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Actress and political activist Ashley Judd speaks on the terrors of online abuse and bullying.

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Ashley Judd: How online abuse of women has spiraled out of control

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Enough with online hate speech, sexual harassment and threats of violence against women and marginalized groups. It's time to take the global crisis of online abuse seriously. In this searching, powerful talk, Ashley Judd recounts her ongoing experience of being terrorized on social media for her unwavering activism and calls on citizens of the internet, the tech community, law enforcement and legislators to recognize the offline harm of online harassment.

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Educator, filmmaker, and author Jackson Katz expands on the issue that men are to blame for the majority of abuse done to women.

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Transcript of "Violence against women -- it's a men's issue"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Domestic violence and sexual abuse are often called "women's issues." But in this bold, blunt talk, Jackson Katz points out that these are intrinsically men's issues -- and shows how these violent behaviors are tied to definitions of manhood.

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As a feminist, writer, and activist for women's rights, Leslie Morgan Steiner shares her personal experiences of being a victim of domestic violence and spreads the issue as to why some struggle to leave toxic relationships.

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The popular video game, Grand Theft Auto V, recently sparked outrage among viewers. They argued that the game was promoting domestic violence against women in such ways as rape, and verbal abuse. It additionally suggests male dominance over women and promotes unnecessary violence among women and minorities.

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Coming to you, right in time for Christmas, is Grand Theft Auto V. It is a continuation of the violence and sexual denigration of women offered in the previous versions of the Grand Theft Auto games. But, now, taken one step further as the acts of gender-based violence can be played out in first person.

In GTA V, a gamer can purchase a woman (or is she a girl?) to perform a menu of different sexual acts that he experiences in first person. After purchasing the woman/girl, the gamer can choose to kill her -- and actually is incentivized to kill her to get his money back. At present, GTA V is one of the most popular and money making video games.

If Cambodia, India, or Nigeria produced such a video game, there would be global outrage. It would serve as unequivocal evidence of their misogynistic cultures in which women and girls are systemically raped and murdered with impunity. We would critique the ways in which their cultures and values are organized around the normalization of gendered violence.

Interestingly, there has been little to none such backlash against the American made and marketed GTA V in the U.S. The release of GTA V has been met with a very muted response. Any criticisms are reduced to being mere moral panics. Free speech advocates, GTA V fans, and other supporters insist that GTA V is simply a game, a victimless form of entertainment.

GTA V is certainly not the only video game, or only iteration, of celebrated violence against women. Nor can GTA V be faulted for actually causing gendered violence. But GTA V's new standard for ramped-up, graphic violence against women comfortably exists in our rape culture, and reifies the distinct ways in which women and girls are propertied, humiliated, and abused.

Violence against women -- and our acceptance of that violence -- is why GTA V's assault on women can be framed as unapologetically entertaining. The abuse played out in the game is not really outside of our cultural norms. Here, in this country, one in four woman will experience some form of sexual violence by the time she turns 18. One in five young women on college campuses will experience sexual assault. One out of every three American women has been beaten, sexually coerced or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Overall, domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women in the U.S.

It therefore makes sense, against this backdrop of tolerated violence against women, that victims rarely report the crimes committed against them. The Justice Department estimates that fewer than 5 percent of completed and attempted rapes of college women are reported to law enforcement officials. In general, 60 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police and 97 percent of rapists will never spend a day in jail. When rape and other forms of violence are normalized, victims are silenced, disbelieved, and ridiculed--and perpetrators are rarely held accountable.

And that is precisely why we must speak out against Grand Theft Auto V. In it's first three days, GTA V grossed $1 billion, setting industry records. It is legitimizing, and significantly profiting off of, America's rape and gender-based violence culture that we must be seeking to end, and not expand or further entrench.

Last week, Target Australia pulled GTA V off its shelves after three survivors of sexual violence started a change.org petition for the game's removal. In the petition, the survivors wrote to Target: "to see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainment is sickening..." Nearly 50,000 Australians signed the petition. Wal-Mart Australia pulled the game shortly after Target's announcement.

In a matter of weeks, parents will be wrapping gifts for our children. If we want more for our daughters -- and our sons -- then there is no reason to purchase GTA V, and be complicit with the many ways in which violence against women and girls has become the comfortable norm. We must call out the very practices that bind our daughters to a culture of violence. Even when those practices include a popular, profit-busting video game that our kids, or other family members, want for the holidays.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-656-HOPE for the National Sexual Assault Hotline.

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Grand Theft Auto V and the Culture of Violence Against Women

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Coming to you, right in time for Christmas, is Grand Theft Auto V. It is a continuation of the violence and sexual denigration of women offered in the previous versions of the Grand Theft Auto games. But, now, taken one step further as the acts of gender-based violence can be played out in first person.

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PRINCESS PEACH: SUPER MARIO BROS. (1983)

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PRINCESS PEACH: SUPER MARIO BROS. (1983)

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Kidnapping is a form of violence. An obvious example of a kidnapping victim in the video game realm would be none other than Princess Peach. Peach ultimately embodies the brand of "The Damsel in Distress".

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Princess Peach Toadstool is usually the damsel in distress from the Mario franchise. She gets kidnapped frequently by Bowser, though she's not averse to being captured by various other villains from time to time.

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PRINCESS PEACH: SUPER MARIO BROS. (1983)

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PRINCESS PEACH: SUPER MARIO BROS. (1983)

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Many around the world have been expressing their feelings about the stale stereotype of Peach being kidnapped (once again) in the new Super Mario game app released back in 2016.

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Super Mario Run, Nintendo's first mobile game, follows the standard Mario formula: Princess Peach gets kidnapped right away, and it's up to Mario to save her. It's for this reason that Chris Suellentrop doesn't want his daughter to play it, as he wrote in an Op-Ed for The New York Times, saying, "the game is rife with stale, retrograde gender stereotypes ... that today are just embarrassing."

When I spoke to Suellentrop, who used to be a Kotaku contributor, about his Op-Ed and the comments he made on his podcast, I expressed surprise that he was so passionate about the tropes at play in the game. "I'm a little surprised, too! But yeah, it pissed me off," he said. "This bugged me more than it normally would because I have a daughter, who is in first grade, whom I was hoping to play Super Mario Run with. Like most Kotaku readers, I grew up on Nintendo games and think of them as the 'family friendly,' video game company. This didn't feel family friendly to me. It felt like she would find it alienating and insulting."

"I decided we weren't going to play the game when Toadette introduces herself at the start of the first Toad Rally," he said. "She claims she is going to judge the contest, and then ends up just explaining the rules and waving a flag at the start and end of each race, like a girl at a 1950s drag race as viewed through the nostalgia of something like Grease."

These tropes-the helpless damsel being saved by a brave, er, plumber-are ubiquitous to the point of parody. I can't get too out of shape about them when, well, they're everywhere, and have always been. But Suellentrop's perspective as a father prevents him from taking it lightly. "Adults can do whatever they want. And they can enjoy some stereotypes in a well-crafted industrial Mario product. But don't feed this shit to my kids," he said.

He isn't wrong, these tropes are retrograde and embarrassing, and every parent has a right to say what media their child can or can't consume. But focusing on old, tried tropes on a case by case basis is missing the forest for the trees. It's like-my mom has this persistent cough that she's had for a few years. She's treated the cough in all manner of ways, to the point that she now enjoys drinking glasses of warm water (gross). Eventually she went to the doctor, and discovered that she has some underlying health issues, resulting in a cough. The causes were deep and insidious and invisible. But the only thing we saw was the cough.

Like Suellentrop, my parents also tried their hardest to stop me from interacting with media that would make me feel like I couldn't do things just because I was a girl. But I still grew up thinking that some things were off limits to me because of my gender. I remember the exact moment where I decided I no longer wanted to work in Hollywood: it was when I realized I could not name any currently working black female directors.

Now of course times have changed, and Ava DuVernay even has her own Barbie. But when I look back on the things that held me back as a child, it has a lot less to do with women in fiction, and more to do with not seeing real life women doing the things I wanted to do.

Suellentrop is aware that this is a small, small piece of a much larger issue. "There are very few women directors of movies, as you know. Women have to fight to win literary awards," he said. "These are not problems that are unique to video games. Video games are just what I know the most about and care the most about."

