On November 25th, the United Nation’s “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence” campaign began. It will culminate on December 10th with Human Rights Day.
As has happened again this year, I just couldn’t quite get it together to set down and concentrate on a thoughtful blog, or series. Maybe it’s the depression I am avoiding. It’s not the Holidays that cause this depression. It’s the work that it takes to dig up and newly elucidate old hard, unacknowledged truths again, because for me it’s one of the most important times there is, and I always feel unequal to the task.
Women are still not equal partners in the world and its affairs. The Equal Rights Amendment has not yet passed. Women are not included as a whole in civil rights laws.
Earlier this year in September, and just this week a Planned Parenthood facility was attacked, the first by fire and the most recent, by another gun wielding misogynist. The media has zinged back and over whether the most recent attack is an act of terror or a deranged soul.
I don’t think these acts fully represent either position. They are hate crimes. It’s easiest to dismiss the perpetrators as mentally ill, but it keeps happening and the events display similar markers of hate. While it’s tempting to assign these attacks as terroristic because they do incite terror in the victims, doing so actually narrows our view of what is happening in our society. Terrorism is a tool, defined by method target and purpose. Hatred and desire to control are the sentiment behind these attacks. Patterns of attack follow those and are often related by viewpoint, if not actions, to those of other hate groups. The fundamental problem is that women are still viewed as chattel and inferior by men of all races and iterations of hate.
Take a look at the wording of some of the web splash page of the “Traditional American Knights”:
[….This is a Christian organization, and none but Christians may join the KKK. Reverence for God and obedience to His commandments are the only true sources of wisdom and understanding. The foundations of America were laid by men who feared God and openly confessed the Lord Jesus Christ. They were moral and lived a life shaped by their obedience to the laws of God. The history of the Founding Fathers and of our Nation is the history of a racially pure family. The Klan seeks to preserve that history and family. We cannot hope to be successful if we are in violation of God’s Word. Therefore, we obey it as our understanding declares it unto us.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?” II Cor. 6:14
As we light the Fiery Cross to dispel the darkness around us and bring light to the night, so must we dispel those who would bring darkness into our midst. This includes the illegitimate and klandestine Klan orders I have spoke against previously.
This Order is Racial in nature:
This Order will strive forever to maintain the God-given supremacy of the White Race. To preserve the blood purity, integrity, cultural, and traditions of the White Christian Race in America….]
If you see any similarity with the above rhetoric and what we are reading about some of this year’s presidential candidates, you are not alone. Since it’s men that “founded America” the misogyny is already inculcated.
Simplistically, group-think of the KKK and other bigoted groups, suggests that the “Jews” are to be enlisted to fight the blacks, until their usefulness is done, then they will be vanquished along with the rest until there are only whites. Women are defined by the paternalism of these groups as tools and chattel, even at the same time they are revered as breeders. Women, as others, who do not agree with this philosophy are “collaborators” and unrighteous, to be eliminated.
Under this ideology, fomentation of the Israeli/Palestine situation is “useful”. It is important to make Obama his father’s religion; Muslim-his mother was clearly a collaborator, not worth counting. Most important, after eight years of histrionic “suffering” under Obama, there is a good possibility that a “collaborator”, and a woman, will be elected as president.
Attacks on Planned Parenthood are directed toward a specific group, first, those that help women in particular, and second, that helps a specific sexual orientation, that is women who, for various reasons have become pregnant-meaning either through force or desire have been engaged or subjected to heterosexual acts. Abortion itself, is not a political act; it is a medical one, performed only on women whose orientation or whose perpetrator’s orientation is heterosexual.
The general gap in reporting hate crimes against women proscribes how we view and talk about events that are distinct to women’s services and providers. For example, the FBI keeps categories of civil rights victims:
[2012…Sexual-orientation bias
Of the 1,376 victims targeted due to a sexual-orientation bias:
53.9 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
28.6 percent were victims of an anti-homosexual bias.
12.7 percent were victims of an anti-female homosexual bias.
3.0 percent were victims of an anti-bisexual bias.
1.9 percent were victims of an anti-heterosexual bias. (Based on Table 1.)…]
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims_final
When looking at the FBI’s categories of identified victims, the small number of crimes that are anti-heterosexual is not spelled out on the table above. However, the FBI in their Crime Data Collections Guidelines and Training Guide, the FBI uses this example:
For example, a middle-aged, heterosexual man, walking by a bar, frequented by gay men, was attacked by six teenagers who mistakenly believed the victim had left the bar and was gay. Although the offenders were wrong on both counts, the offense is a hate crime because it was motivated by the offenders’ anti-gay bias.
So, this category is not intended to compile data of hate crimes toward heterosexual women.
