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OUR
BODIES, OURSELVES READING ROOM
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Race,
Class, and Violence Against Women
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While
violence is often targeted toward
us simply because we are women,
factors such as race, class,
sexual orientation, and age
put particular women at greater
risk and with less access to
resources. Women of color, older
women, young women, lesbians,
poor and working-class women,
and women with disabilities,
to name a few, are especially
vulnerable to male violence.
A married black woman who was
fired for refusing to sleep
with her supervisor said:
On
many occasions Mr. EEE said
to me, "For a colored girl,
you are intelligent." I told
him that if he has to refer
to a color or race concerning
me, I considered myself "black."
He replied, "I don't believe
in black or all that stuff.
To me you're colored, and that's
it." One day he made a comment
concerning my, as he called
it, "voluptuous" shape. When
I asked him politely to discontinue
making such comments that include
sexual overtures, he replied,
"Why not? For a colored, you're
very stacked, light-skinned,
and pretty."
Too often, services that aim
to serve victims of violence
are not aware of or do not have
sufficient resources to serve
the widest range of women. For
example, hotlines may be available
only in English, police may
hold racist attitudes toward
women of color, courts may be
inaccessible to women who have
no telephones or transportation.
Often, these institutions reflect
society's racism and classism.
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The
man who raped me was white, and
the cops here are all white. I didn't
report it. I just told a few people
I trusted. It helped, but I still
feel scared, knowing he's out there
and that nobody would do anything
about it.
Most people take acts of violence
less seriously if the woman is "poor,"
old, or institutionalized; or is
a prostitute, a lesbian, or a woman
with physical or mental disabilities.
This is true for all women whose
"male protectors" are nonexistent,
invisible, or socially less powerful
than other men. Older women have
less freedom to fight sexual harassment
at their jobs or to leave a battering
husband, partly because age discrimination
means they might not easily find
other ways of supporting themselves.
Acts
of violence against women are sometimes
particularly motivated by racism,
homophobia, or religious bias. These
hate crimes can include beatings
and verbal harassment (using ugly
epithets) and vandalism of sacred
spaces such as synagogues, churches,
or cemeteries. Like other forms
of violence against women, hate
crimes can also include death threats,
sexual assault, and murder. Perpetrators
include white supremacist and neo-Nazi
groups that attack people of color
or Jewish people because of their
intense hatred for these people.
Open lesbians have been raped by
men or groups of men angry at their
social independence or because lesbians
do not want them sexually.8
Victims of hate crimes often experience
intense fear and isolation, humiliation,
and increased feelings of internalized
self-hatred.
I
guess the worst part of all this
is feeling baffled by hate. Why--is
the question that keeps running
through my head. What have I done
to deserve this?
Many states have specific laws about
hate crimes.
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Copyright
� 1984, 1992, 1998 by the Boston Women's
Health Book Collective. All rights
reserved. Published by Touchstone,
a division of Simon
& Schuster Inc.
To
order Our Bodies, Ourselves for
the New Century
CLICK HERE
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