More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The world is letting girls fall behind at an alarming rate. This International Day of the Girl, the world must reassess its commitments to girls everywhere—for a flourishing world and, most importantly, for the individual health, rights and well-being of each girl, no matter what.
Girls will reach their fullest potential when global governments comprehensively prioritize their education, safety, health and autonomy.
The misogynist trope of the “hysterical woman out for revenge” is used quite effectively by coercive controlling abusers—and, as a result, some women lose custody of their children and are financially ruined.
“It’s more comfortable to accept the explanation that women are crazy, rather than that many men are violent,” said attorney Suzanne Zaccour, director of legal affairs at the National Association of Women in the Law in Ottawa.
But the tide is turning, as notable cases like Catherine Kassenoff’s emerge, highlighting institutional gender bias in family courts.
Twenty-nine years ago, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), finally putting the full force of our federal government into efforts to stop domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking to help survivors. VAWA was transformative. In the years after it was enacted, domestic violence against adult women in the United States declined by more than 60 percent.
The pandemic set us back, and there’s much more work to do. We will keep working to improve VAWA, and to support the Biden administration’s National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Strategies for Action, a truly groundbreaking whole-of-government approach to addressing and preventing violence of all kinds.
This fall, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in U.S. v. Rahimi, a case about a Texas law that prevents individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. In a country where an abuser’s access to a firearm makes it five times more likely that he will kill his victim, where gun ownership continues to increase and where domestic violence and mass shootings are fundamentally entwined, a ruling overturning the Texas law (and making similar laws impermissible) would be disastrous.
“I believe America stands for the proposition that you can walk down the street and not get shot,” Kris Brown, president of Brady United Against Gun Violence, told Ms. “And I’ll never stop fighting for that.”
The Supreme Court is set to rule on United States v. Rahimi this term, a case which will decide whether the government can continue to prevent alleged domestic abusers with a restraining order from possessing firearms.
Those of us on the frontlines of this battle must speak now. We can’t control the outcome of this case, but we can point to the data and fight for the survivors who come through the doors of our hospitals and social service organizations. We can’t afford to stand on the sidelines and let victims down.
If you thought the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade was the end of the Court’s war on women, think again. Now gender violence laws are under attack. Case in point: last term’s decision in Counterman v. Colorado striking down a stalking conviction as unconstitutional. This upcoming term, the Court is poised to deal another blow to domestic violence laws, in a case about guns: United States v. Rahimi.
The only answer is for women to return to a newly vital project since Dobbs: the Equal Rights Amendment.
(This article originally appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
In September 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed one of the country’s first laws explicitly prohibiting coercive control in intimate partner relationships. On Aug. 10, Vanessa A. Zecher—a judge of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County— entered a permanent restraining order against a man for coercive control domestic abuse. With campaigns for similar laws moving forward in several states, the case gives advocates concrete evidence of how coercive control laws are critical for freeing survivors from the grasp of abusive partners.
“This case is one of the first cases in the United States where coercive control was considered domestic violence in the absence of physical abuse,” said Lisa Fontes, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an expert on coercive control.
“I hope this case gives other victims hope that there is a pathway out,” said the wife’s attorney, Rebekah Frye. “I hope they will recognize that what they may think in their head or heart is normal—that they will realize it’s not. And then hopefully at some point in time, if they choose to leave, there will be a court, an attorney, a professional out there that will help them get out.”
Psychotherapist Amira Martin knew that it made sense to move slowly when starting a new relationship, but after a whirlwind romance, she married a man she’d known for less than a year. After all, the courtship had been perfect—indeed, the man himself appeared perfect—and however improbable, Martin believed that she had found her soul mate.
She hadn’t.
Amira Martin spoke with Ms. about her marriage, its dissolution, and what she learned from it.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed two laws last month empathetic toward people who engage in prostitution, while expanding criminalization for sex buyers and those who sexually exploit vulnerable populations, including children and people with mental disabilities.
The two new laws in Maine were inspired by the movement against domestic violence—which aims to center victims, hold abusers accountable and eliminate victim-blaming.
“If someone is willing to block their partner’s access to political information in front of volunteers at their door, what else could they be doing, behind that door?”
This excerpt from Survivor Injustice: State-Sanctioned Abuse, Domestic Violence, and the Fight for Bodily Autonomy by Kylie Cheung, out Aug. 15, details how domestic abuse can lead to coercion or denial of voting rights for women.
