[acb-hsp] Pushing Women Back Home?

[peter altschul]

GOP Version of Violence Against Women Act Tries to Push Women 
Back Into the Home
  Michelle Chen, In These Times May 17, 2012
  Women have been under economic assault in Washington for 
months.  Deficit hawks have taken aim at social programs and 
civil rights protections that help keep women safe, healthy and 
able to participate in work and community life.  To some 
lawmakers, none of that is more important than "saving" taxpayer 
dollars-which is often shorthand for robbing working women of 
both their earnings and their safety net.
  The hostility toward women crested this week as conservative 
lawmakers pushed legislation that would gut the Violence Against 
Women Act (VAWA) House Bill 4970 isn't just oppressive to 
survivors; it attacks the civil and social rights of all women.  
By raising barriers to economic assistance and legal recourse, 
the legislation sends the message to countless women living in 
violent households that their place is still in the home.
  Even with protective laws on the books, a woman struggling to 
support a family and avoid foreclosure faces a devastating choice 
when the alternative to an abusive home is homelessness.  The 
decision to break away is even harder when local service programs 
and battered women's shelters are themselves struggling for 
survival amid budget cuts.
  Adding insult to injury, many states have failed to protect 
survivors' access to unemployment insurance which aggravates the 
economic instability that often keeps vulnerable women tied to 
abusive partners.
  The House version of VAWA would deal a blow to immigrants 
trapped in abusive relationships making it harder to petition for 
legal status as abuse victims, and easier for abusers to 
terrorize partners who fear immigration authorities.  Lisalyn 
Jacobs of the advocacy group Legal Momentum told In These Times 
that "immigrant women are particularly economically vulnerable 
and may either be relying on their abusive partner's income, or 
in a marginal position themselves that prevents them from being 
economically stable enough to leave their violent partners." The 
bill also erodes mandates for public housing authorities to 
develop policies to help abused residents relocate to safer 
places.
  The legislation also excludes lesbian, gay, bisexual, 
transgender and queer people from key protections-an exclusion 
compounded by poverty, homelessness and employment discrimination 
afflicting many LGBTQ populations.  Similarly, the bill would 
undermine anti-domestic violence protections in Native American 
communities where both poverty and gender-related violence are 
rampant
  The House bill comes at a time when the country's economic 
crisis has taken an especially cruel toll on abuse victims.  
Although economic troubles don't directly cause domestic 
violence, combined with anger and self-blame, can unemployment, 
poverty and other social stressors can definitely excerbate 
family conflicts and make escape prohibitively expensive.
  The economics of intimate partner violence shape the impacts of 
abuse as well.  According to a 2007 analysis by the National 
Coalition Against Domestic Violence:
  * The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion 
each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental 
health services.
  * Victims of intimate partner violence lost almost 8 million 
days of paid work because of the violence perpetrated against 
them by current or former husbands, boyfriends and dates.  This 
loss is the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs and 
almost 5.6 million days of household productivity as a result of 
violence.
  * There are 16,800 homicides and $2.2 million (medically 
treated) injuries due to intimate partner violence annually, 
which costs $37 billion.
  A 2009 study published by the National Resource Center on 
Domestic Violence noted that compared with other women, "women 
who report [domestic violence] victimization also report more 
days arriving late to work, more absenteeism from work, more 
psychological and physical health problems that may reduce their 
productivity, and greater difficulty maintaining employment over 
time." In the perverse cycle of economic oppression and violence, 
some abusers capitalize on women's financial dependency by 
harassing their partners to interfere with their jobs, or simply 
stealing money from them.
  Efforts to claw back protections for survivors are the tip of a 
widening spectrum of policies promoting gender inequality, 
including welfare regulations that punish single mothers, 
budgetary attacks on reproductive health care for the working 
poor, and now, abandonment of the state's basic responsibility to 
protect women from physical and economic abuse.
  Advocates have supported the Senate version of the VAWA bill 
which contains the progressive provisions absent in the House 
legislation.  But overall, funding for related programs and 
services has been precarious year to year.  Jacobs said, "neither 
bill contains the strong response to the economic needs of 
survivors of violence that would be appropriate given the fragile 
state of the economy."
  The brutalization of women doesn't go on just behind closed 
doors.  On the House floor, the nation's shame is now on full 
display.
  Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times.  She 
is a regular contributor to the labor rights blog Working In 
These Times, Colorlinesddcom, and Pacificabs WBAI.  Her work has 
also appeared in Alternet, Ms.  Magazine, Newsday, and her old 
zine, cain.  Follow her on Twitter at at meeshellchen or reach 
her at michellechen at inthesetimesddcom.
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