Entitled to Women:When "No" Leads to Violence

By Jennifer Knutson

I'm oscillating between rage and tears.

At 10:45 this morning, one of the students at my friends' kid's school shot fellow students, and then himself. According to the Seattle Times, another student, "Jarron Webb, 15, said the shooter was angry at a girl who would not date him, and that she was shot."

This has got to stop.

A friend reminded me of all of the other recent shootings/stabbings/ violence like this. "Jesus f*cking Christ," she says. "Was it always like this and we're only hearing about it more now? (The girl stabbed to death for not going to prom with someone, the woman whose throat was slashed for not talking to someone, the woman who was shot after a funeral for refusing to give her number to someone, etc, etc, etc)."

Let's not forget the abhorrent acts of Elliot Rodger earlier this year at Santa Barbara and the terrifying manifesto that detailed his hatred of, and feelings of entitlement to, women.

I don't know the answer to my friend's question. But I think we finally might be admitting to ourselves and our community that culturally we have a BIG PROBLEM with violence against women that goes along with the harrowing belief that men are entitled to whatever they want from women, whenever they want it.

Arthur Chu, in his brilliant piece, Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds (in response to the Santa Barbara shootings), sums up reality brilliantly:

We’re not guaranteed to get laid by the hot chick of our dreams as long as we work hard enough at it... And when our clever ruses and schemes to “get girls” fail, it’s not because the girls are too stupid or too bitchy or too shallow to play by those unwritten rules we’ve absorbed.

It’s because other people’s bodies and other people’s love are not something that can be taken nor even something that can be earned—they can be given freely, by choice, or not.

Meanwhile, violence like this is reinforcing women's fear that if they say "no," acts of violence—up to and including death of themselves and their friends—is a perfectly reasonable outcome.

In the last three hours, I thought what I was feeling was anger.

But that's not quite right.

I feel helpless.

Jennifer Knutson is the Development Officer at Legal Voice. She is committed to gender equity and fighting for physically and emotionally safe spaces in our homes and throughout our community for children, young people, and adults alike. Outside of work, Jennifer enjoys urban micro-farming and travelling to Portland to indulge in food carts, restaurants, and coffee houses galore.

That Was Us!Recognizing Battered Woman Syndrome as a Defense with Judith Bendor

By Judith Bendor

This year marks Legal Voice's 35th anniversary year. The

That Was Us! series celebrates where we've been and what we've accomplished by creating a patchwork of voices from the people who helped us along the way.

In the early 1980s, Legal Voice (then known as the Northwest Women’s Law Center) was only a few years old, and was very concerned about domestic violence. In the 1980s battering was a deep secret, one of shame for the person who was beaten. Legal Voice wanted to change this.

Attorney Ellen Yaroshefsky represented defendant Sherrie Allery, who had been convicted of second degree murder in the death of her abusive husband. Yaroshefshy (now a distinguished Professor of Law and formerly with the Center for Constitutional Rights) asked Legal Voice to do an amicus brief. The trial court had not permitted the introduction of evidence of Battered Woman Syndrome, which was offered to explain why Ms. Allery had stayed with her husband even though he had beaten her badly; essentially, that the fact she stayed did not mean she was lying about the battering. Legal Voice agreed and I, then a recent law graduate, wrote the brief.

It was a privilege to write the brief—a really transformative experience. While working on the brief I learned about battering. I hoped that the Supreme Court judges could make their own journey on behalf of battered victims. At oral argument they asked probing questions. Yaroshefsky was magnificent. And it worked, as Sherrie Allery's conviction was overturned unanimously (682 P.2d 312 (Wash. 1984)). The case has been cited 440 times. Hooray!

But it is now 30 years later. The issue of battering is still very much with us—may there come a day when this is no longer true.


