The FBI, Sandusky, and How We Think About Rape

@HuffingtonPost

On Tuesday December 6, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Criminal Justice Advisory Policy Board voted in favor of changing its rape definition, which currently dates back from 1929. The old definition covered only female victims and archaically -- and imprecisely -- referred to intercourse as "carnal knowledge," whereas the proposed change is gender-neutral, contains a relatively objective description of sex, and does not require physical force. If the director of the FBI approves this change, it has the potential to change how we think about rape.

At least in part. Another equally important part is the definition of rape in the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code which remains unchanged.

Here is why that matters.

As a society, the way we think about most social phenomena -- including sexual assault -- is influenced both by facts and morals. Neither is immovable or entirely objective. Facts depend on how you study and define them, and morals depend on who you are. But in the United States, the way we think about rape has, for decades, been operating with an outdated version of both.

With regard to the facts, the FBI's rape definition determines what gets counted as rape in national crime statistics. These figures are used, among other things, to decide on government use of resources for rape prevention, and to determine the success of government efforts to prosecute this crime. A restricted definition is likely to lead to underestimates, which, in turn, leads to the assignment of insufficient resources to deal with rape. And, because government efforts to prosecute for rape often are judged by comparing number of rapes to numbers of cases filed, investigated, and prosecuted, FBI's definition also affects the evaluation of justice system effectiveness in this regard.

Of course, even if we use the current, potentially underestimated, figures for rape, resources allocated for prevention and prosecution of rape are insufficient and sometimes misused, and prosecution percentages appallingly low. However, a more accurate count of when and how rape happens can at least provide arguments for policy change.

With regard to criminal law -- the ultimate guide on what society believes is "right" and "wrong" -- our moral compass has been equally obsolete. The U.S. Model Penal Code, which was adopted in 1962 by the American Law Institute to provide guidance for state criminal law reform, does not reflect what we have learned over the past 4 decades about rape through service delivery and care. Unlike FBI's rape definition, unfortunately, change to the Model Penal Code is not imminent (though explorations of a potential project to do so are underway) and the deficiencies are potentially more glaring.

Over the years, scholars have explored many problems with the various sexual offence definitions in the model code. The four most conspicuous are these:

• The need for an "objective manifestation" of force - -that is, visible signs of physical force -- before forced intercourse counts as rape in the eyes of the law (we now know that threats, verbal violence, and other forms of non-physical coercion are equally if not more effective in subduing a victim).
• The definition of rape as always having a male perpetrator and female victim (the recent allegations of rape of boys by Penn State coach Sandusky have made abundantly clear that rape can happen across the board);
• The deliberate exclusion of marital rape from any criminal sanctions (it is now hopefully beyond discussion that spouses don't owe each other sex--even the Mexican Supreme Court has now acknowledged this); and
• The focus on the victim's sexual past and previous behaviour towards the perpetrators and others.

This latter part is particularly worrisome.

The Model Penal Code explicitly excludes date rape and rape of former partners or even those the perpetrator has casually dated or maybe just kissed or held hands with (the victim must not be the "voluntary social companion" of the perpetrator at the time of the crime, and should not have "previously permitted him sexual liberties.") This would also exclude rape against sex workers, which is a relatively frequent occurrence in part because many people believe sex workers automatically have consented to having sex with everyone because they make a living out of having sex with some.

At a time where the use of date rape drugs reportedly are on the rise, and where police officers already believe women are much more likely to lie about rape than victims of any other crime, there is no room for legal ambiguity.

Forced intercourse is rape whoever committed it, whatever the victim wore or said, and wherever it occurred. The American Law Institute should follow the lead of the FBI and update its definitions to reflect reality.

Penny-Wise and Pound-Foolish: Proposed Funding Cuts for Response to Violence Against Women

@RHRealityCheck

This week, Senators Leahy and Crapo introduced a bill to reauthorize and amend the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a federal law first enacted in 1994.

