niyad
niyad's JournalBringing Domestic Violence Victims Back to Life (trigger warning)
Bringing Domestic Violence Victims Back to Life (trigger warning)
11/5/2023 by Rob Okun
A new book from author Jo Scott-Coe explores the murders that preceded the first modern-day mass shooting.
Charles J. Whitman and his wife Kathleen Leissner Whitman in family album photos released by Whitman’s father, Charles A. Whitman, Jr. The younger Whitman was shot down by police after he gunned down his wife, his mother, and 13 other persons in a shooting spree in Austin, Texas.
(Bettmann Archives / Getty Images)
For many, the history of mass shootings in the U.S. began with Columbine in 1999. In the 24 years since, there have been hundreds of such shootings, from concerts to houses of worship, from workplaces to big box stores. But the first mass shooting of the modern era occurred in Austin, Texas, on Aug. 1, 1966. It was lunchtime on a Monday when a 25-year-old former Marine and architectural engineering student made his way to the observation deck of the tower on the campus at the University of Texas. Armed with a footlocker filled with guns, Charles Whitman started gunning people down, both on campus and in nearby streets. Before police killed him, Whitman would be responsible for the murder of 17 and the wounding of 31. But the tower murders weren’t the beginning of the carnage. The night before, while his mother and wife were sleeping, he had already stabbed them to death. Coverage of the campus massacre virtually eclipsed the women’s stories. But Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman, by Jo Scott-Coe, aims to change that. Published in October, this sensitive portrait of the killer’s wife pieces together the shards of her life as an accomplished young woman growing up with big dreams in rural Texas. It also stands in for the hundreds of thousands of abused women whose lives have been cut short, and whose stories are rarely told.
Ultimately, Unheard Witness is the story of a then-unnamed epidemic: domestic violence.
Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman by Jo Scott-Coe.
In the nearly six decades since the Texas tower mass shooting, and despite countless accounts, it has rarely been seen for what it was: an early warning about the seemingly endless wave of mass shootings that plague us, and that have taken up permanent residency in the American psyche. In the 1960s, domestic violence was an invisible crime. The abuse being committed, primarily against women, was hidden behind closed doors in city apartments, rural farmhouses and suburban homes. Neither police nor clergy intervened.
As a student and wife at UT Austin, Kathy Leissner teetered between her burgeoning awareness as an independent woman, and the crushing constraints of being financially dependent on her husband. She was trapped, not wanting to be a product of the times, even though most men and women then agreed that husbands were kings of their castles. Although she recognized she was in an unhealthy relationship, she had little support, and certainly none of the services women in abusive relationships have today. Her younger brother, Nelson, preserved Kathy’s diaries and journals; he was always there for her. As were her parents, who saw the warning signs of her husband, Charles Whitman’s controlling behavior, but didn’t intervene.
. . . . .
Ms. magazine cover in August 1976. “Violence begins in the home, and it must end there,” said Gloria Steinem.
Estimates are that there are more than 65,000 women killed by men every year, according to writer-activist Rebecca Solnit. This ultimate erasure, femicide, often comes, “after years or decades of being silenced or erased in the home, in daily life, by threat and violence,” said Solnit. While some women are erased a bit at a time, and some all at once, fortunately, some do reappear: Kathy “reappeared” because her brother, Nelson, fiercely protected the primary documents that preserved his sister’s voice. More than bringing Kathy Leissner back to life, Unheard Witness reminds us that despite all the progress that’s been made since her murder in 1966—from shelters for abuse survivors and self-defense classes, to police trainings and batterer intervention groups holding men accountable—domestic violence remains a potentially lethal poison for which women have no vaccine. In bringing Kathy Leissner back to life, Jo Scott-Coe may now be helping to develop one.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/11/05/charles-whitman-domestic-violence-kathy-leissner/
The Constitution as a Homicide Pact
FUCK THE GODDAMNED GUN-WORSHIPING WOMAN-HATERS
The Constitution as a Homicide Pact
12/5/2023 by Mary Anne Franks
U.S. v. Rahimi begs the Supreme Court to choose women’s lives over guns. Even if Rahimi loses, women won’t win.