The effects of sexism-the retrograde tropes and Toadettes and Bowser kidnappings-are all around me. I live them. So for me, I'm not sure the effects of this particular case are worth my emotional energy, when I feel like deeper, invisible causes are still holding women and girls back. Everyone who cares about these issues has their own line where they feel like speaking out is necessary-this very publication, in fact, sometimes reports on instances of tired tropes in video games and the surrounding culture when it seems worthwhile. I do hope Suellentrop's plea for a more inclusive Mario game can lead to a game that he feels comfortable playing with his daughter, even if this isn't a thing I personally am fired up about.

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One Father's Issue With Peach Getting Kidnapped In Super Mario Run

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Super Mario Run, Nintendo's first mobile game, follows the standard Mario formula: Princess Peach gets kidnapped right away, and it's up to Mario to save her. It's for this reason that Chris Suellentrop doesn't want his daughter to play it, as he wrote in an Op-Ed for The New York Times, saying, "the game is rife with stale, retrograde gender stereotypes ...

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Bowser asserts his power over Princess Peach by kidnapping her to prevent any resistance from taking over the Mushroom Kingdom.

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The gory and brutal video game, Red Dead Redemption 2, promotes violence and aggression towards women by men (much similar to Grand Theft Auto V). The goal of this game is to maintain your character's ranking by getting involved in shootouts, police chases, and committing crimes. However the messages toward women stated in the game sparked outrage in the feminist community.

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It's common practice in the world of gaming for serious video game players to upload videos of their gaming experiences to YouTube, usually for purposes of providing tips to other gamers, walkthroughs and highlights.

Last month, the YouTube channel "Shirrako" uploaded a video capture of a portion of the recently released video game Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). The video depicted an avatar (the figure representing the player in a video game) physically assaulting a female character until she was unconscious. The video was titled: "Beating Up Annoying Feminist".

Screen Shot on November 16, 2018

Within days, the video had received more than one million views. While some viewers remarked that they planned to replicate the behaviour in the video, others commented:

The only good feminist is a DEAD FEMINIST

Giving women the right to vote was a mistake

Recent research into online gaming in the wake of the #MeToo movement sheds light on this kind of behaviour, raising concerns about the influence of gaming culture on attitudes of sexism and violence against women.

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do adults think video games are bad?

Depictions of violence against women

Following much hype and anticipation, RDR2 - the sequel to the videogame Red Dead Redemption - was released in Australia on October 26, 2018. Across the board, reactions have been glowing, with players posting fantastic reviews.

But video games and their developers have often been criticised for portrayals of violence towards women, and RDR2 is no exception.

The game is set in the US Wild West and gives players the ability to take control and act out violence towards other game characters. This includes physically assaulting and killing the female character, a suffragette, who symbolises the early feminist movement advocating for women's voting rights.

When gamers upload videos of their gaming experiences, the videos regularly depict inappropriate and socially unacceptable behaviours. That might include beating up sex workers, or assaulting other female game characters.

Following media coverage of the Shirrako channel's video being pulled and reinstated by YouTube, the channel uploaded further videos. Titles included: "Dropping Feminist to Hell & Killing the Devil", and "Annoying Feminist Fed to Alligator".

It's part of the culture

Such open hostility towards women may be surprising to those who aren't familiar with gaming culture, but such videos and behaviours are quite common. In fact, Rockstar Games has been criticised in the past for the blatant sexism and stereotypical portrayals of female characters in its games.

Women are often depicted as being weak, submissive and vulnerable to violence from male characters. Such portrayals can shape gamers' views of stereotypical gender norms, and foster negative attitudes towards victims of violence. Recent research has shown an association between playing violent video games and decreased empathy towards female victims of violence.

Read more: Anger, aggression and violence: it matters that we know the difference

As in previous Rockstar games, RDR2 gives players the option to kill female characters that represent women's suffrage, without repercussions. So, should Rockstar Games be held accountable for fostering negative attitudes? Should game developers consider implementing a gaming block that prevents players from attacking the female game characters?

These are serious questions worthy of reflection considering the extensive history of game developers creating games that allow for violence against female characters. Particularly when the character is a suffragette, a symbol of women's fight for equality.

Backlash against #MeToo

Women and men around the globe are rallying to bring attention to violence against women and girls. The current #MeToo movement has provided a space for personal stories to be shared and heard. But there seems to be resistance to this form of social activism from a select group of men.

A recent study explored tweets posted by men in response to the #MeToo movement that used the hashtag #HowIWillChange. According to the researchers:

...#HowIWillChange was intended to engage men and boys in the ongoing discussion about sexual violence by asking them to evaluate their role in sustaining rape culture.

Among the tweets, researchers observed the expression of sexist attitudes, a hostile resistance to social change, and a desire to maintain current gender power structures.

Hegemonic masculinity, which is the process by which certain masculine traits are positioned in society, serves to maintain patriarchal power structures and justifies the subordination of women. Toxic masculinity is considered to be a form of hegemonic masculinity. It promotes aggression, competitiveness and domination.

Consequently, behaviours of gamers and their comments towards female characters should be taken seriously. They highlight concerning attitudes and beliefs about gendered violence, which are further amplified when pushed out to an anonymous public forum, such as YouTube or social media.

Read more: There are no age restrictions for gambling in video games, despite potential risks to children

Anonymity perpetuates bad behaviour

Anonymity has been found to be an influential factor when it comes to negative online behaviours. It allows individuals to freely exhibit inappropriate and socially unacceptable attitudes towards women.

And the power to openly encourage such behaviours anonymously via YouTube comments means people can share their hatred towards women and the feminist movements, without offline repercussions.

These behaviours paint a dark picture in the current quest for gender equality.

RDR2 is, therefore, not "just" a game, it's a reflection on outdated sexist behaviours and attitudes that need to change. Now it is time to start an important dialogue about why there are some individuals who feel the need to depict such violence toward women, and why others accept these acts of violence towards women as normal.

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Violence towards women in the video game Red Dead Redemption 2 evokes toxic masculinity

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It's common practice in the world of gaming for serious video game players to upload videos of their gaming experiences to YouTube, usually for purposes of providing tips to other gamers, walkthroughs and highlights. Last month, the YouTube channel "Shirrako" uploaded a video capture of a portion of the recently released video game Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2).

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The following article breaks down reasons as to why women are constantly beaten down and violently abused during the 90's era in television.

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One of the most popular, sought-after women on television in the 90s was a new mainstream television character: the Woman in Jeopardy. The "Woman in Jep"-or just "Jep" to her network honcho friends-was victimized or put into life-threatening situations in countless made-for-TV movies. She was a perennial hit and commanded huge ratings. Often, Women in Jep were versions of the "damaged girl," which made it acceptable, somehow, for them to be savaged by their abuser or torturer.

Network executives told the press that Jep films empowered women characters, enabling them to assume qualities they weren't normally given by television writers and producers. Women in Jep could "cajole, demand, infiltrate, investigate and settle scores," all in the name of offing a threatening man-monster, said one magazine. These women didn't need a hero to free them; they could save themselves, and did so in an arsenal of skimpy outfits. Of course, in reality, Jep was a gimmick to sate audiences who wanted to see women suffer and dole out abuse on TV.

Oftentimes, a Woman in Jep needed to overcome a bum rap, like causing her best friend's demise in The Woman Who Sinned on ABC, or sexually abusing her own baby on CBS's In a Child's Name. A female pediatrician "faces the loss of her practice, her family and her freedom" when she's accused of murdering an infant patient in Deadly Medicine on NBC. The wrongly accused baby abuser on CBS, a professional dental hygienist, is beaten to death by her dentist husband. After a while, Jep films began to resemble a choose your own adventure: Fallen Mother/Angry Babysitter/Delicate Sorority Sister Encounters Homicidal Husband/Psychopath Brother/Sadistic Lawn-Care Professional wielding Knife/Drill/Scary Whisper Voice.