This is mostly good news. The VAWA mandates federal funding for victim assistance and transitional housing, strengthens provisions to penalize offenders, and requires states to provide a certain level of services with a view to preventing violence from occurring in the first place.

The bad news is that the proposed bill substantively slashes the funding for the implementation of the bill, reducing the authorized funds by more than $144 million (almost 20 percent) of 2005 levels over 5 years.

To be sure, the federal government has to save quite a lot more than $144 million to overcome its spending deficit, and Senator Leahy justified the cuts by reference to heightened efficiency through the consolidation of services.  But if it is indeed possible to consolidate services and do more with less, would it not have been appropriate to ask, first, if the current funding levels adequately cover current needs?

To start with, it is clear that violence against women in the United States has not gone away these past 20 years.  The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 25 percent of women in the United States experience domestic violence some time in their lives, and that adult women experience over 5 million instances of violent assault annually.

Adolescents—even young adolescents—are also affected.  Over 70 percent of our 7th and 8th graders report they are “dating,” and in a 2009 survey published by the Centers for Disease Control about 10 percent of students overall reported being physically hurt by someone they were dating.

In addition, the economic downturn has substantially affected women’s ability to leave abusive relationships. In the best of times, women who want to leave an abusive partner worry about finding employment and housing, especially if they also need to provide for children.  During economic crises, these concerns increase dramatically and are exacerbated by the fact that governmental and non-governmental service providers usually face funding crises of their own and may have had to cut services. 

In 2008, the National Network to End Domestic Violence found that, on one day alone, almost 9000 requests for services went unmet because of lack of resources.  In 2009, that number had increased by 300.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline, set up by VAWA, reported that calls to the hotline increased by over 19 percent in the 12 months after the September 2008 market crash.

The director of the government’s Office on Violence Against Women testified before the Senate Committee of the Judiciary in May 2010 that, between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, one shelter alone reported a 44 percent increase in persons sheltered, a 74 percent increase in crisis response, and a 124 percent increase in calls requesting shelter

But most pointedly, domestic violence costs society a lot more than the $144 million the introduced bill would save by downsizing responses to it.  Those 5 million assaults on women annually resulted in nearly 2 million injuries, of which more than half a million required medical attention, the Centers for Disease Control estimated in 2003.  Victims of domestic violence lost nearly 8 million work days and 5.6 million days of productivity due to violence.

In all, assaults on women cost almost $6 billion every year. Because these estimates are based on rates of violence before the current economic crisis, the true cost may well be higher today

In other words: the bill proposes to cut $144 million over 5 years from services that seek to remedy a problem which, even with the current government involvement, will cost society about $30 billion over that same period.

Some might say that estimates about the cost of intimate-partner violence are notoriously unpredictable, that the federal government truly is broke, or that the proposed cuts really do reflect a consolidation of services that will result in more efficient use of funds. But even if they were right, that would not take away from the fact that domestic violence is a continuing, costly, and consistently underserved problem.

Cutting federal funds for dealing with it is not only bad news, it is a bad idea.

Time to involve women in post-conflict rebuilding

@amnestyintl

These past few months have seen many advances on women’s participation in post-conflict settings; at least on paper.  

In September, female world leaders gathered in New York to speak about the benefits of involving women in politics, in particular after war. In October, the UN Security Council called for increased participation of women in conflict resolution and peace-building. Just last week, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution spelling out state obligations to further women’s participation in all settings, in particular countries in political transition.

The reality, though, is starkly different. 

On 20 October, world leaders met with the transitional government of Libya to discuss donations and support for this post-conflict counntry. In the lead-up to the donor conference, civil society and UN experts expressed deep concern about the overwhelmingly male official Libyan delegation. Some reported a push from the Libyan government to keep female civil society representatives away too.

And as we approach the 10-year anniversary of the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, to be marked with a donor conference in Bonn on December 5, it is unclear whether the Afghan government will include women in its official delegation, and whether Afghan women’s groups will be allowed to speak and participate meaningfully. The case of Afghanistan is particularly ironic because a key justification for international intervention in the first place was the Taliban’s appalling record on women’s rights. 

