Women’s rights and LGBT: It’s not a competition
Read Time:3 Minute, 57 Second
The We Are Woman March on Washington DC joined forces this past weekend with a Facebook page, Organizing against the War on Women. This group is planning a protest at each of the 50 capitols in America. I posted the link, encouraging people who might not be able to make it to DC on April 28th to head over to the page.
I received an interesting comment from a Facebook acquaintance who happens to be part of the LGBT community.
He was angry that I was promoting a protest on behalf of women, since, as he put it, LGBT are “beaten and killed every week.” As a vocal advocate for LGBT equality, I found this statement stunning and very offensive, since this is not a competition. I don’t think a person should have to choose one cause and dedicate oneself exclusively to that cause, especially if, as a woman, the actions of the new GOP affect me directly. As a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence, I have a special kind of rage towards the new GOP’s war on women, and was surprised that my Facebook acquaintance took such great offense at my post.
Let me share some statistics with you, regarding rape and domestic violence in America as they relate specifically to women. 1 out of 6 women has been the victim of attempted or completed rape in this country; 14.8% completed, 2.8% attempted. Lifetime statistics by race are:
White women-17.7%
Black women-18.8%
Asian Pacific Islander women-6.8%
American Indian/Alaskan women-34.1%
Mixed race women-24.4%
In each of these categories, this is the percentage of women who will be raped in their lifetime. 15% of rape and sexual assault victims are under the age of 12. 7% of girls in grades 5-8, and 12% of girls in grades 9-12 say they have been sexually abused.
Understand that under the new GOP, if any of those women requires the morning after pill or wishes to terminate her pregnancy, she will not be allowed access to either of those options. She will be forced, again if the new GOP has its way, to carry to term and give birth. The new GOP simply doesn’t care.
Before we look at domestic violence and murder statistics for women, let me make something perfectly clear. I am an outspoken advocate for the LGBT community. I do not believe Steve and Joshua Snyder-Hill would have let me interview them if I was not as passionate about equality as I am. I realize that members of the LGBT community are harassed, discriminated against, beaten and murdered for being who they are. And I have written about the horrors of that, written about bullycide and exposed hate wherever I see it. This is not a competition.
Every nine seconds, a woman in America is assaulted or beaten. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women, more than car accidents, muggings and rapes combined. Every single day in America, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends. Studies suggest that up to 10 million children witness some type of domestic violence annually, and nearly 1 in 5 teenage girls who have been in a relationship said a boyfriend threatened violence or self harm when confronted with a breakup. Finally, men who witness their parents’ domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own wives than sons of non-violent parents.
As someone who went to work with cracked ribs, bruised upper arms and thighs and a stab wound in my back from a nail file, I think I know a little about domestic violence. And as someone who had five perfect fingerprints on her neck after being shoved against my own car and raped in a parking lot, I think I know a little about sexual assault. So, if I get a little upset when a member of the LGBT community, someone who themselves should know a bit about abuse, gets in my Internet face about my desire to end the war on women, please try and understand.
I am a woman who by all accounts should not be alive, but I am and I am going to fight back against this war being waged by the new GOP. If you are a survivor, or know a survivor, or are just sick and tired of watching Republican men act like they own us, join the march. If you are a member of the LGBT community, join the march. We’re all in this together.
Thank you to RAINN.org and Domestic Violence Statistics.org for contributions to this article.
Follow MadMike’sAmerica on Facebook and Twitter!
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
As a member of the LGBT community, a friend of Erin’s and a survivor, I don’t see this as an issue. Just because the LGBT community has had it hard doesn’t mean that no other causes have the right to be heard. There have been mistakes made in the past. Holding a grudge from the 1970’s is stupid. We are wanting to make a change, but how can we do that when we are not willing to accept that people do indeed change? Woman are under attack. Their hard won rights are about to be taken from them. How could we stand in the way of their fight to defend those rights? To say that this should take a back burn is hypocritical. To allow the government to redefine rape as anything other than rape is stupid.
I have a problem with the labeling of all woman who want their rights as feminists. Not all woman can be neatly fit into that little box just as not all gays can fit into one box. I am not a gayist or homosexualist, yet I do stand up for my rights. I also have a problem with you trying to speak for the entirety of the LGBT. I disagree with your statement about not wanting to join hands with this fight against the war on women. I believe in equality for ALL. We are the LGBT for a reason. Together we are stronger. We are decades from equality for ourselves. This is not due to woman wanting to protect themselves. I would gladly become LGBTF if that is what will benefit all of us.