Ruth Glenn, president of Survivor Justice Action, addresses at a rally in front of the Supreme Court to call on the justices to disarm domestic violence perpetrators and protect survivors, as oral arguments are heard in the case of United States v. Rahimi on Nov. 7, 2023. (Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“The Feminists should be careful in their meddling with nature. There are 300 million firearms in this country, and most of them are owned by guys,” wrote self-proclaimed “anti-feminist lawyer” Roy Den Hollander in an online manifesto. Like Zackey Rahimi—the domestic abuser at the center of the highly consequential Second Amendment case currently pending before the Supreme Court—Den Hollander threatened his intimate partner with a gun and was subjected to a protective order as a result. Also like Rahimi, Den Hollander subsequently committed additional acts of gun violence against other individuals. On July 19, 2020, Den Hollander showed up with a gun at the New Jersey home of Esther Salas, a federal judge who had presided over one of his numerous lawsuits and with whom he had become obsessed. Den Hollander shot and killed Salas’ son and critically wounded her husband before committing suicide. In the writings he left behind, Den Hollander portrayed women as sexually promiscuous, power-hungry demons who “murder incipient beings” through abortion; thankfully, he wrote, “men still have a monopoly on firearms in this society.” U.S. v. Rahimi is a “humiliating” case for the conservative Supreme Court majority because it demonstrates the same disturbing insight as Den Hollander’s manifesto: that men use guns to coerce, control and kill women.
The facts of Rahimi reveal the gendered and destructive reality of gun use behind the illusion of abstract, idealized self-defense.
Every 14 hours in the U.S., a man uses a gun to kill his intimate partner.
Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable: Homicide, principally committed by men with firearms, is the leading cause of death of pregnant women.
Women are five times more likely to die in homes where guns are present.
Men are twice as likely to own guns than women and are far more likely to use guns against women in a household than the reverse.
Armed domestic abusers also bring death and destruction to the wider public: More than half of all mass shootings between 2014 and 2019 were connected to domestic abuse, and nearly two-thirds of mass shooters have a history of intimate partner violence.
Rahimi is the opposite of the noble protector of hearth and home invoked in the Court’s previous Second Amendment cases; he and his gun themselves constitute the threat to life. This is why it is possible, some commentators have speculated, that the Court may rule against Rahimi, despite the conservative majority’s staunchly expansionist Second Amendment commitments. During oral arguments, some conservative justices seemed receptive to solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar’s skillful argument: Prelogar said that while there is no “historical twin” of the federal restriction at issue in this case, history and tradition support the temporary disarmament of individuals who are “not responsible”—that is, those whose possession of firearms present unusual danger of harm to others or to themselves. Domestic abusers who have engaged in multiple unlawful acts, Prelogar argued, surely qualify.
. . . . .
This was indeed the conclusion of the Fifth Circuit, which, as Mark Stern wrote, “has arguably followed Bruen to its lethal, logical conclusion. If the Supreme Court truly meant what it said, then Americans today have no power to disarm those men who are most likely to murder their wives, girlfriends and children.” The sobering reality is that even if Rahimi loses, women won’t win. The Supreme Court’s consignment of women to second-class status will not be undone by the outcome of any one case. So long as the Constitution is interpreted to value the rights of mythical gun owners and hypothetical persons over the rights of actually existing women, it will function as little more than a homicide pact.
The Supreme Court can be expected to release its decision on U.S. v. Rahimi in June or July of 2024.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/12/05/rahimi-constitution-womens-rights-gun-domestic-violence/
The Twin Demons of Maternal Mortality and Femicide (trigger warning)
The Twin Demons of Maternal Mortality and Femicide (trigger warning)
5/9/2024 by Amani Nelson
If the Supreme Court decides to allow domestic abusers to own guns, Black women and other women of color—who already face higher rates of pregnancy-related death—will pay the highest price.
