Dana Goldstein

Real Numbers on Domestic and Sexual Violence

I've noticed that every time I write about domestic violence -- whether the topic is Rihanna or insurance companies classifying abuse as a pre-existing condition -- "men's rights" trolls come out of the woodwork to claim there is no proof women are more likely to be victimized by intimate partners than men. "Dana, why are you a sexist pig?" wrote one unhinged commenter. "You know that domestic violence [sic] anywhere from 30-60% male victims depending on the research."

This claim fails the sniff test and defies common sense. It's also factually untrue. Last week the Justice Department released its latest National Crimes Victimization Survey, which features a special section on female victims of violence. The survey included 76,000 households, and while domestic violence is infamously under-reported, the report does sketch out the contours of the problem.

First, the good news: On the whole, domestic violence is down between 1993 and 2008. But unsurprisingly, women remain over five times more likely than men to be victims of both fatal and non-fatal domestic violence, including assault, rape, stalking, and homicide. One of the most interesting findings is that although fewer than 1 of every 1,000 American men has been the victim of domestic violence -- compared to 4.3 of every 1,000 American women -- male victims are more likely than female ones to go to the police: 72 percent of self-reported male victims filled out a police report, compared to 49 percent of female victims. This points to a number of problems familiar to advocates: that female domestic violence victims are especially wary of law enforcement, fearful of reprisal from their abusers, and must battle a cycle of shame and self-doubt before they seek help. About half never do.

A few more depressing statistics:

• Females are generally murdered by people they know. In 64% of female homicide cases in 2007, females were killed by a family member or intimate partner.
• Men were more likely than women to be killed by strangers. Among male homicide victims in 2007, 16% were murdered by a family member or intimate partner. ... 29% were killed by strangers.
• Females were at higher risk of stalking victimization than males. During the study period, females experienced 20 stalking victimizations per 1,000 females age 18 or older. The rate of stalking victimization for males was approximately 7 per 1,000 males age 18 or older.
• In 2008, 57% of the rape or sexual assaults against females were committed by an offender whom they knew. Strangers committed about one third (31%) of all rape/sexual assaults.
• One in five rape or sexual assaults against females (20%) was committed by an intimate partner.
• Black females historically have experienced intimate partner violence at rates higher than white and Hispanic females.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Did Someone Say "Opt-Out?"

The Washington Post and New York Times are having a little spat today about "opting-out." The Post ran a front page story by Donna St. George proclaiming, "obsession with high-achieving professional mothers sidelining careers for family life is largely beside the point." The Times' David Leonhardt jumped in to defend his colleague Lisa Belkin, author of the original, blockbuster Times Magazine feature on the "opt-out revolution." The opt-out trend is real, Leonhardt writes:

The Labor Department numbers, for instance, show the percentage of women 25 to 34 in the labor force peaked at 77 percent in 1999. This percentage had risen in every decade from the 1940s through the 1990s. But it has stopped rising. It was 75 percent last month and has not been above 76 percent since 2001.

If you focus on the highly educated women who have been the subject of much of the discussion, you see something similar. A paper in the American Economic Review last year by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz reported that earlier this decade 60.3 percent of female Harvard graduates in their mid-30s were working full time. In the 1990s, the equivalent number was 63.5 percent. The share of women who had one child and were working rose, while the share with two or more children who were working fell. The overall shift is hardly radical, but there does seem to be a slight one.

The thing is, St. George doesn't claim that no women are opting-out. Rather, she's correcting the myth that the majority of opt-outers are privileged women: According to the Census, stay-at-home moms are less educated and less wealthy than working moms, and are more likely to live in poverty. In other words, as I argued in a recent piece, choosing not to work leaves women (and their children) at high risk of financial hardship. That's why during this recession, many stay-at-home moms are returning to the job market.

Leonhardt suggests that instead of arguing about opting out, we focus on pressuring companies to make part-time work more viable, for both men and women. This is the Womenomics stance -- and sure, workplace flexibility is a good thing. But worrying so much about what's happening to office workers, the kind of people whose jobs are portable, sidelines what's going on in other sectors of our economy, where women are stuck in "pink collar" service jobs that often have no benefits, irregular hours, and low pay. Women are working, and many of them need basic benefits before they can worry about extra perks.

cross-posted at TAPPED

At G20 Spouses Events, Husbands are No-Shows...Again

During the last G20 meeting, in April, I noted that the husbands of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Argentine President Cristina Kirchner were no-shows for the big spouse photo-op. Well, they've done it again: According to Sandra McElwaine at The Daily Beast, neither gentleman will be appearing at a two-day "spousal program" hosted by Michelle Obama to coincide with this week's Pittsburgh G20 meeting. (There's no word yet on whether India's First Gentleman, former politician Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat, will attend the spouse-only festivities.)