Judith Bendor was a member of Legal Voice’s Board of Directors from 1980-86, serving as Vice President, Chair of the Legal Committee and co-chair of a fundraising committee. She was an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission, then appointed by Governor Gardner to serve on the Pollution Control and Shoreline Hearings Boards to 1992 and for almost two decades served as administrative hearings examiner for a variety of public entities in land use/environmental law. She is now an active Legal Voice volunteer.

Flag on the Play:Off-the-Field Violence and the NFL

By Josh Bam

Domestic Violence Awareness Month began as a day in 1981 and evolved into a week-long observance soon after that. The first Domestic Violence Awareness Month occurred in October of 1987, the same year the first national domestic violence hotline became available.

This year, Domestic Violence Awareness Month comes at a revealing time in American history and women’s rights. One particularly visible series of events should be the starting point as we reflect on our fight against domestic violence.

It began with the Rice incident, where Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punched his wife in an elevator, knocking her unconscious. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell initially responded by suspending Rice for two games, but increased the sanction once a video of the assault became public. The increased punishment was indefinite suspension and termination of his $35 million contract.

Oh good, then it’s all sorted out.

Wrong. Even before this incident, the NFL had a long history of leniency when faced with domestic violence charges and convictions. Rice only received a strong penalty because his crime was caught on tape and released to the public.

Goodell and the League as a whole came under fire for the mishandling Rice’s punishment. The pressure led to a flurry of moves that seemed focused at saving the NFL’s reputation. In a letter from Goodell to league owners, Goodell made it clear that domestic violence and sexual assault “have no place in the NFL and are unacceptable in any way, under any circumstances.” He also introduced a new policy—six-game suspension for a first offense and a banishment of at least a year for a second offense. The letter then outlines a plan for League personnel to undergo training on the risk factors of domestic violence.

Less than a week later, the NFL was tested on its ability to follow-through with its new policies when San Francisco 49ers defensive end Ray McDonald was arrested on felony domestic violence charges. Under the League’s personal conduct policy players don’t have to be convicted of a crime to be disciplined, so McDonald was allowed to play the following week while the case was investigated.

The NFL also made substantial donations to domestic violence resources—including the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which says phone calls to the hotline spiked after the Rice incident—and hired two new consultants. Tony Porter, who works with A Call to Men, a violence prevention organization, and Beth Richie, a University of Illinois at Chicago gender studies professor, will begin working on a new domestic violence education and prevention policy for the NFL.

Policies and education only tackle one part of the problem. We also need to engage in open dialogue about the current culture of domestic violence complacence and what we can do about it.

In a self-penned essay for The Players Tribune, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson said, “This issue is much bigger than NFL suspensions. Domestic violence isn’t going to disappear tomorrow or the next day. But the more that we choose not to talk about it, the more we shy away from the issue, the more we lose...For those of us in the NFL, there’s no excuse for violence off the field.”

While increased awareness isn’t the entire solution, a spotlight on the NFL and a public conversation about domestic violence needs to happen. We face a culture of leniency and blissful ignorance and to make progress requires open dialogue about real issues. This is the month those conversations should start.

More than one-third of women in the United States (approximately 42.4 million) have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime. If you or someone you know is a survivor of physical, mental, sexual, or emotional, domestic abuse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE or visit TheHotline.org.

For help in Washington, you can reach the Washington State Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-562-6025. Self-help legal resources for domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking victims are available in the Tools to Help You section of the Legal Voice website.

Josh is an attorney in Seattle who works on a variety of corporate, business, and tax law issues. He also writes and edits for firms and nonprofits in the Seattle area and thoroughly enjoys preparing taxes with United Way of King County Free Tax Preparation Campaign. Josh currently serves as the Secretary for Seattle Select Attorneys Association and is involved in a few projects with Legal Voice’s Self-Help Committee. He is committed to working on access to justice and accessibility of the law issues.

Photo courtesy of babyknight.

Need Some Inspiration?