Perhaps we should no longer feel surprised at the snail's pace with which promises on women in conflict are implemented. Even on rape in war, arguably the least controversial women’s rights issue, individual states as well as the international community are dragging their feet.  

There is no conflict in recent history where women and girls have not been targeted for sexual violence, whether as a form of torture, as a method to humiliate the enemy, or with a view to spreading terror and despair. Yet it took decades of reports on vicious sexual violence in conflicts across the globe before the UN Security Council set up an office to gather information and push for action. 

Some countries that have emerged out of conflict, such as Cote d'Ivoire and Bosnia and Herzegovina, do not adequately criminalize rape in their domestic laws. More generally, the vast majority of countries fail to prosecute and address both rape and violence against women. 

Women and girls who report sexual violence face stigma, ostracism and disbelief from the authorities who fail to follow up their cases, and from their own families and communities who blame the victims for the abuse.

Yet there is something about the current climate of change that inspires hope. There is certainly a gulf of difference between the Arab Spring revolutions and the Occupy movement sweeping through the North American continent.  For one thing, while the police have almost certainly used undue force on some of the Occupy participants in New York and elsewhere, demonstrators there need not fear for their lives.  This is not the case of those pushing for change in Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and beyond. 

But the call for equality is a unifying element of the demands presented by the popular movements most everywhere. Therefore, regardless of where we are and whether we feel affinity for any of these movements, as we commemorate November 25, the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, let us remind each other that equality means equality for women too.   

These past few months have been big on words and renewed promises on women’s participation, in particular in post-conflict settings. While it is incumbent on all of us to make sure these promises are kept, governments have a special obligation to ensure equality.  This is true whether the government represents a country recently out of conflict, still experiencing high levels of general violence, or a peaceful country merely contemplating financial support for change.  

Change is possible.  Change that secures equality is essential.  We just have to commit to actually making change happen.

Violence Against Women: Not Going Away Until You Do Something About It

@RHRealityCheck

This article contains absolutely nothing new about violence against women. That’s because we already know everything we need to know about it. Everyone knows it exists. Most people would say it’s a pretty bad idea. And yet it doesn’t go away. To say it’s annoying would be a serious understatement.

In the many years I have worked on women’s rights, violence against women has been a constant. Violence as an obstacle to health care. Violence as a barrier to education. Violence as an inevitable fact of life.

I am tired of it: violence against women may be a current fact—every 3 minutes a woman is beaten up -- but it is not inevitable. So here are my top three key recommendations for how you (yes: you) can make it stop before it even starts:

1. Value women’s work

Women earn 20 percent less than men in the United States. This pay inequality contributes to make women financially dependent on men and therefore stay in violent relationships. The United States needs federal legislation to guarantee women equal pay for equal work.

Basic labor protections in the United States exclude some professions that are dominated by women, such as domestic work. Part time workers in any profession are entitled to less labor market protections than those working full time, prompting some to leave the work pace all together when they have kids. This does not make them less vulnerable to abuse. In fact, rather the opposite. So, until women are valued at work it’s unlikely they’ll be properly valued at home.

2. Stop stereotyping women.

We all do it: stereotyping. We stereotype children (erratic), grandparents (indulging), and fathers (aloof). We also stereotype women, and politicians base policies and laws on these stereotypes. For example, when states obligate a woman to wait 24 hours before she can have the abortion she already decided she needs, it is based on a stereotype of women as irrational and changeable.

Some stereotypes contribute to justifying domestic violence, because they set out expectations for female behavior that, if breached, serve as an excuse for abuse. “My man doesn’t beat me,” one young woman told me proudly on the playground the other day when I disclosed I work on women’s rights. “Because I don’t give him reason to: I have dinner ready when he comes home.”

Maybe this example is extreme, but the next time you make assumptions about what men and women “should” do, ask yourself where the notions come from and if they could be used to justify abuse.

