Violence Against Women

After doing the research on My Sister’s Place for the female activism project, I wanted to do a little more searching into what the government was doing about violence against women in general. What I found was actually pretty surprising. Though overall rates of violence against women have decreased since 1993, young women ages 16 to 24 still experience the highest rates of rape and sexual assault, and people ages 18 and 19 experience the highest rates of stalking.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/1is2many

This is a link to a movement started by Vice President Joe Biden called “1 is 2 Many.” Vice President Biden introduced the Violence Against Women Act into the U.S. Congress on June 20, 1990. This was a huge step in violence against women. “The bill established new federal crimes of interstate domestic violence and stalking, doubled penalties for repeat sex offenders, and sparked the passage of laws at the state level to protect victims. Since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, rates of domestic violence have decreased by over 50%.” Since then Vice President Biden has been advocating on behalf of women. He has even appointed the first ever White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, Lynn Rosenthal. In her role, Ms. Rosenthal “Ms. Rosenthal advises the Vice President on the issues of domestic violence and sexual assault, serves as a liaison to the domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy community and promotes collaboration across federal agencies.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mud-pQ-NZWU

This is a quite a long video of Vice President Joe Biden visiting the University of New Hampshire to raise awareness and announce a new Administration effort to help the nation's schools address sexual violence on April 4, 2011. Not only has Biden helped with the Violence Against Women Act but he also is still a larger advocator of prevent sexual violence in schools. He also discussed on September 14, 2011 in a video message that calls on high school and college students to share their ideas for how to prevent dating violence and sexual assault at their schools and on their college campuses. Over the next two weeks, girls and boys are invited to join this important conversation by submitting their ideas through the “1 is 2 Many” website or by using the hashtag #1is2many on Twitter.