A new trailer has been posted for our excellent DVD title, Carrie’s Choice.
“The Link” Animal Abuse and Domestic Violence
Here’s an interesting article we found on the Care2.com website about the state of New Mexico recognizing the realtionship between animal abuse and domestic violence:
Referred to as “The Link,” groups are now trying to understand and call attention to the relationship between abusing animals and violence in homes in hopes that these efforts will create an opportunity for prevention and protection for animals.
Nationwide studies have shown that, “up to 71 percent of women (with companion animals) entering women’s shelters reported that their batterer had injured, maimed, killed or threatened their animals for revenge or to psychologically control them.”
Lawmakers in New Mexico have responded to this problem in their state with the passage of a joint memorial in the last legislative session, which will make February 10 New Mexico Link Awareness Day.
Read the entire article here.
“Legal Momentum” for 30 Years
Via Truthout.org, we found an interesting article that looks at how far we have evolved on the issue of gender discrimination in our courts.
When Legal Momentum, a U.S. advocacy group that works with all aspects of gender in the legal system, started its National Judicial Education Programme in 1980, gender discrimination was an unacknowledged problem in the country’s courtrooms.
Thirty years later, the New York-based NJEP has produced dozens of reports and educational programmes for U.S. judges and lawyers, including an authoritative 500-page handbook on gender discrimination in the legal system.
Link to the rest of the article
While there are still obvious issues of gender discrimination in our courts, groups like Legal Momentum deserve credit for helping make our courts more equitable.
Update: Sexual Assault on Campus
Here’s an update from a December post we did about Sexual Assault on Campus
The Center for Public Integrity has added some new articles to their report about college sexual assault.
Here’s a sampling of some of the interesting articles:
‘Undetected Rapists’ on Campus: A Troubling Plague of Repeat Offenders
An Uncommon Outcome at Holy Cross
UN Report: Alarming Use of Date Rape Drugs
Found Via USA Today:
The report says the “date-rape drug” phenomenon “is evolving rapidly, as sexual abusers attempt to circumvent more rigorous drug controls by using substances not restricted by the international drug conventions.”
Link to the complete UN Report
Dating Violence: Whose Problem?
With February being Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month, we wanted to highlight this piece about Dating Violence by Laura Sessions Stepp
on the sexreally.com website:
Confronting Dating Violence, reminds us: The incidence of assaults on intimate partners is rarely taken as seriously as it should be. And despite various educational campaigns encouraging witnesses to intervene, most people still see relationship abuse as the couple’s problem, not theirs.
Linda Dunphy, executive director of an Arlington, VA, organization called Doorways for Women and Families, wrote in The Washington Post late last year that calls to her office concerning domestic violence had jumped 56 percent from the year before. Some of the situations might have been prevented, she said, had a neighbor, friend, or family member offered help in some fashion.
Update: French Law Against Emotional Abuse
Heres’s an an update of a previous story, France: Move to Make Emotional Abuse a Crime.
From The New York Times:
France’s National Assembly approved Thursday night a proposal to add “psychological violence” to a law intended to help victims of physical violence and abuse, despite doubts that the law is specific enough to have much impact.
The proposed law says that to “act or repeatedly say things that could damage the victim’s life conditions, affect his/her rights and his/her dignity or damage his/her physical or mental health” is punishable by a jail term of up to three years and a fine of up to 75,000 euros, or about $103,000.
According to the article, the next step for bill will be the French Senate, where passage is likely to happen this summer.
Pregnancy and Depression
We found this interesting story via the New York Times about two different studies relating to pregnancy and depression:
The first, published online by the journal Pediatrics, finds that a startling percentage of low-income, urban mothers show symptoms of postpartum depression. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center screened 198 mothers of children between the ages of 2 weeks and 14 months who brought their children for checkups at the center’s outpatient pediatric clinic. More than half of those mothers — 56 percent — met the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of some degree of depression.
Postpartum depression is thought to affect 14 percent of new mothers in the United States, and while it is known to be higher in low-income populations, these numbers surprised researchers.
The second study cited in the article looked at acupuncture as a treatment for depression with pregant women:
Researchers at Stanford University tested alternative treatments and antidepressants for pregnant women and found that acupuncture specifically designed to treat depression is a potential substitute. Sixty-three percent of women who received that treatment responded well, compared with only 44 percent who received massage therapy or acupuncture that was not specifically designed for depression.
Link to the original New York Times Article:
Senate Still Has Yet to Confirm VAWA Director
Found via the Feminist Daily News:
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) reprimanded her colleagues in a floor speech Thursday for their two-month-long hold on the confirmation of Judge Susan Carbon as the Director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women (OVW). President Barack Obama first nominated Carbon to be director of the OVW in October 2009, according to the Boston Globe. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted for Carbon’s confirmation on December 3. She was eventually confirmed last Thursday.
During her speech on the Senate floor, Shaheen said, “Every two minutes someone in this country is a victim of sexual violence. Every 52 seconds a woman is victimized by a spouse or partner. These crimes devastate victim’s lives. They shatter families…These Senators cloaked in anonymity were not punishing Attorney General Holder by blocking Susan Carbon’s confirmation. These Senators were punishing the victims of domestic and sexual violence in states across this country…the police officers who put their lives at risk every day when they enter homes plagued by domestic violence…[and] the community groups that are working to prevent domestic and sexual violence.”
Scottish Study: Children Say Violence Against Women Justiified
From the BBC, comes the disheartening results from a study of school children in Scotland:
A study of schoolchildren has found that most of those questioned thought violence towards women was acceptable if there was a reason behind it.
The majority of the pupils said it was justified if the woman had an affair, or if she was late in making the tea.
The study by a researcher from Edinburgh Napier University also suggested that girls expect to curtail ambitions once they are married.
The research involved 89 primary seven children at five Glasgow primaries.
The 11 and 12-year-olds were questioned in depth about their attitudes and aspirations towards gender roles and behaviour.