Viewers watched some 250 made-for-TV movies in the 1992 season. A woman was physically or psychologically abused in at least half of them, according to a Newsweek report about the rise of Jep, cheekily titled "Whip Me, Beat Me . . . And Give Me Great Ratings." There were murderously jealous ex-husbands, alcoholic fathers, and fiendish sons to fend off- years' worth of them. These Sunday night films were some of the networks best-performing content of the decade. Industry insiders called them a remedy, plugged in when programmers failed to create hit series. And many were supposedly based on real-life scenarios and true crimes. Like the stories of Nicole Brown Simpson, Princess Diana, or Anna Nicole Smith, fictional Women in Jep became scintillating content, the kind 90s audiences hungered for. Entertainment Weekly summed up the fervor this way: "Somewhere in America a wanton act of criminal violence is being committed. And somewhere in Hollywood, an agent is trying to lock up the movie rights, a producer is pitching the story to a network, and an actress is praying that the tale involves a lethal weapon, a desperate woman, an Emmy-nominatable breakdown on the witness stand."

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Hollywood clamored for Women in Jep scripts because they "played well in the flyover," meaning the states between the East and the West Coasts. "It's a case of serial sexual harassment: a dozen TV movies about women in jeopardy in the month of November alone," explained Newsweek. When executives heard pitches, "the first thing many say is 'Where's the jep?' (The second is 'More jep!')," the article continued. If a script was boring, executives might demand that women be chased by a knife-wielding hospital orderly or demonic construction worker to liven things up.
"Viewers watched some 250 made-for-TV movies in the 1992 season. A woman was physically or psychologically abused in at least half of them."
The rise of this genre solidified the idea that women enjoyed watching other women suffer, since they were the films' most frequent consumers. Jep became so prevalent that critics questioned and even mocked the trend. "Women are being beaten, terrorized, abducted and killed at an alarming rate," wrote the Detroit Free Press. "It does seem like there's a shocking amount of this," Robert Thompson, a television and popular culture professor at Syracuse University, told the Columbus Dispatch. "The old traditions have kicked in again where, in fact, often women are the victim."

Not all women wanted Jep. Actress and Oscar nominee Diane Ladd, who appeared in many TV movies, bemoaned the crappy scripts she was getting. "When I have these meetings with network executives, and most of them are men, it's all women in jeopardy movies . . . it's women being abused by Coke bottles," she said in a television appearance at the time. Ladd speculated that women watched the films less because they enjoyed them than because they feared such horrors. Newsweek noted how some 95 percent of television movie writers at the time were male.

At the time, women were rarely both violent and empowered onscreen. The 1991 film Thelma & Louise was a notable exception and a huge hit. The difference is that it was made by and for women. It featured two strong female leads (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon) and a female writer (former music video production assistant named Callie Khouri) who won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Unsurprisingly, many studios passed on the film. One male executive's response to the script was, "I don't get it. It's two bitches in a car."

Another effect of Jep flicks was that they normalized crimes against women. A panel of psychologists who found that television egregiously misrepresented women also discovered that sexual violence on television, like in Jep, "leads to increased acceptance of rape" and "can instigate antisocial values and behavior," according to a 1992 study.

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Meanwhile, television executives were quick to blame audiences for the onset of Jep. "We look to the audience to tell us when they've had enough," the CBS entertainment president said at the time.
THE LONG ISLAND LOLITA
Audiences who devoured Women in Jeopardy fictions were primed to consume such stories when they occurred in real life. Amy Fisher was 16 years old when she became romantically involved with a married auto mechanic, Joey Buttafuoco. In May 1992, Fisher rang his doorbell, pulled out a .25 caliber Titan semi-automatic pistol, and shot his wife in the head. The bullet nearly killed Mary Jo Buttafuoco, shattering the base of her skull, nicking an artery in her neck, and tearing her eardrum. Fisher was described as a "teen girl psychopath." The incident was " Fatal Attraction . . . teenage style."

Fisher's crime became a national headline with the discovery of a sex tape. Buttafuoco had persuaded Fisher to work for an escort service for extra cash, and there was video proof. Eight days after Fisher was arrested, her 28-year-old client Peter De Rosa sold the tape to the tabloid television program A Current Affair for $8,000. This launched Fisher to national prominence and tabloid infamy. The 14-minute video reportedly showed Fisher servicing a client. That she was underage didn't deter broadcasters. The press simply condemned her for sluttishness. "Anything," she tells her john. "I'm wild. I don't care. I like sex."

The story had the perfect ingredients for a tabloid feast in any decade: an underage girl, sex, prostitution, women competing for a man, and attempted murder. It wasn't so much the violent shooting that propelled media obsession, though they did dwell on the catfight; it was Fisher's filmed prostitution. The media cast her as a selfish, unrepentant tramp. Journalists called her a "pubescent prostitute" and "lingerie temptress" who "wore cutoff jeans that fit her like white on rice."

Newsday took on the persona of a sex partner with the headline "Oh Amy, Oh Amy, Oh Amy." When New York Post writer Steve Dunleavy interviewed Fisher's father, he admitted that Fisher had been "vilified in print as a venal, spoiled little bitch" by many journalists, including himself. The headline of the piece was "Lolita's Dad Begs Forgiveness for His Girl." The assistant district attorney prosecuting Fisher called her "shrewd, manipulative, and brazen" because she asked clients to contact her directly rather than go through the escort service she worked for. Her sexuality was Machiavellian.

New York tabloids nicknamed Fisher "the Long Island Lolita," alluding to the pedophile victim in the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. What was rarely mentioned was that her relationship with Buttafuoco was, by definition, statutory rape. Instead, the press romanticized their connection and gave it a poetic cast-an "Oedipal tinge," since Fisher was just a girl, and Buttafuoco was "old enough to be her father," Time magazine wrote. The literary quality of the encounter was emphasized, not the illegality and immorality of it, nor that Fisher was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a much older man.

Buttafuoco was sentenced to a mere six months of jail time. Fisher bore the blame instead, with the popular press depicting her as a villainess and erotomaniac-the wanton and wild slut. "To call her a 17-year-old girl who's living at home is as accurate as calling John Gotti a businessman who lives in New York," the prosecutor said. Fisher pleaded to reduced charges that would put her in prison for nearly seven years. She was diagnosed with severe depression and attempted suicide twice. In her memoir Amy Fisher: My Story, Fisher writes that she was raped at 13 by a worker in her house, and later had an abortion. "So here I was, on the brink of sweet 16: a class-cutting, report-card forging, ashamed secret rape victim who'd been sexually abused as a little kid," she wrote.
"What was rarely mentioned was that Fisher's relationship with Buttafuoco was, by definition, statutory rape."
Fisher had few defenders. One columnist at the New York Post, Amy Pagnozzi, took up for Fisher and criticized the media for focusing more on her sexuality than her violent crime. "Amy Fisher will be made to pay as much for her sexuality as for any crime she may have committed, while the men will get off like they always do," she wrote. Fisher was clearly the victim, according to Lesléa Newman, author of the 2009 novel Jailbait, which was inspired by the Fisher story. "He's going to say whatever he needs to to get into her pants. She has no self-esteem. So he's going to say, 'I love you. I'll leave my wife for you.' Obviously, she shouldn't have shot Mary Jo. But she's abused and abused and then she was desperate to hold on to what she was promised," Newman told me. The bulk of the media coverage, however, portrayed the teenage victim as a calculating villainess.

Fisher's story was a natural fit for Jep, and she sold it to a production company for $80,000. The Big Three television networks ran made-for-TV movies, which the New York Times called the "Amy Fisher Film Festival." The press coverage turned Fisher into a Melrose Place-worthy villainess who used sex for power, and now Hollywood was glamorizing her for it. The films were among the most-watched TV movies of the year. Since Fisher was portrayed by attractive young actresses like Drew Barrymore, the message was, "If you become a teenage prostitute and go out and shoot somebody, maybe you too can become a media celebrity," according to the New York Times.

Joey Buttafuoco's lawyer told reporters that Fisher could go from being "a $180-a-night prostitute to a $2 million-a-night prostitute" because of her fame. The sketch comedy In Living Color spoofed Fisher with a skit in which she offered a seminar called Amy Fisher Bang for Your Bucks. In it, Fisher is too dumb to count the number of reasons to sign up for her own work shop, let alone how much cash she earned. When the Buttafuocos sold their story, they reportedly made roughly triple the amount Fisher did.

