113rd Congress: Should I get excited?

 

January 3, 2013 and the “freshman” class of the 113^th Congress has been sworn in. A few days prior a dear friend of mine sent me the above picture with the statement “I'm sure you can do something with this imagery!” I looked at the picture, shrugged my shoulders and continued contemplating life (mine) in the New Year. Then I watched Dianne Sawyer’s interview (1/3/2013) with a number of these women and I became intrigued. I listened to how the women conceptualize themselves as law makers. One said that women are not filled with testosterone and that makes them different from their male counterparts. They talked about abortion and women’s rights and other issues one has come to expect such panels to deal with. I almost ignored the segment on ABC Nightly News as it started (at least the start for me) on how many children were shared between the women. My thought was please, not this again. Nevertheless, I set aside my bias and listened. But I came away with more thoughts than could be answered in the two-minute segment (or however long it was).  

 

 

I taught Women and Politics last semester—perfect timing. Leading up to the election and after the election my students and I discussed not only why women run for elective office, but also the barriers they face and how women of various social locations confront these barriers. We discussed how women confront the masculinist structure that is Congress. After the election we talked about whether or not the newly elected cohort will be able to change how Congress functions or will they be confined to working within the structure as is.

Many tout this as the most diverse Congress to date. This diversity covers a wide spectrum including:

1.      The House Democrat Caucus-it is projected that the majority now comprises of women and non-white individuals. The Republican counterpart remains heavily White and male.

2.      Religious & Racial Diversity—the House of Representatives now has its first Hindu member and the senate has its first Asian-American woman (the second woman of color to serve in the Senate). Twenty-eight Latinos are now serving in the House and three in the Senate.

3.      Sexuality—the Senate now has its first openly gay member.

4.      Gender-- The Senate now has 20 women (of 100 members) and there are 81 women in the House of Representatives (of 441 members of which 435 are voting members and 6 are non-voting members).

 
In the face of it all, this is indeed something to celebrate. But… I do wander what does this all mean for Black women? Between 1917 and 2012   

“A total of 31 African American or black women have served in Congress (1 in the Senate, 30 in the House), including the 15 serving in the 112th Congress. Eight Hispanic women have been elected to the House; seven serve in the 112th Congress. Six Asian American women have served in the House, including four in the 112th Congress.”

Of the 43 current African American Congresspersons (a drop from 44), a total of 17 are women (these includes two non-voting members). So, there are 17 (out of 435 members) Black women in the House of Representatives and zero (out of 100 members) in the Senate, but why should we care?

Symbolic vs. Substantive Representation: Why we should care

 

Who will represent Black women? This is a question of substantive versus symbolic representation. While both are valuable, I’m inclined to advocate for substantive representation which would result in policy changes—positive changes-- that would enhance the lived realities of Black women. There are so many issues that Black women need to pay attention to; depending on how Congress acts on these issues will show how and if Black women matter, in a substantive manner, to this most diverse Congress. Below I explore only a few of the issues that I think we ought to pay attention to.

 

1.      Violence Against Women Act (VAW). The 112^th House, as it came to its end, failed to act on the VAW Act. The GOP leadership refused to introduce the Act for re-authorization. The bill passed in the Senate would have extended domestic violence protections to approximately 30 million LGBT individuals, First American women and undocumented immigrants. Black women need this legislation. Consider the following:  

 

“Various groups experience domestic violence at disproportionate rates. The NVAWS found that African-American and Native American/Alaskan Indian women and men reported higher rates of domestic violence than did women and men from other communities of color(Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), while Asian/Pacific Islander women and men tended to report lower rates of intimate partner violence than did women and men from other minority backgrounds(Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). It also found that 23.4% of Hispanic/Latina women had been domestic violence victims in their lifetime(Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that African-American women experienced domestic violence at a rate 35% higher than Caucasian women(Rennison & Welchans, 2000).

An important consideration with respect to race and domestic violence is the impact of economic class. A National Institute of Justice (NIJ) publication suggests that "African-Americans and whites with the same economic characteristics have similar rates of intimate violence, but African-Americans have a higher overall rate of intimate violence due in part to higher levels of economic distress and location in disadvantaged neighborhoods"(Benson & Fox, 2004).”

 

2.      HIV/AIDS: Simply put we need a comprehensive, well-funded, national HIV/AIDS policy. Having said this, I recognize that this might not occur in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, there are a few policy issues that Black women need to press Congress on. For one, we need to pres them on funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. We also need to advocate for funding (increased) for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which provides care to low income people with the disease and Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA).

 

3.      The Economy. There are so many issues to discuss related to the economy including the high rates of unemployment among African Americans—regardless of gender and/or age. We also need to advocate, in the coming months, on how the “fiscal cliff” will be addressed. The fiscal-cliff might have been averted, but it is not over. The 2013 Congress must now address what is referred to as the sequestration requirements. Sequestration, implemented by the Budget Control Act of 2011, is approximately $1 trillion in automatic cuts to federal government spending over the next decade. This means that this Congress must now create a deficit reduction plan designed to identify $1.2 trillion in budgetary cuts over the next decade. We need to pay attention to a number of areas that might be affected by these cuts, including for example the Affordable Health Care Act in general and the Prevention and Public Health Fund specifically. Federal employees are not off the hook, yet. A substantial number of African Americans are employed by the federal government. How they handle this economic “crisis” has implication for education parity (Head Start among other programs), access to affordable health care, and adequate and safe housing. 

