Today, if one were to look at helping the most victimized groups -- and one on the rise -- one might easily pick women (with those with additional minority identities often raising their risk). The most frequent targets of violent crime: an approximate one in five is a victim of an assault or assault attempt, with many being victimized more than once.
Between 2001 and 2012, 11,866 women were killed by a current or former male partner. That's almost twice the number of American troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (6,488) and about four times as many who died in the World Trade Center attacks. Thousands more are assaulted on campuses nationwide each year, with extremely low conviction rates for the perpetrator.
The rise of women in our society has been phenomenal. High school girls now earn GPAs that are 0.3 points higher than men, on average, and comprise 50 percent more college graduates. There numbers are equal in many traditionally male-dominated fields. Yet even as they soar, they have been increasingly demeaned, as brutal violence against women has become common entertainment: permeating television, video games and porn.
The recent ousters of former Fox chairman Roger Ailes and host Bill O'Reilly and the attention on private schools for repeated offenses are certainly cause for hope.
But the question prompted by this "voice" effort, is one around institutional support. When is the administration effort going to address women who are targeted by men (who commit the vast majority of assaults, murders, mass murders, and sexual violence)?
Ironically, perhaps the first effort of the Trump administration was to slash funding for all grant programs managed by the Office on Violence Against Women.
The Larger Strategy of Attack
There may be more important stories now -- the signing of an executive order for greater offshore drilling, a new tax plan that could potentially starve the government of revenue (and inevitably eventually vulnerable populations), another botched execution, and a heightening of tensions with North Korea, among others.
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