Fisher was freed from jail in 1999, but her sexuality was so threatening, all those years later, that it still warranted jokes to defuse it. The New York Times called her a "chastened hussy," still emphasizing sex. Saturday Night Live imagined that the most satisfying part of Fisher busting out of jail would be to reunite with her cutoffs and see-through halter top. SNL's version of Fisher, played by Cheri Oteri, was poised to open up a shop selling "classy tear-away underwear" upon her prison release.

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Excerpted from 90s BITCH: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality. Used with permission of Harper Perennial. Copyright © 2018 by Allison Yarrow.

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Why Was 90s TV Full of Violence Against Women?

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One of the most popular, sought-after women on television in the 90s was a new mainstream television character: the Woman in Jeopardy. The "Woman in Jep"-or just "Jep" to her network honcho friends-was victimized or put into life-threatening situations in countless made-for-TV movies. She was a perennial hit and commanded huge ratings.

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In the film Sin City, Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), plays a stripper who was once kidnapped and tortured by the evil Roark Junior. She essentially played his "punching bag" in which he would beat her and make her perform erotic routines for him before being saved by John Hartigan.

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In the fantasy-action thriller "Sucker Punch", the story revolves around 5 women who come together to battle certain enemies through sexy violence. The film depicts the realities of abuse towards women and the social issues women face in everyday life.

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'Sucker Punch' a Third Wave Feminist Perspective

Victoria Hungerford

Image Courtesy Of: www.movie-list.com

At first glance, Sucker Punch, directed by Zack Snyder, seems like your average over-sexed movie, filled with the tired image of sexy dominatrixes. Entering into Sucker Punch, I had this idea of the film, especially after watching trailers that affirmed my thoughts. As I sat in the audience staring at the big screen, I realized this movie was much more than that. Analyzing the movie from a feminist perspective, I began to understand that Sucker Punch was trying to show a tale to viewers that they don't want to hear-a story filled with violence towards women, objectification and learning to cope in a world filled with sexual violence. Sucker Punch is forcing the audience to deal with social issues that we often want to forget about, the sexual abuse of women in mental institutions, the internalized objectification of women and the ways in which women cope with sexual violence.

Sucker Punch deals with varying levels of fantasy or reality (depending on how you look at it). We have the reality of the mental institution where women are physically, sexually and verbally abused by the male workers who are supposed to protect them. This is a historical reality; women during the early 20th century and arguably in this century as well, have experienced sexual violence in mental institutions.

Like Baby Doll (Emily Browning), women were often disposed of and placed in mental institutions when they were no longer needed, wanted, or when they transgressed what was deemed socially acceptable. Women in these categories were often lesbians, refused to be married, were gender non-conformists or were one of the other supposed mental "ills" of the time. Baby Doll finds herself in a mental institution because she was trying to protect her little sister from being raped by her stepfather. In doing so, she shoots a gun, misses the stepfather and the bullet mistakenly slides into her innocent little sister.

Sucker Punch is hard to watch at times, and its subject matter is uncomfortable. In Sucker Punch, we are faced with the reality of sexual violence and mistreatment of women. This reality is never actually shown, but the undertones are so obviously there that the average person would rather shield their eyes from the social problems of our world, as represented through the movie, than actively engage and think critically about these issues.

The costuming has been extremely problematic because the ways in which the women are dressed can be read as sexual objectification. Baby Doll is dressed in a schoolgirl outfit; others are dressed in skin tight leather and cleavage-revealing attire. These women are dressed provocatively when they are in the fantasy level of the Bordello. They are prostitutes of the 1940s and dressed as so. However, they are not objectified, and they are not gazed at through a sexualized lens. Instead, the audience never sees any element of the classic "tits and ass" shots. They wear clothes, but a desiring audience's fantasies are never satisfied with the soft-core porn images of boob close-ups, panty shots, etc. This is where the film is brilliant because it is critiquing the very fantasy levels of nerd-boys and nerd-girls who love seeing women dressed and objectified in these outfits. Snyder refuses to allow for that form of objectification.

It's important when watching this film to know when to take it seriously and when to sit back and let the movie take you over. In the third level of the movie in which the women must fight their way for their prize, all of us comic book/anime and video game fans can enjoy these sequences for the mere entertainment. We see these women fighting zombie Nazis, Cyborgs, Dragons and oversized Samurai. We see classic iconography that makes the inner nerd squeal with excitement. The action scenes did not disappoint.

The social commentary during this level of fantasy is complicated. On one hand, these women are controlling their life by gaining the elements of escape, yet they are told by a male authority what to do and where to get it. Even in a third level of fantasy, these women are still part of an institution of patriarchy, however, it is not without agency and they are able to navigate in this world with power.

At first watch, Sucker Punch can be easily misread as pornographic action garbage. However, once a critical lens is applied, we can begin to understand the film as a complicated historical representation of gender issues in American society. What fails is that Snyder wants to show a non-mainstream blockbuster to a blockbuster audience, masking the actual subject matter in the theatrical trailers as a mere action flick instead of showing a prospective audience what it is really about- the ways in which women cope with abuse.

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'Sucker Punch' a Third Wave Feminist Perspective Victoria Hungerford Image Courtesy Of: www.movie-list.com At first glance, Sucker Punch, directed by Zack Snyder, seems like your average over-sexed movie, filled with the tired image of sexy dominatrixes. Entering into Sucker Punch, I had this idea of the film, especially after watching trailers that affirmed my thoughts.

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The Girls: Babydoll, Sweet Pea, Rocket, Amber & Blondie

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VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN REAL LIFE & FILM: ONE PAGER

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VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN REAL LIFE & FILM: ONE PAGER

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Here is my creative project.

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The following link describes the information regarding the stats on women being abused by their partner.

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Introduction Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Rape and Sexual Violence Violence and Safety Among Teen Girls Violence and Harassment in the Workplace Violence and Safety Among LGBT Women and Youth Human Trafficking The Consequences of Violence and Abuse Toward the Creation of Safer Communities Appendix Tables
Over the last few decades, the nation has made considerable progress in addressing the violence and abuse many women experience at the hands of partners, acquaintances, and strangers. Since the 1970s, the movement to end partner abuse has led to many reforms in the United States (and worldwide) on the part of federal agencies, the criminal justice system, child welfare programs, and others that have increased protections for women and children ( Aron and Olson 1997; Stark 2012a).

This report examines many of the major topics that advocates in this area have prioritized, including intimate partner violence and abuse, rape and sexual assault, stalking, workplace violence and sexual harassment, teen dating violence and bullying, gun violence, and human trafficking. Because quantitative data on these issues are limited, especially at the state level, the report provides an overview of available data but does not rank the states on selected indicators or calculate a composite index. (IWPR hopes to develop a composite index in this area in the future and to address additional issues in the field, including military sexual assault and immigrant women's experiences with violence and harassment.) The report also considers state laws intended to protect survivors, where information on these laws has been compiled and analyzed by experts in the field. Such laws may increase women's safety but may also fall short of providing the full range of protections that women need.

The Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse

Domestic (or intimate partner) violence is a pattern of behavior in which one person seeks to isolate, dominate, and control the other through psychological, sexual, and/or physical abuse ( Breiding et al. 2014). According to analysis of the 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), nearly one in three women (31.5 percent) experiences physical violence by an intimate partner at some point in her lifetime. A smaller, but still substantial, share experience partner stalking (9.2 percent), rape (8.8 percent), or other sexual violence by an intimate partner (15.8 percent; Figure 7.1). In addition, nearly half of all women experience, at some point in their lifetimes, psychological aggression from an intimate partner. This aggression-which is arguably the most harmful component of intimate partner violence ( Stark 2012b)-includes both expressive aggression, such as name calling, and attempts to monitor, threaten, or control their partner's behavior ( Figure 7.1).

Figure 7.1. Lifetime Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Among Women by Type of Violence, United States, 2011

Note: Women aged 18 and older.

Source: Breiding et al. 2014. Compiled by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

Intimate Partner Violence by Race and Ethnicity

The prevalence of intimate partner violence and abuse varies across the largest racial and ethnic groups. Nationally, it is estimated that more than half of Native American and multiracial women, more than four in ten black women, three in ten white and Hispanic women, and three in twenty Asian/Pacific Islander women ( Figure 7.2) have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner ( Figure 7.2). An even higher proportion have experienced psychological aggression: more than six in ten Native American and multiracial women report having experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner, as have more than half of black women, more than four in ten white and Hispanic women, and three in ten Asian/Pacific Islander women ( Figure 7.2).