Congresswoman Maxine Waters

Finally, we need to pay attention to committee assignments as this is often used to mute and silenced those who might challenge the status quo. When Shirley Chisholm, first Black woman elected to Congress, was elected she was initially appointment to a minor subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee. She challenged this appointment and the power structure changed her appointment to the Veterans Affairs Committee. She bucked the system by challenging power structures, she made many uncomfortable with her presence and her words. Hers is but one method of radical representation for substantive change. We have to wait to see if this celebrated 113^rd congress will in the words of Shirley Chisholm “breathe fire”. In the meantime, we cannot sit back and wait for our elected officials to act, we must also act. It is time for us, the voting public, to also “breathe fire” and demand substantive policy that positively affects the lived reality of Black women.

Hostages: Over the Cliff or "Not One of Those Thelma and Louise Bitches"

Guest post by Holona Ochs

So, Democrats have taken to Twitter to fight the mythical “fiscal cliff” based on the notion that the middle class either matters most or is the most mobilizable ideal But, who is truly the most at risk? 

Interestingly, the fight over tax breaks for the wealthy intersect with the discourse on rape, specifically rape of Indigenous Women.

One has to wonder why Violence Against Women is somehow conceived as a threat to sovereignty. That is – unless we recognize that sovereignty is a concept that has protected a feminist ideal that does not exist. In essence, sovereignty is a concept that provides the illusion of protecting some women by intentionally making “other” women more vulnerable. 

I, for one, am “not one of those Thelma and Louise bitches” willing to (or having to) sacrifice myself to prove a point about the humanity of women. Therefore, I refuse to concede any power to any man or woman who intends to or pretends to dominate. 

The mere fact that Cantor is able to hold hostage an “uncontroversial” bill retaining the authority of the Violence Against Women Act is ridiculous. What is at issue here is more than simply a matter of women (all women) being held hostage. The issue is that the protection of women is a bargaining chip in a battle over fiscal policy. Pitting women, particularly women of color, against policies defined by either party as “essential for economic growth” is fundamentally problematic because the value of a woman is not a function of sexuality. Furthermore, the use of violence against women as a strategic mechanism for control is absolutely a choice made by those who wish to dominate in that particular way.  Sexual violence is chosen as a strategy because it is feasible and/or because it is somehow morally justified. The resistance to the Violence Against Women Act in the U.S. currently is a strategic choice intended to divide women into protected categories and use violence to subjugate both women and people of color by separating categories of people with access to legal protections, dehumanizing those with the least power through sexual violence, and capitalizing on the rhetoric that this is a function of some rational, cost-effectiveness calculation and/or moral reasoning that is promoted as an “issue of national security”. 

First, if there is indeed a cliff, I’m not going off it. If I’m not benefiting from the current definition of “national security”, I’m not sacrificing my life to promote ideals that make me the most rapable type of woman. I love “Thelma and Louise”.  One of the primary themes had to do with women being in this together, and I support that, but I simply do NOT believe that driving off a cliff is necessary to somehow retain humanity.   

The Con in the Quest

Guest post by Holona LeAnne Ochs

Source: http://www.buffalopost.net

Bureau of Justice Statistics show that native women in the U.S. face the highest rate of violent crime victimization. The vulnerability to violent crime that women of color face is a function of a history of oppression that perpetuates of the mythical value of whiteness. Scholars of pre-Colonial indigenous societies of North America present evidence that gender violence was rare prior to the imposition of Anglican constructions of the race-gendered contract. In the Cherokee tradition, gender categories opposed and balanced one another, neither valued more than the other, and men and women often willingly helped one another despite a theoretically rigid sexual division of labor (Perdue 1998). In Lakota society, a man who battered his wife was considered untrustworthy and unfit to participate in political life and lost privileges that were highly valued, such as the ability to contribute to a war or hunting party (Reyer 1991). In fact, many Native American communities were matrilineal (Klein and Ackerman 1995). The rape of Native American women was considered a tool for controlling and colonizing North America (Deer 1993; Castaneda 1993; Johnson 2003; Block 2002; Hurtado 1996). This same tactic was used to impose, perpetuate, and capitalize on slavery in the U.S. This is not to suggest that violence against women is the exclusive province of colonialism. Colonialism is a particular institution, one in a series of conquests. It is the conquest that perpetuates violence against women, often based on the justification of protecting women, specifically white women. 

Measures to protect white women (e.g.; white slavery laws) divide women, attempt to displace vulnerabilities, but ultimately make all women more vulnerable. The risk of violence that any one woman faces is a threat to all women.  But, the opportunity to improve the value of women overall is greatest where gaps in the social status of women are widest. Improving the social construction of the value of women requires questioning the assumption that men are inherently better than women, refusing the notion that some women are worth more or more deserving of protection, and investing in the notion that care-giving is a valuable enterprise whether done by women or men.

The recent political discourse on rape and reproduction has me thinking about these issues. Frankly, I am shocked by what has been said and the implicit declaration of war on women. However, I am perhaps most concerned by the extent to which those who are most affected are once again disregarded, dismissed, ignored, and excluded. The con in conquest is the lie that some women do not matter. The quest for domination can only be resisted effectively when human dignity is valued and the people who are most affected by an issue are not only included but understood to have a special knowledge that should inform policy.