By Jamila Johnson

Each year, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announce the MacArthur Fellows. This prestigious group is comprised of superbly creative people—the folks who have made a unique impact on the world, but who could do even more with the $650,000 genius grant each receives. This year, the MacArthur Foundation recognized 21 individuals, nine of whom are women sure to inspire.

These are the women who little girls should dream about growing up to be. Shucks, these are the women that all women should dream about growing (more) up to be.

Meet civil rights lawyer Mary L. Bonauto. Her job is essentially about eliminating double standards in the law. In her role as Civil Rights Project Director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) in Boston, she strives to create a world where everyone has freedoms and opportunities regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status. Bonauto has been instrumental in social reform litigation across the country for marriage equality as GLAD has been a true leader in the nation’s steps forward.

While most of Bonauto’s work has been in the courtroom, Sarah Deer—a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota—has been making her mark with trailblazing legislation. Deer focuses her work on gender violence on Indian reservations. A citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, Deer has been instrumental in the passage of The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Both laws hope to combat the problems in the legal structures that led to the under-prosecution of violence against native women.

Speaking of prosecution, Stanford professor and social psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt has been changing views on criminal justice through her groundbreaking research on how stereotypes of African American criminal behavior impact much more than one might think. In the simplest terms, she focuses on how the association of African Americans with crime might matter at different points in the criminal justice system. From this lens she has contributed to conversations on various parts of the system, from “stand your ground” laws to prison inequities.

Cartoonist and graphic memoirist Alison Bechdel spent 25 years authoring and cartooning Dykes to Watch Out For—a paradigm-shifting comic that has been labeled one of the earliest ongoing representations of lesbians in pop culture. It was through a 1985 issue of this comic that Bechdel introduced us to what would later become known as the Bechdel test, a simple, three-question test that sets a baseline for gender parity in film. She has gone on to address a number of personal stories in book-length graphic memoirs and is changing society’s notions of the contemporary memoir and expanding the graphic form while telling her unique story.

While Bechdel expends memoirs, labor organizer Ai-jen Poo is expanding rights for domestic or private-household workers. Poo is the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance where she fights for the estimated 1–2 million domestic workers—housekeepers, nannies, caregivers for the elderly or disabled—in the United States today that are excluded from most federal and state labor laws. Poo is sparking a movement seeking improved working conditions for millions of workers across the nation.

Physicist Danielle Bassett may be only 32, but she is causing quite a stir with her research. Basset is using tools from network science and complex systems theory to enhance our understanding of connectivity and organizational principles in the human brain. Her work is uncovering insights on learning, disease diagnostics and therapeutics, and treatment of brain injury. Additionally, she is contributing to numerous other disciplines as faculty at University of Pennsylvania.

University of Washington alumna Tami Bond is taking on a tricky problem. She is working to unravel the global effects of black carbon emissions on climate and human health, which may have the potential effect of helping millions breathe cleaner air. A professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Bond is developing research that may discover the role of energy in our climate system and just might save the world.

Curious about engineering in Rome during the late Sixteenth Century? Seventy-one year old Pamela O. Long is the expert. This independent historian focuses on the history of science and technology in the fifteenth and sixteenth century and has had great success with her books Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (2001) and Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences (2011). The grant will help her finish her latest book on the infrastructure development of Rome and the way society interacts with the creation of infrastructure.

But Long is not the only historian on the list—Professor of East European History Tara Zahra focuses on the history of modern Europe challenging the idea that there is anything inevitable about national conflict or the development of national identity and belonging. She has been getting at this question through the lens of children and by delving into the mobilization of children. She is currently working on a book about immigration from East Central Europe. Zahra is looking at how it affects a society to have one tenth of a population leaving during the course of one generation. She hopes to take more risks and go to new archives to figure out how better to link her work to present day challenges in migration.

These women are truly transformative and an inspiration for all.

Jamila Johnson serves on the Board of Directors at Legal Voice and eagerly awaits the release of MacArthur Foundation genius grants each year collecting role models.