Figure 7.2. Lifetime Prevalence of Physical Violence and Psychological Aggression by an Intimate Partner Among Women, by Race/Ethnicity, United States, 2011

Notes: Women aged 18 and older. Only whites and blacks are non-Hispanic. Hispanics may be of any race or two or more races.

Source: Breiding et al. 2014. Compiled by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

Sexual violence within intimate partner relationships also affects a disturbingly large share of the population. Breiding et al. ( 2014) estimate that about 11 percent of women who identify with two or more races, 10 percent of white women, 9 percent of black women, and 6 percent of Hispanic women have experienced rape by an intimate partner. A larger proportion-27 percent of multiracial women, 17 percent of black and white women, and 10 percent of Hispanic women-have experienced sexual violence other than rape by an intimate partner ( Breiding et al. 2014). Data on sexual violence other than rape are not available for Asian/Pacific Islander or Native American women.

Intimate Partner Violence and Older Women

Violence and abuse can affect women of all ages, including in the later stages of life. One study analyzing data from the National Crime Victimization Survey-which focuses on violent crime, not including economic domination or psychological abuse-found that the rate for IPV victimization among older women (aged 50 and older) in the United States is 1.3 per 1,000; while this rate is much lower than the victimization rate for younger women (9.7 per 1,000 women aged 18-24, 12.1 per 1,000 women aged 25-34, and 9.6 per 1,000 women aged 35-49; Catalano 2012a), the prevalence of elder IPV may be higher than the social science literature reports ( Rennison and Rand 2003). In addition, older women are also at risk for other forms of family violence, including abuse from adult children and from other institutional and noninstitutional caregivers. One statewide study found that unlike younger women, older women were more likely to be abused by nonintimate family members than intimate partners ( Klein et al. 2008).

Older women who experience intimate partner or family violence and abuse may face challenges in accessing services and extricating themselves from abusive situations. Adult protective services in all states serve older women who are abused, yet these services focus primarily on frail elderly victims, and most abuse cases do not come to their attention. Shelters and services for abused women are also generally set up to address the needs of younger women with children ( Brandl and Cook-Daniels 2011). In addition, older women-who may have been out of the workforce for some time or lack the skills to obtain a living-wage job-may find that leaving their abusive spouse could leave them without financial security and health insurance, at a time when they most need it ( Rennison and Rand 2003). Older women who experience violence and abuse may have even fewer options than their younger counterparts.

Intimate Partner Violence and Reproductive Health

Domestic and sexual violence also puts women and girls at higher risk of sexually transmitted infections and HIV ( Decker, Silverman, and Raj 2005; Sareen, Pagura, and Grant 2009; Wingood, DiClemente, and Raj 2000). One study analyzing data from ninth through twelfth grade girls participating in the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveys found that among girls who have been diagnosed with HIV or another sexually transmitted infection, more than half reported having experienced physical or sexual intimate partner violence. Girls experiencing this violence were 2.6 times more likely than nonabused girls to report an STD diagnosis ( Decker, Silverman, and Raj 2005).

Domestic Violence Fatality Review Teams

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice awarded $2.3 million to 12 sites across the country as part of a Domestic Violence Homicide Prevention Demonstration Initiative (DVHP Initiative). Modeled after programs in Maryland and Massachusetts where coordinated teams of service providers, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and health professionals worked together to reduce the domestic violence homicide rate-the initiative aims to identify women who may be in fatally abusive relationships and to monitor high-risk offenders ( The White House 2013).

Policies to Address Violence Against Women

Since the 1970s, the movement to end partner abuse has led to many reforms in the United States that help to protect survivors, including criminalizing physical abuse by partners, developing sanctions to hold offenders accountable, and opening emergency shelters that provide supports for victims and their children ( Stark 2012a). In addition, child welfare agencies have integrated domestic violence concerns into their services ( Aron and Olson 1997), and states across the nation have implemented a range of legal protections for victims of violence. These protections include laws related to stalking offenses, limitations on gun access for perpetrators of intimate partner violence, civil protection orders, and statutes to protect the employment rights of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking victims, among others.

The most recent reauthorization of VAWA, which was signed into law in March 2013, extends provisions for victims in multiple ways ( Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013). For example, it explicitly includes members of LGBT communities among those eligible for VAWA programs and increases protections for Native American women by empowering tribal authorities to prosecute non-Native American residents who commit crimes on tribal land ( National Network to End Domestic Violence 2013a). In addition, VAWA 2013 adds stalking to the list of crimes that make undocumented immigrants eligible for protection ( National Organization for Women 2013) and requires colleges and universities to report statistics on domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking in the annual security report that each institution must issue under the Jeanne Clery Act ( American Council on Education 2014).

Unmet Needs for Services and Supports

While many domestic violence victims seek assistance from anti-violence programs and services in their local areas, services are not always available to them. In September 2013, the National Network to End Domestic Violence conducted its annual one-day count of domestic violence shelters and services across the country ( National Network to End Domestic Violence 2013b). Nationally, 87 percent of all identified local domestic violence service programs were surveyed (1,649 out of 1,905). The programs surveyed served 66,581 adults and children in a single day, offering services such as individual and/or children's support or advocacy, emergency shelter, court or legal services, and transportation services. On that one day, 9,641 requests for services went unmet, 60 percent (5,778) of which were for housing. Multiple factors contribute to these unmet needs, including reduced funding for domestic violence services and lack of staff resources to administer them ( National Network to End Domestic Violence 2013b). The number of unmet needs varies greatly by state, with states that have larger population sizes generally having more instances of unmet needs.

Domestic Violence and Child Custody Cases

Domestic violence can be minimized or discounted in decisions about custody and visitation in multiple ways. One study found that some courts allow "friendly parent principles"-which give preference to the parent who is more likely to support an ongoing relationship between the child and the other parent-to take precedence over allegations of abuse (Morrill et al. 2005). In addition, research indicates that some custody evaluators lack expertise in domestic violence and fail to report or to adequately assess the nature and effects of this abuse when making their recommendations ( Davis et al. 2011; Pence et al. 2012; Saunders, Faller, and Tolman 2011), which play an important role in informing court decisions ( Bruch 2002; Saunders, Faller, and Tolman 2011). Evaluators who do consider domestic violence sometimes focus only on physical violence and fail to see a broader pattern of domination and control ( Pence et al. 2012). One study that interviewed 23 custody evaluators across the United States found that those who recognized that physical domestic violence could be part of a broader pattern of control were more likely to endorse specific safeguards to protect children-such as supervised visitation, neutral and public drop-off and pick-up locations, and no visitation when safety could not be ensured-than those who held a more incident-based view of domestic violence ( Haselschwerdt, Hardesty, and Hans 2011).

Basic Statistics on Rape and Sexual Violence

Sexual violence and rape are alarmingly common and pose a serious threat to women's health and well-being. One study analyzing data from the 2011 NISVS found that in the United States, 19.3 percent of women are raped at some time in their lives, and 43.9 percent experience sexual violence other than rape ( Breiding et al. 2014). Often, the perpetrator is someone the victim knows: almost half of the female rape victims surveyed (46.7 percent) said they had at least one perpetrator who was an acquaintance, and a similar proportion (45.4 percent) said they had least one perpetrator who was an intimate partner ( Breiding et al. 2014).

Nearly eight in ten female rape victims were first raped before age 25, and approximately 40 percent were raped before age 18 ( Breiding et al. 2014). Victimization at a young age is associated with revictimization later in life. One report analyzing the 2010 NISVS found that more than one-third of women who were raped as minors were also raped as adults, compared with 14 percent of women who had no history of victimization prior to adulthood ( Black et al. 2011).

Rape and Sexual Violence by Race and Ethnicity

Multiracial and Native American women are more likely to experience rape and sexual violence than other groups of women. Estimates suggest that nearly a third (32.3 percent) of multiracial women, and 27.5 percent of Native American women, are raped at some point in their lifetimes ( Figure 7.3). Approximately 64.1 percent of multiracial women and 55.0 percent of Native American women are estimated to have experienced sexual violence other than rape, compared with 46.9 percent of white women, 38.2 percent of black women, 35.6 percent of Hispanic women, and 31.9 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander women ( Breiding et al. 2014).

