want the United States to continue to promote violence against any women, no matter who they are. I want my country to take an active stand to protect the people here.

The GOP‘s War On Women continues to rage on. They must be stopped.