Did you know that there are thousands of missing and murdered Native American women? I didn’t either until fairly recently. Indigenous women are at much higher risk than white women, including the risk that law enforcement’s response will be underwhelming, to say the least. I Googled the issue and found little in the mainstream media. Why is the best coverage in The Guardian in the UK?
There was a march in February to raise visibility of missing and murdered indigenous women, www.movetoendviolence.org/…. These marches have been happening since 1992! No federal response until maybe now.
As a one-eighth Native American, I take this personally, even though I’m not part of the culture and not recognized as Native. Lawmakers are trying to pass laws to at least start collecting data at the federal level. Let’s push on this.
Meteor Blades covered this in Night Owls and I hope various writers and series will continue to bring more visibility.
"Open thread for night owls: 1000s of Native women go missing, and no government agency tallies how many"
Native American women disappear at about twice the rate of white American women, and are murdered at more than 10 times the rate!
“'Essential first step': Congress moves to act on crisis of violence against Native women”
Congress is trying to pass laws to collect better data and combat racism and indifference that has kept this problem under wraps.
I did find one mainstream article, from CNN:
"Why do so many Native American women go missing? Congress aiming to find out"
Coverage of Savanna’s Act and the Not Invisible Act.
Native American publications are better keeping up with the issue:
Indian Country Today: "We can't allow our Native sisters to just disappear"
[Arizona] House Bill 2570 and Senate Bill 1253 would require the committee [of tribal and non-tribal leaders] to conduct a study to determine how to reduce violence, identify barriers to providing more state resources and propose culturally appropriate victim services.
-snip-
This issue was adding to the generations of traumatic experiences.
“They’re disappearing not once, but three times. In life, in the data and in the media,” Steele said. “We can’t allow our Native sisters to just disappear at this rate and not draw attention to it.”
This is probably the best source:
Indian Law Resource Center: "Ending Violence Against Native Women"
More than 4 in 5 American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence, and more than 1 in 2 have experienced sexual violence. Alaska Native women continue to suffer the highest rate of forcible sexual assault and have reported rates of domestic violence up to 10 times higher than in the rest of the United States. Though available data is limited, the number of missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Native women and the lack of a diligent and adequate federal response is extremely alarming to indigenous women, tribal governments, and communities. On some reservations, indigenous women are murdered at more than ten times the national average.
The Center’s Safe Women, Strong Nations project partners with Native women’s organizations and Indian and Alaska Native nations to end violence against Native women and girls. Our project raises awareness to gain strong federal action to end violence against Native women; provides legal advice to national Native women’s organizations and Indian nations on ways to restore tribal criminal authority; and helps Indian nations increase their capacity to prevent violence and punish offenders on their lands.
Read more at the link: Sections on racial discrimination and legal inequality, human rights violations, reforming federal law, and training native communities. Don’t let this go! Read up on Native issues and spread the word.
On to other news. Note that excerpts are not nearly the whole story, so please click on the links for more!
violence against women
“Wife-tracking apps are one sign of Saudi Arabia’s vile regime. Others include crucifixion…” by Catherine Bennett:
Why should Saudi Arabia comply with demands from US senators or Human Rights Watch when, for example, a journalist on the Columbia Journalism Review argues... that we shouldn’t judge?
The writer explains, for the benefit of people with overactive ethics but no access to Wikipedia: “The reason this wife-tracking feature is included in a government services app is that tracking your wife is legal in Saudi Arabia. A husband is his wife’s legal guardian and has control over her movement.”
Similarly, as he did not continue, crucifying and beheading prisoners is, as we have just been reminded, perfectly legal in Saudi Arabia. Maybe, if we could just understand a little more and judge a little less, there could be many more ways of monetising cultural relativism beyond arms sales and techno-collusion with the male guardianship system?
"Girl beaten to death by brothers for refusing to marry man who offered family 40 cows”
According to Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s Regional Director:
The patriarchal practice of forcing young girls and women to marry is a cruel manifestation of the large inequality between men and women in South Sudan. Rather than being resourceful and inspirational leaders and members of society, women and girls are treated as communal commodities.
The father who ordered the killing and a brother have been arrested. But forced marriages, although illegal, are a common practice.
and inadequate response
In Watertown NY a man who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-yr-old girl got probation, no jail time, is registered as a level 1 sex offender (not on the online listing).
http://www.cleveland19.com/…
He was her school bus driver! What, not a position of trust?
“Only one victim” and “No prior arrests”: So he hadn’t been caught before.
His defense attorney says:
This isn’t something that didn’t cause him pain
Caused HIM pain! Well, all righty then! I’m sure the parents are very sorry that they sent their child to school on the bus, causing her molester all this pain. (Do I need a snark tag here?)
“Man Who Kept Girl In Dog Cage, Sexually Assaulted Her Won’t Serve Prison Time”
Michael Wysolovski, 33, was arrested in June 2017 after FBI agents found a 17-year-old girl, who had been missing for over a year, trapped in a dog cage in his home in Duluth, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the victim, who HuffPost will not name because she is a sexual assault survivor, was found severely malnourished and suffering from back problems due to the dog cage. She had also contracted ringworm from the unsanitary conditions.
“The psychological damage Michael Wysolovski inflicted is beyond imagination,” the victim, clutching a stuffed animal, said in court last week, according to local outlet WIS News.
The survivor didn’t want to suffer through a trial, so agreed to the settlement. Unlike the previous case where 10 years’ jail time was sought, but the judge thought it unnecessary.
abortion
Weaponizing of abortion clinic inspections in states with inspection laws.
https://rewire.news/…
As a result of anti-abortion legislation, many state health departments now find themselves in a position of “enforcing regulations passed by the legislature that don’t necessarily have a public health purpose,” said Sarah Roberts, DrPH, an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies abortion restrictions.