Figure 7.3. Lifetime Prevalence of Sexual Violence Victimization by Any Perpetrator Among Women, by Race and Ethnicity, United States, 2011

Notes: Only whites and blacks are non-Hispanic. Hispanics may be of any race or two or more races. Data on rape are not available for Asian/Pacific Islanders due to insufficient sample sizes.

Source: IWPR compilation of data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey based on Breiding et al. 2014.

Sexual Violence on College Campuses

The vast majority of campus sexual assaults are not reported to law enforcement. One study that analyzed data from the National Crime Victimization Survey found that between 1995 and 2013, 80 percent of sexual assaults and rapes of female students aged 18 to 24 were not reported to the police. Twenty-six percent of female students who did not report said they felt the incident was a personal matter, 20 percent cited fear of reprisal, 12 percent said they did not think the incident was important enough to report, 10 percent indicated they did not want the offender to get in trouble with the law, and 9 percent said they believed the police would not or could not do anything to help, among other reasons ( Sinozich and Langton 2014). Another study found even lower rates of reporting, with just 2.1 percent of incapacitated (i.e. drunk, drugged, passed out, or otherwise incapacitated) sexual assault victims and 12.9 percent of physically forced sexual assault victims reporting the incident to the police or campus security ( Krebs et al. 2007).

While such federal action is promising, additional steps can be taken to increase the safety of students on college campuses. A report prepared by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight surveyed 440 four-year institutions of higher education and found that while federal law requires an institution to investigate instances of sexual violence, 40 percent of institutions had not conducted a single investigation in the past five years. The report also found inadequate sexual assault response training for faculty and students; a lack of trained and coordinated law enforcement; failure to adopt policies proven to encourage reporting, such as allowing reports to be made via hotline or website; failure to comply with requirements and best practices for adjudication; and a lack of adequate services for survivors ( U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight 2014).

Bullying, Harassment, and Teen Dating Violence

Youth violence-especially bullying and teen dating violence-is a serious public health concern for girls and boys. IWPR analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Survey finds that nearly one in four (23.7 percent) girls and one in six (15.6 percent) boys reported having experienced bullying on school property one or more times in the 12 months prior to the survey. An estimated 21.0 percent of girls, and 8.5 percent of boys, said they had been bullied in the past 12 months through electronic means such as e-mail, chat rooms, websites, instant messaging, and texting. An estimated 8.7 percent of high school girls and 5.4 percent of high school boys did not attend school at least once in the previous 30 days because they felt unsafe either at school or traveling to and/or from school ( Figure 7.4).

Figure 7.4. Percent of High School Students Feeling Unsafe or Experiencing Bullying by Gender, United States, 2013

Notes: For students in grades 9-12. The percent of those who experienced bullying are for the 12 months prior to the survey; the percent of those who did not go to school is for the 30 days prior to the survey.

Source: IWPR compilation of data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

In addition, 13.0 percent of girls and 7.4 percent of boys who dated or went out with someone during the 12 months before the survey said they experienced physical dating violence (including being hit, slammed into something, or injured on purpose) during this period. About 14.4 percent of girls and 6.2 percent of boys who dated or went out with someone during the 12 months before the survey said they had experienced sexual dating violence during this time, including kissing, touching, or being physically forced to have sexual intercourse by someone they were dating ( Figure 7.5).

High school girls in Nevada (13.2), were most likely to say they did not go to school at least once in the past 30 days because they felt unsafe. Girls in Kansas were least likely to report not attending school for this reason (3.9 percent; Appendix Table B7.1).

Among the 41 jurisdictions for which data are available, high school girls in Montana, Missouri, and Idaho are the most likely to say they were bullied at school one or more times in the 12 months prior to the survey (30.5, 30.4, and 29.6 percent, respectively). High school girls in the District of Columbia are the least likely to report having been bullied at school (11.9 percent), followed by Massachusetts (18.0 percent) and Hawaii (18.4 percent).

Maine has the highest percentage of high school girls who have experienced electronic bullying in the past 12 months at 28.9 percent, and the District of Columbia has the lowest at 9.3 percent (data are not available for ten states).

Louisiana (16.1 percent), the District of Columbia (15.0 percent), and Arkansas (14.8 percent) have the highest shares of high school girls who report having experienced physical dating violence in the past 12 months. Utah (7.7 percent), New Hampshire (9.1 percent), and Kansas and Rhode Island (both 9.4 percent) have the lowest shares.

Among the 32 jurisdictions for which data are available, high school girls in Hawaii, Nevada, and Illinois are the most likely to report having experienced sexual dating violence in the past 12 months (18.4, 17.1, and 16.7 percent, respectively). Girls in the District of Columbia (10.5 percent), Kansas (11.6 percent), and Rhode Island (12.0 percent) are the least likely.

Figure 7.5. Percent of High School Students Experiencing Dating Violence in the Past 12 Months by Type of Violence and Gender, United States, 2013

Note: For students in grades 9-12. Includes the percent of students among those who dated or went out with someone in the 12 months prior to the survey who experienced physical or sexual dating violence during this time.

Source: IWPR compilation of data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Several other national studies indicate that as technology has advanced, "electronic" abuse has become a significant issue in teen relationships. For example, a survey of 615 teens aged 13-18 and 414 parents of teens of this age range found that in 2006, 25 percent of teens reported having been called names, harassed, or put down by their partner via cell phone or texting. Twenty-two percent reported having been asked by cell phone or the internet to engage in unwanted sexual activity, and 19 percent said their partner has used a cell phone or the internet to spread rumors about them ( Picard 2007). In another study that examined the prevalence of electronic dating abuse among 5,647 seventh to twelfth grade youth from ten schools in three Northeastern states, 29 percent of girls and 23 percent of boys in a current or recent dating relationship said they had been a victim of electronic abuse in the past year ( Zweig et al. 2013).

Despite the sizable number of teens who experience violence or bullying, few states recognize teens as domestic violence victims, and state laws vary considerably with respect to the protections and services they provide for youth ( Break the Cycle 2010). The nonprofit organization Break the Cycle's State Law Report Cards assess aspects of each state's civil protection order laws that are relevant to teens facing domestic and dating violence and provide additional information about services available to teens experiencing these forms of harm. States were assigned grades on the basis of teens' access to civil protection orders, access to critical services, and school response to dating violence. Only the District of Columbia and six states-California, Illinois, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Washington-received an A. Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia all received an F ( Break the Cycle 2010).

Prevalence of Stalking and Common Stalking Behaviors

Stalking is an unfortunately common crime in the United States. A 2009 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that during a 12-month period between 2005 and 2006, an estimated 3.3 million people aged 18 and older were stalked; the majority of victims were female, with those who are divorced or separated especially at risk ( Catalano 2012b). Another study found that an estimated 15.2 percent of adult women and 5.7 percent of adult men in the United States have been stalked at some point in their lifetimes ( Breiding et al. 2014). Nearly seven in ten victims are stalked by someone they know ( Catalano 2012b). Studies have found that intimate partner stalkers are more violent and threatening than non-intimate partner stalkers ( Mohandie et al. 2006; Palarea et al.1999), and that partner stalkers tend to stalk their victims more frequently and more intensely than non-partner stalkers ( Mohandie et al. 2006).

Stalking is defined as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear" ( Catalano 2012b). Common stalking behaviors include leaving unwanted messages, sending unsolicited e-mails or letters, spreading rumors about the victim, following or spying on her or him, and leaving unwanted gifts ( Catalano 2012b). Many victims suffer serious effects from such behaviors; even when stalking does not lead to physical violence, most victims experience psychological harm ( Blaauw et al. 2002; Brewster 1999). Some also experience financial disruption, especially those who are forced to move or leave their jobs ( Mullen, Pathe, and Purcell 2009). Research suggests that stalking creates enormous problems for women's participation in the labor force; many victims experience disruption in their work life, job performance problems, and harassment at work ( Logan et al. 2007; Swanberg and Logan 2005). Perpetrators may show up at the victim's workplace, make threatening phone calls to their co-workers, and use other harassing behaviors that make it difficult for victims to sustain employment ( Swanberg and Logan 2005).