Eighteen wives will meet at Rosemount, the country estate of Theresa Heinz Kerry. They'll be entertained there by the Pittsburgh Philharmonic Orchestra’s Jazz Trio, and are expected to dine on organic, locally grown produce. During the trip, the wives will also meet cellist Yo-Yo Ma and visit the Andy Warhol Museum, whose director plans to open one of the artist's famous time capsules in front of the dignitaries.

It sounds like fun! But once again, in their refusal to participate in these events, male political spouses demonstrate just how regressive it is that political wives are expected to spend so much time on ceremonial help meet duties. Not only that, but their interests are assumed to be traditionally feminine: art, music, cuisine. In truth, many of these women, like Michelle Obama, thrive on working alongside their husbands on policy detail and political strategy. Mexican Fist Lady Margarita Zavala is a former legislator. Other spouses have totally separate careers; Chinese President Hu Jintao's wife, Liu Yongqing, is an engineer.

But that's not the face political wives are expected to project to the world. And these expectations won't change until half of all political spouses are male, at which point I doubt we'll expect very much of political spouses at all.

To be fair, Carla Bruni Sarkozy, of France, ditched the last G20 meeting in Madrid, and has traveled internationally this past year promoting her new album. This week, she will be in Pittsburgh, and on Saturday night will entertain at a clambake for the world leaders.

cross-posted at TAPPED

The Baucus Health Plan, on Abortion and Immigration

Max Baucus released his Senate Finance Committee health reform plan today, and there are no huge surprises. As Ezra writes, low subsidies and high premiums mean health care costs will continue to cause personal bankruptcy for many unlucky Americans. The better news is that Baucus expands the health insurance exchanges to large employers; in the House bill, only small companies can participate in the exchanges. And of course, the expansion of Medicaid to childless adults is a major progressive victory.

Abortion and immigration are two issues that divided the bipartisan Gang of Six until the bitter end, so I took a close look at where Baucus came down. On abortion, his mark-up is clear: The basic health care package he envisions does not cover most abortions:

Federal funds continue to be prohibited from being used to pay for abortions unless the pregnancy is due to rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is in danger.

Private insurance companies can choose to offer plans that provide additional, elective abortion coverage -- as 87 percent of employer-provided plans already do -- but they must "segregate" public funds from paying for the procedure. This means that if an insurer wants to cover abortion, it must create a special fund to do so, made up of money garnished from premimums and co-pays. Government-provided affordability credits will not be able to contribute toward the cost of abortions. This is a bureaucratic headache for insurers, and it certainly has the potential to dissuade abortion coverage. The House bill continues to be much more progressive on reproductive health, as it sets up a public plan that would most likely include abortion as part of primary care.

On immigration, Baucus requires a confirmation of legal status before receiving health care subsidies, through a check of Social Security numbers. He also denies affordability credits to anyone whose legal resident status is set to expire in less than a year, which seems unjust -- especially if future immigration reform provides more paths toward legality.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Reproductive Health in the Baucus Plan

After heath reform, who will decide what medical services insurance companies must cover? The House and Senate HELP committee bills empower an independent council of medical experts to make coverage recommendations to the Health and Human Services secretary. This is the group that would make controversial decisions about whether abortion, infertility treatments, or certain experimental procedures should be covered in basic health plans.

The White House plan released yesterday stays silent on the question of who decides coverage specifics -- and that is likely because there is now an alternative in town. Sen. Max Baucus' Finance Committee plan articulates broad areas of coverage that must be included, such as preventive care, primary care, hospital stays, and maternity care. But Baucus would allow insurance companies themselves to define what services each of those areas include, without government interference. Insiders say Baucus left the independent council out of his plan because moderate Republicans don't like the idea of restraining the private market in this way.