Yasmine-Imani McMorrin—the first African American woman elected to the Culver City City Council—attends a rally against gun violence on June 11 2022, in Los Angeles, California. (Citizen of the Planet / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
It’s no secret that gun violence is pervasive in the U.S. But, its intersections with gender-based violence and its specific impact on Black communities must be brought to light—especially as the Supreme Court considers whether domestic abusers can legally possess firearms.
Gender-based violence is a huge problem in the U.S., and guns are at the heart of it. Femicide and other harmful gender-based harms are embedded in American culture—not unlike guns, according to a new report from the Population Institute. When men kill women, deep-rooted, toxic patriarchal norms are often a driving force.
Homicide is currently the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum people, including Black women who face disproportionate rates of maternal mortality.
In 2021, Black women experienced 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 26.6 deaths for non-Hispanic white women.
Firearms accounted for 81 percent of homicides of pregnant women in 2020; 55 percent of these homicide victims were Black.
Studies have shown that many of these killers have a history of domestic violence and women often struggle to get away from abusive partners, especially when tied to them through pregnancy and/or children.
As access to reproductive healthcare is increasingly restricted across the U.S., pregnant people have fewer and fewer rights, while their abusers may soon have a deadly one: A landmark case, United States v. Rahimi, will be decided by the Supreme Court any day now, and the outcome will determine whether a federal ban on owning firearms for people who have protective orders against them is constitutional. If overturned, the law would no longer prevent domestic abusers from possessing deadly weapons at a time when reproductive rights are under attack and gender-based violence is on the rise.
Black women in the U.S. face a unique double-bind when it comes to maternal mortality and femicide. They lack quality, anti-racist medical care, as well as the resources and social and legal support to leave and be safe from their abusers. The U.S. has a long history of denying Black women reproductive freedoms from forced sterilization to legalized rape and forced birth. The decision the Supreme Court makes in the Rahimi case will have real-life consequences for women, especially Black women and other women of color.
. . . . . . . .
*********It’s clear that America’s pattern of choosing the rights of angry men over women’s reproductive rights must end.**********
Black maternal health isn’t just about perinatal care; it intersects with racial and reproductive justice, and it’s part of the nexus of gun violence and domestic violence. Focusing on this intersection should drive overwhelming support from both reproductive and racial justice communities working toward solutions. Black pregnant people deserve to be protected—whether their pregnancies are intended or unintended, whether they choose to carry to term or not, and whether they choose to stay with their partners or leave. But the specter of gun violence looms large over them. We owe it to them to grapple with the twin demons of maternal mortality and femicide until these threats are ended.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/05/09/gun-domestic-violence-rahimi-black-women-maternal-mortality-death/
"I've spent 30 years traveling, making policy, meeting many world leaders."
Let's see. Puppy/goat/horse murderer noem is 52. 30 years ago, she was running the family farm, had just given birth to her first child. Years later, she was in the SD state legislature. Came to D.C. as a freshman rep in 2011 (13 years ago, if my math is correct) , and newcomer reps don't generally travel the world bullying. . errr. .meeting, world leaders. Her family did not move to D.C. with her. She finally graduated college in 2012.
I was looking at some pictures of her from that time, and she looks very different. . Actually, looks like she and kimmie have the same plastics guy.
She is a liar and a total fake.
Universe, I am soooooo disappointed. The one thing I truly wanted
for my birthday was waking up to the happy news that there was one less particular carbon-based (assumed, never proven) life form no longer wasting oxygen. Realllly, is that too much to ask???
Sighhhhhh. Off to drown my sorrows in the bubbly stuff I had chilling in anticipation of that happy event.
A very solemn day. The anniversaries of Columbine, the BP oil spill,
and the Ludlow massacre.
Effects from the man who set himself on fire that nobody is talking about:
Yes, the man was clearly not well, and should have had the care and treatment he so desperately needed. But I am wondering how much further the system will fail us. How many of the witnesses to that horrific moment will experIence PTSD? How many will recognize it, and be able to seek help for it? How much more collateral damage will that man's untreated condition cause?