Stalking poses a serious threat to personal safety in part because it is difficult to prosecute. Many stalking victims do not report their experiences to the police, most often because they do not think the incidents are serious or consider them a private matter ( National Center for Victims of Crime 2002). Even when it is reported, the crime can be difficult for the criminal justice system to address. Stalking can be hard for law enforcement officers to identify, since the perpetrator's behaviors may be recognized as harmful only when understood within the broader framework of the perpetrator's course of conduct, which may involve behaviors that in another context would be considered harmless, such as sending letters or making phone calls to the victim. In addition, the unpredictable nature of stalking behaviors makes it difficult to predict if, and when, these behaviors may lead to physical harm ( National Center for Victims of Crime 2002).

While stalking is an extremely difficult crime to address and prosecute, states have taken steps to offer victims greater protection. For example, states have passed statutes on stalking and enacted legislation authorizing civil protection orders to increase safety for victims.

State Statutes on Stalking

California enacted the first state stalking law in 1990; the rest of the states and the District of Columbia soon followed suit ( National Center for Victims of Crime 2007). In 1996, Congress made interstate stalking a federal offense; subsequent amendments expanded the statute to include stalking via electronic communications, conduct that causes the victim severe emotional distress, and surveillance using global positioning systems ( National Center for Victims of Crime 2007).

Civil Protection Orders

Civil protection orders are an important legal resource for women experiencing intimate partner or other family violence (e.g., Fagan 1996; Holt et al. 2003; Ko 2002). Research suggests that protection orders reduce violence and the fear many victims experience, although they may be less effective for those who have experienced severe violence ( Logan et al. 2009).

Not all victims who want a civil protection order are able to obtain one. Many individuals who pursue this legal recourse face significant barriers, including difficulty in navigating the legal system, discouragement from clerks handling the paperwork, limited hours of access to file the petition, difficulty taking off work or arranging for child care to follow through with the process ( Logan et al. 2009), and difficulty meeting a state's criteria for obtaining a protective order ( Eigenberg et al. 2003).

Gun Laws and Violence Against Women

Violence against women is too often fatal: 1,706 women in the United States were murdered by men in 2012 in incidents involving a single victim and single offender ( Violence Policy Center 2014). Among the 47 states for which relatively complete data are available, Alaska and South Carolina have the highest rates, at 2.57 and 2.06 per 100,000, and New Hampshire has the lowest (0.30 per 100,000; Violence Policy Center 2014).A majority of female homicide victims are killed by men they know, and many are killed by their partners. Between 2003 and 2012, about one-third of female homicide victims in the United States died at the hands of an intimate partner; in many states, intimate partner violence accounted for more than two in five female homicides ( Gerney and Parsons 2014).

Guns are the most common weapon used to kill female intimate partners. Between 2003 and 2012, more than half (54.8 percent) of the women who were killed by intimate partners were murdered with guns ( Gerney and Parsons 2014). Nationally, the rate of gun violence against women in the context of domestic or intimate partner violence is alarmingly high: one study found that women in the United States are about 11 times more likely to be killed with a gun than non-US women in other highly populated, high-income countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development ( Richardson and Hemenway 2011).

Federal laws have been passed to protect women (as well as men and children) from gun violence. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 prohibited individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from gun possession, and in 1996 Congress barred individuals convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes from buying or possessing guns ( Gerney and Parsons 2014). VAWA 2005 required states and local governments, "as a condition of certain funding," to certify that their judicial administrative policies and practices included informing domestic violence offenders about the federal firearm prohibitions and any relevant federal, state, or local laws ( Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence 2014).

While federal laws on gun violence are vital to protecting victims, they are difficult to enforce, and loopholes in the law remain. State laws can help close these gaps and protect potential victims from harm ( Gerney and Parsons 2014). For example, one limitation of federal law is its failure to disqualify those convicted of misdemeanor stalking crimes from gun possession ( Gerney and Parsons 2014). As of July 2014, the District of Columbia and nine states-California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee-had enacted laws barring all those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor stalking crimes from possessing guns. Two states-North Dakota and Washington-had passed a statute barring some individuals convicted of these crimes from having guns ( Appendix Table B7.3).

Some states are also taking steps to protect abuse victims by providing records of abusers prohibited from gun ownership to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Created by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI in 1998, NICS is a system for determining whether prospective buyers of firearms are eligible to purchase them. Dealers submit the buyers' names and other information to NICS for a search of databases containing criminal justice information to determine whether the purchaser qualifies for gun ownership under state and federal law. The system, however, has processing problems, including many states' failure to identify to the NICS individuals who are ineligible to possess a gun due to a criminal history involving domestic violence. As a result, many domestic abusers succeed in purchasing guns from licensed dealers ( Gerney and Parsons 2014). Between December 31, 2008, and April 30, 2014, state submissions of domestic violence records to the NICS Index increased by 132 percent. Thirty-six states have submitted such records, but most submit only a very small number. Just three states-Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Mexico-submit fairly complete records ( Gerney and Parsons 2014).

Increasing the submission of records of protection orders to the background check system, for example, could help reduce the number of domestic abusers with guns and the number of women who are at risk for violence. While research suggests that protection orders are associated with reductions in violence ( Kothari et al. 2012; Logan et al. 2009), women often remain at risk in the aftermath of securing an order of protection. Ensuring that the NICS has up-to-date information on protection orders that can be used to identify domestic abusers who are not eligible for gun ownership can help ensure the safety of victims.

Some states have taken other measures to protect domestic and intimate partner violence victims from gun violence. For example, some have required a background check for all gun sales; under current federal law, only licensed firearms dealers are required to conduct a background check when completing a gun sale, opening up opportunities for domestic abusers to purchase guns through private sellers. Only 17 states and the District of Columbia have laws that require background checks for at least some private sales ( Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence 2013).

Some states have also enacted laws and policies requiring domestic abusers to give up any firearms they own once they are disqualified from gun possession under state or federal law. Only nine states-Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington-require surrender of certain firearms when a person is convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor. Fifteen states require a person to give up certain firearms when they become subject to a domestic violence restraining order ( Appendix Table B7.3). These laws, however, are difficult to enforce.

Intimate Partner Violence and the Workplace

Domestic violence and abuse has profound effects on women's employment and on workplaces. One study estimates that each year women lose almost eight million days of paid work due to intimate partner violence ( Max et al. 2004). For many women, the abusers' actions lead to a decline in their job performance, causing them not only to miss work but to be late, need to leave early, or struggle to stay focused while at their jobs ( Swanberg and Logan 2005).

Most states and the District of Columbia have laws to protect the employment rights of domestic violence victims, and some of these laws also explicitly cover sexual assault and/or stalking ( Legal Momentum 2014a). Two different types of laws protect victim's job rights: laws related directly to domestic violence (which offer protections such as the right to leave work to seek services, obtain a restraining order, or attend to other personal matters related to the violence, and/or protect victims from employment discrimination related to the violence) and laws that focus on crime victims more generally (which prohibit employers from punishing or firing crime victims who take leave to appear in criminal court, at least under some circumstances).

State Employment Protections for Victims of Domestic Violence

As of July 2014, only 15 states and the District of Columbia had employment rights laws for victims of domestic violence, some of which explicitly covered sexual violence and stalking: California, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington ( Appendix Table B7.2). Thirty-three states had general crime protection laws. Nine states did not have either a domestic violence law or a crime victim protection law: Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia ( Appendix Table B7.2).

Unemployment insurance laws can also support domestic violence victims. In most states, individuals are not eligible to receive unemployment benefits if they leave their jobs without "good cause." As of July 2014, 32 states and the District of Columbia had enacted laws that define good cause to include family violence ( Legal Momentum 2014b; Appendix Table B7.2). As in the case of laws protecting employment rights, the laws vary from state to state and may or may not explicitly cover sexual assault and/or stalking (Legal Momentum 2014b). Even if a state does not have such a law, victims may still qualify for unemployment benefits under regulations or other provisions if they need to leave their jobs. Most states require documentation that violence has occurred for an individual to be eligible for unemployment benefits, though the form of documentation required varies across states, and in some cases is not explicitly specified ( Legal Momentum 2014b).