What does Baucus' compromise mean for reproductive health coverage, which remains a source of debate as Congress discusses reform? Advocates are cautiously optimistic. "Services like contraception, STI testing and treatment, and Pap tests can and certainly would fit into many of the other categories," such as preventive care, says Adam Sonfield, senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute. "Reproductive health services, including contraception, would likely be covered in almost every plan, because that’s the way coverage is today. ... It makes financial sense for insurance companies. Contraception is very clearly cost-effective."

Under the Baucus plan, abortion coverage would likely remain unchanged; there is no public option, and private insurance companies would determine individually whether to cover the procedure, as they do now. Eighty-seven percent of current employer-based insurance plans do provide some abortion coverage.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Kennedy's True Legacy on Abortion and Disability

In his column this morning, Ross Douthat sets up a dichotomy between Ted Kennedy and his also recently-departed sister, Eunice. Ted was a Bad Kennedy and a Bad Catholic because he was pro-choice; Eunice was a Good Kennedy and a Good Catholic because the cause of her life was disability rights, and she supported anti-abortion rights organizations such as Femnists for Life, the Susan B. Anthony List, and Democrats for Life.

But Kennedy's legacy on abortion and disability is actually far more complex than Douthat acknowledges. In 2005, Kennedy co-sponsored a bill -- the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act -- that expanded federal financing for support programs for expectant and new parents who receive a Down syndrome diagnosis. Research shows that doctors delivering such a diagnosis often share very little information about living with the disease, and presume that the patient would prefer to terminate her pregnancy. Indeed, about 90 percent of couples who receive a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis do choose abortion. But enriched by his sister Rosemary's life, Kennedy sought to link expectant and new parents with mentor families already raising a child with Down syndrome, as well as create a national registry of families willing to adopt disabled infants.

Kennedy's partner on the bill was conservative Catholic Sen. Sam Brownback, who regularly compares abortion to slavery. During negotiations between the two offices, Kennedy held fast to his belief that the law must go further than just dissuading abortion; he wanted to be sure the legislation offered funding to improve the lives of disabled people and their caretakers. Last October, the bill was signed into law by President Bush. In a testament to Kennedy's coalition-building genius, it was even supported by NARAL President Nancy Keenan, who said it offered women choices without undermining their right to an abortion.

Only Ted Kennedy could bring NARAL to the table with Sam Brownback. And that's because he knew, in his heart, that there was no contradiction between being deeply pro-choice and deeply pro-disability rights.

For more on the moral complications of genetic testing, disability, and abortion, check out my 2007 In These Times feature, "Genetic Disorder."

cross-posted at TAPPED

"Destiny" and the Kennedy Women

Coverage of Ted Kennedy's death has been suffused with the narrative that he was a man held hostage by a sense of family destiny. In 1959, then-Senator JFK said, "Just as I went into politics because Joe died, if anything happened to me tomorrow, Bobby would run for my seat in the Senate. And if Bobby died, our young brother, Ted, would take over for him."

The Kennedy sisters and daughters simply weren't subjected to -- our gifted with -- these powerful expectations. When Eunice Kennedy Shriver died earlier this month, many obituaries noted that she was a natural politician in many ways -- a fantastic organizer, networker, and spokeswoman. But because she was born female in 1921, she never seriously considered running for office.

Did these expectations shift over the generations? Maybe not so much. Just last year, during the brouhaha over Caroline Kennedy's interest in Hillary Clinton's New York Senate seat, I often wondered if the outrage over nepotism would have been as acute if John Kennedy Jr. had lived and decided to toss his hat in the ring. JFK Jr., from an early age, seemed to embody little of his father's or uncles' driving ambition for political office. He was interested in theater and acting. He repeatedly failed the bar exam. He then launched a glossy magazine. Yet many members of his family and the Democratic establishment hoped he would someday run for president.

Of course, Robert Kennedy's oldest daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, served as lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003, later losing her gubernatorial bid. But on the whole, the Kennedy family women have been subjected not to political expectations, but to domestic and philanthropic ones. They put up, in the public eye, with their husbands' infidelities. They smiled as their fashion choices were put under the microscope. They got involved with charity. That was their destiny.