Of course one problem with classifying attacks on Planned Parenthood, their providers, and the women that use them, as hate crimes, is that hate crime laws are primarily under local jurisdiction. Not all states have hate crime laws. As such, the FBI, as a national agency, has the best capability of recording hate crimes, even if the crime is determined not to fall within it’s jurisdiction. It’s not clear though, that they have the mandate or funds to do so. The FBI says:
[…A hate crime is not a distinct federal offense. However, the federal government can and does investigate and prosecute crimes of bias as civil rights violations, which do fall under its jurisdiction. These efforts serve as a backstop for state and local authorities, which handle the vast majority of hate crime cases. A 1994 federal law also increased penalties for offenses proven to be hate crimes…]
In regards to the above referenced 1994 law, the Southern Poverty Law Center has kept good record of hate groups as they relate to what we identify as civil rights abuses. The problem is that here as elsewhere, heterosexual women as group have not been considered to have a sexual orientation worthy of consideration under civil rights. However, the SPLC notes in their “Teaching Tolerance” literature that there is a narrow federal statute available but only used once.
[….Gender is a protected class for hate crimes under one narrow federal statute, the 1994 Hate Crime Sentencing Enhancement Act, which allows for additional penalties in federal crimes when victims are selected because of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation or disability.
Though the law dates back to 1994, it has been invoked only once in a crime targeting victims because of gender and sexual orientation – this year in the capital murder indictment of Darrell Rice, accused of murdering lesbians Julianne Williams and Lollie Wynans in Shenandoah National Park. The murders rose to the level of a federal crime only because they took place at a national park….]
When we frame a Planned Parenthood attack as an attack on abortion rights we buy into the idea that this is just a political decision between right and left; it isn’t. This is a hate crime against women, their freedom to make choices, and be a full human.
In turning to the Violence Against Women Act that was updated in 2013, we find that VAWA has inserted a place for hate crimes statistics compilation in the Higher Education Act of 1965.
[….SEC. 304. CAMPUS SEXUAL VIOLENCE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, DATING
VIOLENCE, AND STALKING EDUCATION AND PREVENTION.
(a) I
N
GENERAL
.—Section 485(f) of the Higher Education Act
of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1092(f)) is amended—
……..
(B) by inserting after ‘‘Hate Crime Statistics Act.’’ the
following: ‘‘For the offenses of domestic violence, dating
violence, and stalking, such statistics shall be compiled
in accordance with the definitions used in section 40002(a)
of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (42 U.S.C. …]
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/vawa_factsheet.pdf
This may be useful for educational institutions, but does not address last week’s attacks.
In Colorado, a person convicted of murder of a police officer may be sentenced to death. Robert Lewis Dear was arraigned today on an initial charge of first-degree murder. Formal charges will be filed on December 9th. There is no indication yet whether his actions will be tried as anything more than common murder.
However, Attorney General Lorretta Lynch has appropriately called it a hate crime. Her statement:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch Statement on Yesterday’s Attack in Colorado
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch released the following statement on yesterday’s attack in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
“This unconscionable attack was not only a crime against the Colorado Springs community, but a crime against women receiving healthcare services at Planned Parenthood, law enforcement seeking to protect and serve, and other innocent people. It was also an assault on the rule of law, and an attack on all Americans’ right to safety and security. Justice Department attorneys, the FBI, and the ATF are on the scene to offer assistance and review the situation.
“We stand ready to offer any and all assistance to the District Attorney and state and local law enforcement as they move forward with their investigation. And in the days ahead, our thoughts and prayers will be with the victims of this horrific attack – including Officer Garrett Swasey, who gave his life in order to keep others safe. We wish a speedy recovery for those who were injured, and peace and strength for the loved ones of the fallen.”
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-loretta-e-lynch-statement-yesterdays-attack-colorado
It’s time we call out this variety of hate and don’t turn it into another argument about gun control, domestic terrorism or crazy murder. These related but tangential problems are not the focus of our war. Hate crimes against women are not stochastic; they are knowable. More than that, they can be anticipated to increase in our current environment.
http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act
http://skydancingblog.com/2015/11/30/monday-reads-controlling-women/#comments
http://www.relativityonline.com/home/stochastic-terrorism/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AStochastic
http://www.relativityonline.com/home/stochastic-terrorism/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/planned-parenthood-colorado-springs-fbi-warned-of-threats-months-ago/
http://www.thehotline.org/resources/vawa/?gclid=CNKJg4P_uMkCFY2Vfgod-PAA_A
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1122880?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://nwlc.org/issue/abortion/
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/studyguides/sexualorientation.html
Etc. What constitutes an undue burden for medical services? Compare the USDA food map. Low access communities are defined as at least 500 people and more than 1 mile from a store. With a vehicle food deserts are anything outside of 1-20 miles from a store. Why is it very different for medical needs?
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx
Grab and Keel 
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