Paid sick time laws can also help victims of violence access services without risking their jobs. Although a host of cities across the nation, including Washington, DC, have implemented paid sick time laws, only three states-California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts-have done so at the state level ( A Better Balance 2015). All three states include some form of job protected "safe time" for employed victims of domestic violence that allows them to use their sick days to recover from violence or seek help in addressing it, but only one-Massachusetts-also allows workers to use sick time to care for family members who have been victimized (the District of Columbia's law also covers workers' children; A Better Balance 2015). Several municipal paid sick days laws in three other states-Washington, Oregon, and Pennsylvania-also provide victims of domestic violence "safe time" to recover from violence or seek help ( A Better Balance 2015).

Workplace Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment in the workplace represents a significant barrier to the career satisfaction and advancement of many women. In 2014, approximately 6,900 charges alleging sexual harassment were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a slight decrease from the year before, when about 7,300 charges were filed ( U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 2015). Many victims, however, do not report incidences of workplace sexual harassment (Huffington Post 2013). Polling data indicate that workplace sexual harassment is widespread: an ABC News/Washington Post poll (2011) of more than 1,000 adults in the United States found that more than one in four women and one in ten men in the workforce have experienced sexual harassment.

Workplace sexual harassment can have devastating consequences. For the victims, it can result in lower job satisfaction and negative mental and physical health outcomes ( Willness, Steel, and Lee 2007). Sexual harassment also has negative effects on organizations, including lower organizational commitment ( Willness, Steel, and Lee 2007) and the legal costs associated with any lawsuits. Many organizations have established guidelines to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace and procedures for addressing complaints, yet the pervasive nature of the problem, and extent to which it goes underreported, point to the need for systemic change to address the power dynamics that allow sexual harassment to go unchecked and that often prevent women from participating fully in economic life.

An analysis of the 2010 National Intimate Partner Violence Survey finds that bisexual women are significantly more likely than heterosexual or lesbian women to have experienced violence: 46.1 percent of bisexual women aged 18 and older report having experienced rape, 74.9 percent report having experienced sexual violence other than rape, 36.6 percent say they have been stalked, and 61.1 percent report having experienced intimate partner violence ( Table 7.1). Among lesbian and heterosexual women, the prevalence of these forms of violence is considerably lower.

LGBT youth are also vulnerable to violence and discrimination. One study, that analyzed data from the 2013 National School Climate Survey, found that during the 2012-2013 school year, an estimated 74.1 percent of LGBT students aged 13 to 21 were verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation and 55.2 percent because of their gender expression ( Figure 7.6). Almost one in three (32.6 percent) were physically harassed (e.g., being shoved or pushed) because of their sexual orientation and more than one in five (22.7 percent) because of their gender expression. A smaller, but still substantial, percentage of LGBT students were physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation or gender expression ( Figure 7.6). In addition, nearly half of LGBT students (49.0 percent) experienced cyberbullying, and more than half (55.5 percent) reported personally experiencing LGBT-related discriminatory policies or practices at school ( Kosciw et al. 2014). LGBT students who experienced higher levels of victimization had lower GPAs than those who experienced lower levels of victimization. They were also more than three times as likely to miss school in the month before the survey, twice as likely to have no plans to pursue postsecondary education, and had lower self-esteem and greater levels of depression ( Kosciw et al. 2014).

Figure 7.6. Percent of LGBT Students Experiencing Verbal Harassment, Physical Harassment, or Physical Assault in the Past School Year Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Expression, United States, 2013

Note: Students aged 13 to 21.

Source: IWPR compilation of data based on the 2013 National School Climate Survey (Kosciw et al. 2014).

The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 defines trafficking as a federal crime and provides guidance on what a government response to the problem should include ( Polaris Project 2014a). Subsequent reauthorizations of the legislation have expanded its scope, and individual states have made important contributions to combating human trafficking. Washington state and Texas passed the first state-level anti-trafficking laws in 2003 ( Polaris Project 2014a).

Domestic violence, abuse, harassment, and stalking have a multitude of individual and societal consequences. At the societal level, female victims of intimate partner violence over the age of 18 in the United States lose about 5.6 million days of household productivity and nearly eight million days of paid work each year, which amounts to approximately 32,000 full-time jobs. In 1995, the most recent year for which an estimate is available, the costs of domestic violence in the United States were estimated to be $5.8 billion, with $4.1 billion paying for direct medical and mental health services (the study did not include civil and criminal justice costs; Max et al. 2004). In 2015 dollars, these costs would be about $8.9 billion, with approximately $6.3 billion for direct medical and mental health services.

Violence and abuse also have profound psychological, health, and social consequences for victims. In the short-term, these forms of harm can result in serious physical injuries. These injuries, however, are only a part of the consequences many women face: the ongoing and controlling nature of abuse can lead victims to experience a range of chronic physical conditions, such as frequent headaches, chronic pain, difficulty sleeping, and activities limitations ( Black et al. 2011). Survivors may also experience mental health problems such as depression, suicidality, and posttraumatic stress disorder ( Black et al. 2011; Golding 1999); in addition, violence and abuse are associated with negative health behaviors, including smoking, physical inactivity, poor nutrition, and substance abuse ( McNutt et al. 2002). Over time, the negative physical and mental health outcomes that survivors may experience can interfere with their daily functioning, disrupting their employment and other dimensions of their lives ( Loya 2014). In some instances, the unaddressed psychological and social effects of violence and abuse can lead to an ongoing cycle of harm. Research indicates, for instance, that girls who experience physical violence are more likely to be victimized as adults ( Whitfield et al. 2003).

These sobering realities point to the need to continue working to enhance our understanding of violence and abuse and to develop effective responses to the multiple forms of harm that women face. At a basic level, this requires improving data collection in the area of violence and abuse by ensuring that survey data are available with sufficiently large samples to allow for analysis at the state level and by race and ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and other contextual factors. Having improved data will allow researchers to pinpoint the needs of various populations and will help advocates, policymakers, and others to strengthen effective institutional, political, and community responses.

Increasing women's safety is integral to elevating their overall status. Violence and abuse have devastating consequences that go beyond physical injury to undermine women's autonomy, liberty, and dignity, preventing them from fully participating in the economy and in civic and political life ( Stark 2012b). Often, the non-physical abuse women experience is not or cannot be categorized as a crime and, therefore, falls outside the scope of the legal protections available. Improving effective responses to these forms of harm entails developing laws and policies that reflect a broader perspective on what victims are facing ( Stark 2012b), as well as continuing to invest in programs and services that address the threats to safety that prevent women's full participation in social, political, and economic life.
Methodology

Footnotes

¹Other sexual violence includes "being made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences" ( Breiding et al. 2014).

² As a result of smaller sample sizes, the 95 percent confidence intervals published by the CDC suggest that the estimates for women of color on rape, sexual violence other than rape, physical violence, and psychological aggression contain more sampling variability than the estimates for non-Hispanic white women.

⁵ Data are available for the District of Columbia and 39 states.

⁶ Data are available for the District of Columbia and 38 states.

¹² Connecticut implemented its law in 2013; California and Massachusetts are scheduled to implement theirs in July 2015.

¹⁴ IWPR calculations using the CPI-U index from the U.S. Department of Labor. The cost due to medical and mental health services needed is likely to be higher than estimated here because medical care expenditures in the CPI-U outplaced overall inflation by 27 percent between 1995 and 2015.

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Violence and Safety Full Section - Women in the States

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In This Section: Introduction Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse The Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Intimate Partner Violence by Race and Ethnicity Intimate Partner Violence and Older Women Intimate Partner Violence and Reproductive Health Domestic Violence Fatality Review Teams Policies to Address Violence Against Women Unmet Needs for Services and Supports Domestic Violence ...

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The poem, "Finding Freedom" is about a woman's journey on taking a stand against domestic violence towards her and all women.

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Finding Freedom, A Poem on Violence against Women

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Written by Wadia Samadi I wake up every morning scheming my escape But what about my children? Who will believe me? Who will give me a home? Years go by And I am still waiting When will this end?

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A bill that is passed to tackle domestic violence raises questions.