“Alabama House Passes Bill To Outlaw Almost All Abortions”
The legislation, called the Human Life Protection Act, would make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion. The act would be punishable by at least 10 years in prison. The bill does not include exceptions for rape or incest; abortions would be permitted only if the pregnant woman’s life were in danger.
The sponsor, Republican state Rep. Terri Collins, said the goal of the bill is to trigger a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that legalized abortion. The legislation also includes incendiary language comparing abortion to the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.
The bill is expected to pass the Alabama Senate and be signed by the governor.
Yes, this is the same Alabama where "Alabama Court Awards Aborted Fetus the Right to Sue Abortion Clinic"
Women’s rights only apply in regard to their status as incubators, apparently.
Hollywood Double Standards
“Wrongcom: why is Hollywood smitten with the Woody Allen Type?”
In Long Shot, Seth Rogan’s goofy loser bags the refined Charlize Theron, following in the footsteps of too many romantic comedies.
Long Shot is at least upfront about being a mismatch, but it is still very much a fairytale … for guys
Speaking of Woody Allen:
“Woody Allen Reportedly Can’t Get Anyone To Publish His Memoir”
Representatives of Allen, whose adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow has long alleged that he sexually abused her when she was a child in 1992, would not comment on the matter. However, publishing executives speaking off the record to the Times said that Allen approached them late last year and that they turned him away because of the “toxic” challenges working with him would present.
general jerkery
“Ugandan mum of multiple quadruplets struggles to provide for 38 children”
Mariam Nabatanzi gave birth to twins a year after she was married off at the age of 12. Five more sets of twins followed - along with four sets of triplets and five sets of quadruplets.
After her first sets of twins were born, Nabatanzi went to a doctor who told her she had unusually large ovaries. He advised her that birth control like pills might cause health problems.
So the children kept coming.
Three years ago, however, the 39-year-old Ugandan was abandoned by her husband, leaving her to support their surviving 38 children alone.
Nice guy. Several expletives deleted.
Military money goes to a wall, military moms are stripped of resources (h/t Ms. McGrath):
Are we seeing the resumption of old-fashioned patriarchy? And they wonder why young women don’t want children:
Halperin gets to “rehabilitate his career”; the women he destroyed, not so much:
Responses range from “Nope, nope, and oh hell no!” and “Ewww! EWWW!” to “When he helps revive the careers of the women he pushed down, we can talk, he doesn’t get a second chance before they do”.
Why do creepy famous men always get second chances, when there are plenty of non-famous people who would love their chance?
Bigger, less tweety response to Halperin:
"Sex Creep Mark Halperin's Apology Tour Lacks Genuine Redress for the Women He Harassed"
Here’s what I would like to see Brzezinski and Scarborough and Smerconish wrestle with. Halperin’s harassment of multiple women during his years at ABC News — he was accused of grabbing one woman’s breasts, rubbing his penis against another’s shoulder while she sat in a chair, and propositioning several women for sex — was so traumatic for some of them that they left journalism. Others said that they did not report Halperin at the time because he was so powerful that they feared accusing him could end their careers.
In other words, Halperin’s harassment was a professional death sentence for many of the women he harassed. None of them are getting career rehab tours featuring spots on a national radio show or segments on Morning Joe devoted to them.
Maybe these powerful media figures could pay attention to those women and the good journalism from them that may have been lost, and leave Halperin alone to sadly whisper his useless grading of presidential candidates to the TV in his empty living room."
Does anyone else find this creepy? People will now be able to express their “affection” for you without revealing their identity! Stalking, anyone?
politics
"Unconscious Bias is Running for President," by Rebecca Solnit:
Unconscious bias is running for president again. Unconscious bias has always been in the race, and Unconscious Bias’s best buddy, Institutional Discrimination, has always helped him along, and as a result all of our presidents have been men and all but one white, and that was not even questionable until lately. This makes who “seems presidential” a tautological ouroboros chomping hard on its own tail….
One of the ugly facts about the 2020 election is that white men are a small minority of people who vote Democrat but have wildly disproportionate control of the money and media and look to have undue influence over the current race for the nomination, which is just one of the many fun ways that one person one vote isn’t really what we have.
“Electability isn’t a static social fact; it’s a social fact we’re constructing. Part of what will make someone unelectable is people give up on them in a way that would be premature, rather than going to the mat for them.”
finally, a little good news!
Follow the stories of four inspiring women who took on history in the 2018 midterm election. Knock Down The House, on Netflix and in select theaters on May 1:
In case it doesn’t show below, link: https://www.youtube.com/…
The stories of AOC, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, Paula Jean Swearingen, 4 of the 529 women who ran for the U.S. Congress in 2018.
“The final reels of this film feel like a Rocky movie.” — The Guardian
petitions
Midwives save lives. One clinic is moving backward. Ask them to bring back midwives!
Petition: Bring Midwifery Back to Mon Health
Guns kill women and children. Tell the *resident and Congress and Florida to ban assault weapons. They have no other purpose than murder. This was launched by the Parkland kids but updated this year and still collecting signatures.
Petition: Ban Military-Style Assault Weapons and Large-Capacity Magazines
As always, thanks to the entire team for suggestions and links! If I missed any, please feel free to add to Comments below! Thanks to Angmar, ramara, SandraLLAP, noweasels, and Tara tAsSW!
This is an openish thread — please feel free to comment on any topic on women’s and/or intersectional news.