Let this contempt for the “feminists” go. Do not belittle the attacks that have been done to those in our community by using it as a way to persecute another group. Our fights are the same. I would rather make it together than to have neither of us make. This in-fighting is stupid. Yes women are paid less, yes gays can be fired just for being gay. We will not change anything by saying one cause is greater than the other.
Also birth control is not provided for men by insurance programs .Neither is it provded by other medical means.
Lesbians were told that they ruiend the feminst movement and the nasty things said about gay men is unforgivable , so we will relagate feminist with the African Americs that also have a terrible history with fightig LGBT rights. The answer is no and Lesbians are the ones at my law firm that are more against it than the gay men.
98% of women use birth control at some time in their life. Even Catholic women use birth control now. And again, you are stereotyping feminism, I know male feminists. I know gay feminists. I know lesbian feminists. LGBTQ needs allies, just like women do. You don’t have to personally subscribe that the two movements can happen together but I think other people of all sexual orientations are seeing the big picture.
*Also, this angry feminist with the bashing stick is a lesbian stereotype. Do you not like LGBTQ women because they might want things straight women want too?
Resorting to calling feminists angry just kind of shows how much you fail to grasp this issue.
And by the way, I understand that you are upset about the unfair marriage laws. You don’t get to see your partner in the hospital, you don’t receive tax benefits, the gays are regularly discriminated against while attempting to adopt, among many others.
Conservatism and the GOP are a common enemy. Feminists want you to be able to get married. I promise. Women had nothing to do in making those rules (the government is like 80% white men, your issue is with them).
Becca, also never forget that 50% of all American women are against your reproducitve rights and 50% of men are for your reprodicitve rights and all feminist do is lump all white men into a corner and get out the bashing stick and every one is sick of it and wants nothing more to do with it! Fix your problemns from with in , that is what LGBTs had to learn to do, take a page from our history and learn something for a change.
Will Kuhlmann ( WIll Clemens).
You do not speak for all LGBTQ members obviously. The gay community suffers at the hands of institutionalized whiteness, masculinity, and heterosexuality. But there is something fundamentally different about being gay and being a women. For the most part, a stranger will not automatically know that you are gay by looking at you and therefore do not often have a chance to discriminate. On the other hand, women are… women. It’s something we cannot hide. We get paid 70 cents to the male 1.00. They are literally putting things in our vaginas before we are allowed to get abortions. They are trying to take women out of the military. Women who have accidental miscarriages can go to jail for life. Can’t we agree that LGBTQ and women are BOTH being oppressed? It’s unfair to say that gays lack rights and women do not. Why does one have to be WORSE than the other? The feminist movement is largely about equality for ALL PEOPLE regardless of gender, sex, race, sexual orientation, etc. etc. etc. There is a way to celebrate our differences without letting them divide us. Strength is in numbers. The gays alone, nor women, alone, nor ANY marginalized group can achieve equality without support within these movements. We have to help raise each other up instead of trying to decide what oppression is worse. Experiences are too unique for sweeping generalizations about who suffers more.
Becca, LGBTs are the most beaten, killed and lacking 1700 state and federal rights and are the most discriminated minority in America let alone in the world. According to The Southern Poverty Law Center and feminst were a part of this ( MISANDRY: Feminist Gay bashing) It is not a sweeping generalaztion it is factual statistics that LGBTs suffer a great deal more than blacks women etc combined . We have even atheist, feminst and African Americans trash us. While you have more rights and are treated like gold in America, with lavish weddings diamond rings you can be any thing you want to from a house wife to a supreme Court justice and what do we get from feminist ? We get blammed for fashion modles getting anorexia and called names by femeist leaders, how nausiating you are.
Nietzche, sorry but the LGBT movement does not want to join hands with the feminist movement, nor the atheist movement as it would cloud the issue at hand that we are lacking rights and you are not, its very simple.The feminst movemtn did not want lesbians on board back in the 1970s and we now understand.