3. Make some noise.

It’s been said before: in countries where the elimination of domestic violence is seen as a political priority, supported by policies, discourse, and money, the prevalence of violence does go down over time. And at the local level, we see time after time that in those societies or communities where intimate violence is stigmatized and reviled, it abates. Making noise works.

But at an even more local level, you should start making noise among your friends. If a woman is beaten up every 3 minutes, chances are someone you know has either faced violence or meted out abuse. They need to know where you stand: talk about violence as unacceptable and question policies that stereotype women.

They might find you annoying. But not as annoying as another decade of domestic violence and abuse.

From Condoms to the Pill: Trust, Control, and Violence

@HuffingtonPost

As media reports celebrate advances toward new male contraceptive methods, the fact that women currently take the larger responsibility for birth control is held up as somewhat inevitable and sad.  In effect, contraceptive use is now so firmly established as a woman’s responsibility that data on birth control often are collected from women only.  Moreover, pundits regularly question how to get a man to wear a condom—the main existing form of male contraception, barring vasectomy—and  why men are so uninterested in something that surely pertains to them too.

Historically, however, the responsibility for birth control has fluctuated.

The use of modern contraceptive methods started at least in part as a male project.  George Bernard Shaw called rubber condoms the “greatest invention of the 19^th century,” and by the early 20^th century the US birth rate had fallen significantly, in part because of effective contraceptive use,  condoms in particular.

This male control over contraception was seen by some suffrage leaders as immoral, because it made it easier for married men to cheat on their wives.  Later feminists saw access to woman-controlled birth control as essential to advancing women as equals, in particular women from the working classes.  And in time, a woman’s right to decide, alone, about the timing and spacing of her  pregnancies has become a key tenet of the women’s rights movement, evidenced by the massive improvements in women’s status since the approval of the birth control pill over 50 years ago.

Male contraception remains very much in the mix, though, and contraception decisions still are very much a matter of trust and control.

For starters, as some of the suffragettes noted, the use of contraception allows for sexual encounters with a substantially lower risk of both pregnancy and, depending on the method, sexually transmitted infections.  

As a result, if a person wants to use contraception, that is sometimes seen as a sign of their desire to “cheat,” or even as proof that they already have. In societies where male infidelity is seen as more “normal” than female straying, this can cause problems. In 2004 I spoke with dozens of women in the Dominican Republic who had been beaten by their male partners for daring to ask them to use condoms.  Human Rights Watch research from Uganda, the Philippines, Zambia, and elsewhere confirms that expectations about female fidelity and submission is a central problem in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS: women can’t control their husbands’ sexual encounters, and they fear abuse if they ask their husbands to use condoms.   

Trust, control, and violence are interlinked with use of contraception in other ways too.  In a news report from 2010, 20 percent of women who sought family planning care in Northern California reported that their partner had sought to pressure them into having a child, including by sabotaging their contraceptive use.  In my own reporting from Argentina, experts told me that a significant number of abusive men deliberately sabotage their wife's or partner's access to contraceptives as part of the control and abuse. One woman I spoke with, who had had 10 pregnancies during her 14-year abusive marriage -- including two miscarriages caused by the abuse -- told me her husband said: "I am going to fill you with children so that you can't leave my side." As a result of this relatively prevalent dynamic, many women in Argentina choose invisible contraceptive methods, such as voluntary sterilization or hormonal injections.

Also for those who have not personally experienced a physically abusive relationship, trust is often central to contraceptive choice.  Even the most superficial web search reveals that many men and women are loathe to trust their partners about birth control. The truth of the matter is that unless you can see it or use it yourself, you can never be 100 percent certain that a pill has been taken or a condom is intact.

Of course, putting more contraceptive options on the table, also for men, is a social good. But as I mentally review the testimonies of the hundreds of women I have spoken to about their lack of autonomy in contraceptive use, I find women’s responsibility for, and right to, birth control neither inevitable nor sad.  Most of the women I speak to are still struggling for choice, and their lack of reproductive autonomy has only brought them grief.