For further reading: The Kennedy Women by Laurence Learner

cross-posted at TAPPED

On the Radio, Discussing Circumcision and HIV

One of the great things about being a magazine writer is that it allows you to develop quirky areas of expertise. And indeed, I've been covering the HIV/circumcision story on and off for over two years, since I first wrote for In These Times about Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to encourage circumcision among gay men of color in New York. (Incidentally, that article was my first for editor Phoebe Connelly. A few months later, we both joined the Prospect.)

With the Times reporting this week that the CDC is considering recommending routine circumcision of American infants, the issue is gaining wider media pick-up. My boyfriend reports that he saw talking heads debating the topic on MSNBC. And this morning, I was a guest on the BBC/Times NPR show "The Takeaway," alongside Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Weill Cornell Medical College. You can listen to the segment, which is about 10 minutes long, here. It's a good introduction to the current research and public health debate around circumcision.

If you've been reading me periodically, you know I'm skeptical about whether circumcision is the right HIV-prevention strategy within the United States. After all, the United States already has the highest circumcision rate in the developed world -- 79 percent -- and also the highest HIV-infection rate. That's why advocates have been focusing on a message of "condoms, condoms, condoms" for three decades. I worry about promulgating the misconception that circumcision is a miracle cure against the AIDS epidemic, especially in communities -- such as among immigrants and the poor -- where encouraging regular condom use is already an uphill battle. And especially because gay men were not included in the most promising circumcision/HIV studies.

When Takeaway producer Molly Webster called me yesterday to discuss coming on the show, she asked me how I got interested in this topic -- one that raises a lot of people's eyebrows, and can lead to very heated arguments in families and between partners. (Joseph O'Neill wrote a wonderful short story for Harper's dealing with the question of whether to circumcise a son.) There are a few reasons. First, I've been living for over three years in Washington, D.C., the city with the highest HIV-infection rate in the United States -- 1 in every 20 adults. That horrific number inspired me to follow more closely the HIV/AIDS research coming out of Africa. I was excited and encouraged to read that among heterosexual men, circumcision can decrease HIV contraction rates by as much as 60 percent.

But that news came at a time when, on a more personal level, I was questioning the practice, especially since I am Jewish and it is considered an absolute give-in -- even among totally secular Jews -- that baby boys will undergo the procedure. Why is it that even as Jews have assimilated and rejected many religious practices, such as strict Kashrut, we continue, as a community, to cling to circumcision? In large part, it's because of the understandable desire for sons to look like their fathers, especially on a part of the body that carries so much psychological weight. But there's also a deep emotional tie to circumcision; a feeling of pride that Jews are physically marked as such -- that a Jewish man can never totally escape his Jewishness, because it is inscribed on his body through circumcision. During the Holocaust, this was one way in which Jews were identified by the Nazis. We Jews are rightfully attached to that history. One of my friends, who is studying to become a rabbi, recently told me he considers circumcision the single most important Jewish religious obligation.

There have been discussions about circumcision in my own Jewish family, as intermarriage and new births forced some of the older members of the clan to question the practice for the first time. I don't have a firm conclusion on any of this stuff. Public health and cultural concerns need to be balanced with the reality that circumcision is surgery without consent, and that it removes a natural, though not totally essential, part of male anatomy. I suspect that circumcision rates, after declining over the past several decades, will go back up. After all, most parents would like to give their children any weapon they can to fight disease. In any case, those are my thoughts on all this, since I'm often asked why I write periodically about this topic.

Pro-Sex Conservative Christianity?

We last encountered Mark Regnerus in the pages of the Washington Post, singing the praises of early marriage. Last week, while I was blissfully unawares on vacation, he took his argument to a friendlier audience with a cover story in Christianity Today. In the new piece, Regnerus casts himself as a truth-teller to evangelical America, informing them that in their emphasis on sexual purity, chastity, and virginity, the movement has forgotten to encourage healthy marriages, particularly among the young. He writes (emphasis mine):

Evangelicals tend to marry slightly earlier than other Americans, but not by much. Many of them plan to marry in their mid-20s.Yet waiting for sex until then feels far too long to most of them. And I am suggesting that when people wait until their mid-to-late 20s to marry, it is unreasonable to expect them to refrain from sex. It's battling our Creator's reproductive designs. The data don't lie. Our sexual behavior patterns—the kind I documented in 2007 in Forbidden Fruit—give us away. Very few wait long for sex. Meanwhile, women's fertility is more or less fixed, yet Americans are increasingly ignoring it during their 20s, only to beg and pray to reclaim it in their 30s and 40s.