'Over my dead body', say Gambian mothers amid efforts to lift FGM ban
‘Over my dead body’, say Gambian mothers amid efforts to lift FGM ban
As politicians take steps to repeal a law criminalising female circumcision, women stand firm to shield the next generation from the harmful practice.
?resize=770%2C513&quality=80
Women picketed outside the Gambian parliament in Serrekunda while legislators voted to reverse a ban on female genital mutilation [File: Hadim Thomas-Safe Hands for Girls via AP]
By Kaddy Jawo
Published On 28 Mar 202428 Mar 2024
Banjul, The Gambia – Fatou* was barely a year old when she underwent female circumcision, the practice also called female genital mutilation that rights groups condemn as a form of abuse.Today the 29-year-old from Bundung, a town on the outskirts of The Gambian capital Banjul, says she will shield her baby daughter from the same fate that scarred her, even as parliament takes steps toward lifting a ban on FGM. Sitting in her kitchen preparing suhoor, the early morning meal before the start of the fasting day in the Muslim month of Ramadan, Fatou shared the story of the pain and lasting trauma she says FGM inflicted. “When I got married, my husband and I faced days of agony,” she said, her words heavy with the weight of memory. “We could not consummate our marriage because I was sealed.” That was just part of the torment it brought into her life. She finally fell pregnant, but then faced immense difficulty giving birth to their nine-month-old. Standing firmly by Fatou’s side, her husband is a beacon of support, echoing his wife’s determination to break the cycle of suffering. But not all women have been as fortunate.
Sarata* is a 35-year-old mother of two daughters – a three-year-old and a 15-month-old. Because of her circumcision, childbirth was also a harrowing experience. Watching the pain she went through made her husband a vocal voice against FGM. But while Sarata was pregnant with their second child in 2022, her husband died tragically in a road accident, leaving her to raise their daughters and fight for their future by herself. In the makeshift shop she runs in Brufut, a village in the West Coast Region, 23km from Banjul, Sarata talked about the lasting consequences FGM has had on her life. “What do they want?” she asked, her voice trembling in anguish. “Men, supporters of this barbaric practice, what do they seek to gain?” she continued, her children playing near the detergents, brooms and secondhand goods she had on display. “I lost my husband, but not his resolve against FGM. We swore to protect our girls, but if the ban is lifted …” her voice faltered, before rising with newfound strength. “Over my dead body will I let them suffer as I did.”
?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80
Women protest The Gambia's plan to reverse ban on FGM
Gambians protest to keep a law criminalising FGM from being repealed [File: Malick Njie/Reuters]
Defending girls’ rights
In 2015, the Gambian parliament took the historic step to pass the Women’s (Amendment) Act of 2015, which criminalised FGM and made it punishable by up to three years in prison – a significant shift after years of advocacy. But recently, on March 18, politicians voted 42 to 4 to advance a controversial new bill which would repeal the landmark FGM ban if it passes following further consultation and expert opinion from specialised government ministries. Almameh Gibba, the legislator who introduced the bill, argued that the ban violated citizens’ rights to practise their culture and religion. “The bill seeks to uphold religious loyalty and safeguard cultural norms and values,” he said. However, rights organisations say the proposed legislation reverses years of progress and risks damaging the country’s human rights record.
. . . . .
?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80
Women’s rights campaigners emphasise the need to educate men about the consequences of FGM, as many still support the practice [File: Malick Njie/Reuters]
?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80
Even with the law against FGM in place, many in The Gambia continue the practice in secret [File: Malick Njie/Reuters]
Even after the 2015 law went into effect, the practice continues in secrecy, inflicting silent suffering on innocent victims like 34-year-old Sarjo* and her four-year-old daughter.
?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80
Supporters of a bill aimed at decriminalising FGM see the practice as an important part of their culture [File: Malick Njie/Reuters]
. . . .
However, rights activists and many survivors of the practice remain concerned.
