In the Name of VAWA

Abstract

It may at first seem curious that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would be the topic of an editorial 9 months after its 2013 reauthorization and before we have the opportunity to examine its impact, since it takes effect in fiscal year 2014. Nonetheless, advocates can revel in their victory of a battle hard fought, particularly after the failure of Congress to reauthorize VAWA in 2012. For some of us, the true curiosity was that there was a battle at all. Surely, we can agree that interpersonal violence is socially undesirable, if not tragic. In her blog, Bea Hanson (2013), acting director of the Office of Violence Against Women, reported, ‘‘The week that VAWA was reauthorized, at least 15 women and 4 men were killed by intimate partners. A 9-year-old boy was killed by a hatchet by his father, who had previously served time in jail for domestic violence and fought for custody after his release. A 17-year-old boy was arrested for stabbing his 16-year-old girlfriend to death. And a 22-year-old pregnant woman was shot in the head and her body burned—her boyfriend has been arrested.’’ Notwithstanding these tragedies, the curiousness begins to fade when the sticking points of the reauthorization become transparent; three provisions for previously unaddressed or underaddressed groups were included: (1) protections for intimate partner violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT); (2) the sovereignty of Native tribal courts; and (3) extended access to U visas for immigrant victims (Eichelberger, 2013; VAWA: Udall Celebrates Senate Reauthorization of VAWA, 2012). These ‘‘sticking points’’ allow us to use multiple theoretical lenses to contextualize our cultural acceptance of violence against women in the United States (because surely no theoretical lens helps us understand that this violence is appropriate).