This message will be, I think, powerfully attractive to many progressive Christians. It accepts -- and even celebrates -- the naturalness of sexual desire. Regnerus writes, "sex feels great, it feels connectional, it feels deeply human. I never blame [young adults] for wanting that."

And yet, if you plumb Regnerus' worldview, you see that just beneath the sex-positive surface is a deep yearning for traditional gender roles. He's upset with Christian America not just because it has made sex so shameful, but also because the community has bought into a trend in the wider culture: that of encouraging both men and women to delay marriage into their late-20s, in order to focus on education, career success, and financial stability. "Most young Americans no longer think of marriage as a formative institution, but rather as the institution they enter once they think they are fully formed," he laments.

That's true -- and there are major benefits to that. As Regnerus admits, financially-stable, highly-educated, slightly-older couples are much more likely to avoid divorce. His solution to this problem is to encourage parents and communities to offer more "support" to young couples in love. He seems to envision all these young lovers as middle-class college students with bright futures ahead, and parents able to offer a gentle push toward bourgeois marriage, preferably with open checkbook in hand. With their families' and ministers' approval and counsel, Regnerus imagines, young people can reasonably marry at the age of 20 or 21, and thus engage in guilt-free, God-sanctioned sex.

But in his enthusiasm for young women hunkering down at home with hubby and kids -- they must not "ignore" their reproductive destinies! -- Regnerus simply ignores the class implications of his argument. Poor people in their early 20s don't have the inherited socioeconomic and educational advantages that would make success at early marriage more likely. Economic instability and early marriage are leading predictors of divorce. Put together, they are disastrous for a couple's future.

If Regnerus really wanted to encourage early marriage and more stable, young families, he might support government social safety nets, such as universal health care, child care, and maternity and paternity leave. All of these make parenthood and marriage more tenable for the young and poor. Yet he describes himself in the piece as a lifelong "fiscal conservative." It's hard, then, not to conclude that, like the evangelical Christian movement as a whole, Regnerus is really more interested in promoting "traditional" family life -- with a woman at home -- than in revisiting notions of sexual abstinence.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Will Hillary Put Muscle Behind Her Promise of a Feminist Foreign Policy?

On Sunday in New York, I saw the play "Ruined," by Lynn Nottage, which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The show takes place in a Congolese brothel, where rape victims, shunned by their families in a time of civil war, turn to prostitution as their only viable option. It is simultaneously devastating and uplifting , and I strongly recommend it.

In the real-life Congo, however, mass rape isn't set to a soundtrack of music and dance. A very important Washington Post story describes how sexual violence is a defining feature of the current, U.S.-backed military operation in the country, intended to quell rebel militias. Tens-of-thousands of newly-minted government soldiers -- many of whom were fighting as rebels until a recent peace agreement -- are raping and pillaging their way through Congolese villages, supported by American and United Nations dollars, helicopters, and trucks. Rape victims range in age from pre-pubescent girls to 70-year old women. In some villages, women are voluntarily adhering to a 6 p.m. curfew to avoid rape, hesitating to leave their padlocked bedrooms even to use the toilet.

As our own Michelle Goldberg has reported, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised to make women's issues -- and sexual violence in particular -- a cornerstone of her foreign policy. Clinton appointed Melanne Verveer the first-ever ambassador-at-large for global women's issues. A test of their commitment will be how strongly they insist the Congolese authorities -- who are benefiting from U.S. support -- confront their military's rape culture. In Kinshasa, Congo yesterday, Clinton said of rape, "We have to speak out against the impunity of those in positions of authority who either commit these crimes or condone them. ... There are even some cases of these terrible crimes committed by members of the Congolese military."

But although a few human rights trainings are being held in the field, none of the five senior army officials accused of rape have been prosecuted. That negligence trickles down the ranks. A condition of U.S. support for the Congolese government should be a top-level commitment to fighting sexual violence, beginning with prosecutions of the highest-level offenders.

Read the whole report, by Stephanie McCrummen, at the Washington Post.

Update: Today in the Congo, Clinton committed $17 million in response to sexual violence. The money will fund gynecology training, video cameras for women's security, and anti-rape training for police. But still no word on pressuring the Congolese government to prosecute high-level rapists.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Photo from the play "Ruined," at the Manhattan Theater Club