I am puzzled. This should be about the rights of all people, which has been mentioned. It’s not an issue of how many crimes one minority has committed. It’s about failing to care for all Americans, and women, as well as the LGBT community, along with ethnic minorities and everyone else. That being said the focus of Rick Santorum’s campaign is depriving women of their reproductive rights. It is also news when the president issues an executive order, and then rescinds it, to insurance companies, asking them to cover birth control issues. So, it is timely. The author of this piece is saying this is not a competition, but if it were, at this moment in our time, women would have to take priority. Once the political tone changes those victimized by the right or by the left can once again champion their own cause. Right now it’s about the We Are Woman March on Washington D.C., April 28, 2012. Thanks for your time.
I invite you to read an article on my home page on femisnt that are anti gay.
Desiree Jordan , I have been here the entire time, I am the man the article is about , how may I help you ? ( also please read my prior post before you have a nervous break down.)
@Will: “WE all have our Rights”? Really…if I HAD my rights YOU would not have a job….What do you do for a living? Let me guess…lawyer? “Calm down?” REALLY? Listen, Will I have no time to argue MUTE POINTS….As a MAN YOU have way more rights than I EVER WILL….and you know it….like I said…I’m NOT “a WOMEN ADVOCATE….Just an American woman trying to PROTECT MY UTERUS and OVARIES from “big government intrusion” if YOU cannot HELP US because YOU believe that women SHOULD NOT BE PROTECTED BECAUSE LBGT communities are still oppressed, then that says more about YOU than it does me!
Deriree, I am a gay man lacking 1700 state and federal rights and LGBTs are the number one killed and beaten in America, what rights are you lacking ? Please list them here and now! You also want to take my job away in law, wow feminst are an angry lotr. LOL
NOTHING your friend believes or said in relation to “who has rights” and “who has none” COULD NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. Please tell him I DO NOT SEE MYSELF AS A “WOMEN’S ACTIVIST”. I’m just an AMERICAN WOMAN, MOTHER, WIFE, TRYING to STILL BELIEVE I CAN GET THE RIGHTS MY GOVERNMENT SAYS I ALREADY HAVE. (not yelling, just burning passion) I wish HE WOULD JOIN so I can personally tell HIM HOW WRONG HIS BELIEFS ARE and how those beliefs only serve to OPPRESS ME MORE! This is NOT A WOMEN’S ISSUE TO ME: IT’S A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE and A MORE COLLECTIVE “OUR” INALIENABLE EQUAL RIGHTS ISSUE! Again, CAPS are not yelling, just for emphasis on the words. Please don’t LOCK ME INTO A LABEL. Thanks in advance for understanding my passion in this issue….
Calm down, you have all you’re rights.
Excellent viewpoint Erin. I concur.
I believe we must protest for everyone’s rights; not just those who’ve been denied and oppressed. I get the first reaction is to pound those who’ve been doing the oppressing. However that way is a trap. History is full of examples proving my words true.
I don’t live in this world yet but I believe in it. I believe in a world where the concepts of rape and violence are like an 8-track tape. There will be those who swear by them but generally the technology is outdated and no longer used. I believe in a world where people are valued for the person within, not the skin on the outside. I believe in a world where everyone has the basics of survival. I’ve no idea how to get there but that isn’t my job. Believing is.
My law firm has been asked to join the so called women’s movement and we rememberd when they did not want us around back in the 1970’s because “it might cloud the issues”, and so that is our stand today. We may ask you what rights are you fighting for and your reply would be ” well we have all our rights but we are fighting to keep them ” That clouds a our civil rights movement while you have what is known a a Public Awarness Campaign at best.My fellow atheist are the same as far as not being a civil rights movement, but a public awarness campaign.
According to The Souterhn Poverty Law Center LGBTs are on the top of the list when it comes to hate crimes by a very long stretch.
Also you forgot to mention that according to the CDC women are half the probelm of domestic violence here in America.
You never listed one rights straight women are missing, while lgbts are missing 1700, and are the number one beaten and killed in American
I never do understand why some people seem to have the attitude of, “You have a cause? But… but… *I* have a cause! You need to come join my cause and forget yours!” Especially when both “causes” are quite complimentary and those who espouse them should be working together.
Well said. I absolutely agree. I would also point out, that as a straight male, it is possible for those of us in this “community” to passionately support both of those causes. I do, and I know of many straight males who do as well. I have sent a request to join your group page.