At her home in Bundung, Fatou gazed at her nine-month-old, seeing a future full of promise and possibility, but one that may now be more at risk.“I dream of a world where my daughter can grow up without fear,” she whispered, her fingers tracing the outline of her daughter’s tiny hand. Sarata, too, shares similar fears. She sees the prospect of the law being repealed as a chilling nightmare that casts a dark cloud over the future of Gambian girls. For her daughters playing beside her, each laugh and smile is a testament to the hope that flickers within them, and a reminder of the reason Sarata is fighting to keep the ban in place: “They are my heart, my soul,” she said.
Video Duration 02 minutes 22 seconds 02:22
Source: Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/3/28/mothers-fight-to-protect-daughters-as-the-gambia-considers-unbanning-fgm
Don't Say Rape: How the Book Banning Movement Is Censoring Sexual Violence (trigger warning)
Don’t Say Rape: How the Book Banning Movement Is Censoring Sexual Violence (trigger warning)
3/4/2024 by Sam LaFrance and Kasey Meehan
The erasure of books on sexual abuse is striking amid an epidemic of sexual violence.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Ma.) holds a copy of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison during a news conference to announce a bicameral resolution recognizing Banned Books Week outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 27, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
In 2021, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey found that more than one in 10 teenage girls reported having been raped—an estimated one million girls nationwide. That same year, book bans in public school districts across the country took off with unprecedented magnitude and coordination. During that school year, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans recorded 2,532 instances of book bans across 32 states and 138 public school districts. In the next school year, from July 1, 2022, to June 31, 2023, a quarter of over 3,000 book bans that PEN America recorded were books with scenes of rape or sexual assault. Of the 12 most frequently banned titles, five contained scenes of rape or sexual assault: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Sold by Patricia McCormick, and Identical by Ellen Hopkins.
The erasure of books on sexual abuse is striking amid an epidemic of sexual violence. The book-banning movement is efficiently eradicating an already narrow space to learn about sexual violence in public schools. A book about sexual assault may certainly be triggering to some readers, or just plain difficult for others. But to make them unavailable for all students—when districts serve students who range in age from 5 to 18—is to cut off a lifeline and put students at further risk. These books aren’t harmful—censorship is. Locally, school boards across the country have excised curriculum about consent and healthy relationships. Nationally, increased rhetoric about “porn in schools”—rhetoric that continues to falsely conflate depictions of nudity, sexual experiences, sexuality, gender and rape with “porn”—has placed extreme pressure on schools and libraries.
In Idaho, for example, the West Ada School District banned The Nowhere Girls, a young adult novel that challenges and examines rape culture, because a community member called it “vulgar and obscene.” The same district went on to ban several more books about sexual violence, believing them to be inappropriate—including poetry by Rupi Kaur that offers a personal account of the trauma of sexual assault and Jaycee Dugard’s memoir about her own kidnapping and rape. If West Ada follows statewide trends, about one in 10 girls in the district have already been raped; while banning these books, the committee did not comment on the vulgarity or obscenity of the real rapes occurring in their state—only the ones in print.
. . . .
Access to information is crucial to addressing sexual violence and improving sexual health. Banning such information, from the curriculum or from the shelf, ignores the realities faced by students. There is strong evidence that comprehensive sex education protects teens from abuse, unwanted pregnancy, and disease. Similarly, allowing students to read and learn about sexual violence doesn’t cause more violence. In fact, the opposite is true: Allowing students to learn about rape can help prevent it, and it can help those who have experienced it learn how to talk about it. Rape cannot be censored away in the real world. It shouldn’t be censored in our libraries either.
. . . .
Students deserve to see themselves in books and to cultivate empathy for the experiences of others. Books like Speak and The Nowhere Girls elevate the voices of young women and girls, and they help teach others about the traumatic realities of violence against women. Rape cannot be censored away in the real world. It shouldn’t be censored in our libraries either.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/03/04/book-bans-censorship-rape-porn/
Profile Information
Member since: Tue Jul 29, 2003, 03:30 PMNumber of posts: 118,617