Slap In The Face, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

March 17, 2012 Martha Thomases 0 Comments

This Thursday, The New York Times ran a front page story headlined “Women Figure Anew in Senate Battle.”  The story was about the controversy brewing over the ratification of new legislation outlawing violence against women.

This is a law which has had bipartisan support since 1994.  This year’s version is not finding enough Republicans to vote for it.

Is the GOP suddenly in favor of beating – even killing – women?  Oh, no, they say.  Those nasty Democrats are trying to make it look that way by “padding” the bill with extraneous amendments, including extending coverage to gay and lesbian couples, and allowing victims of domestic violence to legally immigrate here.  Republicans claim that Democrats just added these items to the bill to make Republicans look bad.

It is surprising to me that conservatives oppose including gay and lesbian relationships.  These are the people who complain about giving queer people “special” (i.e. equal) rights.  And yet, they apparently have no problem giving them a right that is truly special – the right to beat the shit out of another person.  I guess it’s okay because the person being beaten is also queer, and therefore deserves it.

And I guess these same conservatives think that living in the United States is so wonderful that there are hordes of women around the world who would fake injuries so they could come to a foreign country without a spouse.

There are problems with this law, as least as far as I understand it.  By describing itself as opposed to violence against women, it ignores and further stigmatizes men who are victims within heterosexual relationships.

Having said that, I could still support this bill, and work to expand it in the future.

This is an issue I take especially personally.  Before she died, my mother was active in establishing the first shelter for battered women in Youngstown, Ohio.  At the time, there were very few laws against beating your spouse, and those few were rarely enforced.  The police didn’t want to get involved in family “disputes,” especially when the victims often retracted their accusations.  Especially if they thought the victims were “asking for it.”

Believe it or not, my mother’s actions were controversial.  A lot of people thought that men had an absolute right to beat their wives, and parents had an absolute right to beat their children.  Preventing or punishing domestic violence was an affront to the Church, which had sanctified the relationship with the blessing of a sacrament.  The state had no right to interfere with a family’s private affairs.

While few people make those arguments today, more than 30 years later, the Right continues to be suspicious of any efforts to make women more comfortable in the figurative  public square.  If we get too uppity – if we want to control our own bodies, or choose to have sex (or not have sex) with whomever we want, or if we want to be protected from assault – then we have to be put in our place.  They call us sluts, or bitches, or feminazis.

Or they beat us.

There are words to describe women who would exercise their votes in support of such an right-wing agenda.  And that word is not “emancipated.”

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Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, thinks that these are odd but appropriate conversations to have during Women’s History Month.