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A 22 year old woman was violently attacked and raped in a New York City subway station in 2005, and city employees who witnessed the incident, which went on for over twenty minutes, did nothing to intervene.

The Today Show reports:

Now, after nearly four years of constant nightmares, bouts of depression and anxiety, the woman has been told by a judge that two transit workers who saw her being attacked had no obligation to do anything to help her other than to signal their superiors that police were needed at the station.

The young woman, identified as “Maria”, has said she didn’t expect the subway employees who witnessed the attack — a ticket clerk and a conductor — to compromise their own safety to physically intervene, but that they could have used the intercom to communicate to her attacker that the attack had been witnessed and the police had been called.

“He could have just gotten over the intercom and said, ‘Hey! Stop what you’re doing! I’ve called the cops!’ Anything like that would have helped,” she said. “He didn’t have to get out of the booth. I don’t expect him to be a police officer. But he could have definitely said something over the intercom, or perhaps having a quicker system of notifying the police would have been effective, too.”

Maria, a graduate student at the time of the attack, found she was unable to continue her studies after the incident. She was plagued by PTSD and anxiety attacks, forcing her to drop out of school. Today, she blames the onlookers who didn’t intervene more than she blames her attacker, because he was obviously mentally ill, while the subway employees were in possession of a moral conscience, but chose to do nothing to help her.

She will appeal the ruling on her case.

Silence is consent

Indicted last week on six counts of felony assault, and prohibited from having any contact with his alleged victim until December 2009, NY State Senator Hiram Monserrate has inexplicably not been forced to relinquish his senate seat as he goes to trial.

He’s a state legislator charged with a serious felony, and until that issue is resolved, he cannot be trusted to serve the public good.

Every time this story gets some traction in the press, Monseratte’s PR firm contacts the publication and attempts to intimidate them, as they did with The New Agenda and NY NOW.

Don’t allow this story to sink below the surface while an accused violent felon remains comfortably ensconced in his office, collecting his substantial salary as a senator.

This is a travesty, and the message it sends is that violence against women is no big deal.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

If you live in New York State, call or write your legislators at one of the links below and ask them to insist that Monserrate step down until his case is resolved.

Click this link for a list of all NY State senators, including contact information

Click this link for a quick list of NY State senators’ email addresses

If you live in or outside of NY, write letters to the editor to Albany, Troy, Queens, and other NYC, NY papers. You can also identify reporters and ask them why this isn’t a bigger story. Call or write television networks and ask why the story hasn’t received more national coverage.

Click this link to find contact info for newspapers in NYC
Contact CNN
Contact FOX
Contact NBC/MSNBC
Contact ABC

They are the only countries that have failed to ratify the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) into law. Adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, at present 185 countries are party to the Convention. There are eight holdouts, of which the U.S. is one.

But one of these things is not like the others. Compared to Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, Nauru, Palau and Tonga, the U.S. is a wealthy, advanced nation that has made significant strides in women’s rights, right?

So what’s the problem?

The Obama administration has said it will make it a priority to reopen discussion of the treaty in the Senate, and CEDAW also has some Republican support. According to Peggy Simpson at The Women’s Media Center, “96 cities, counties and states have passed resolutions calling on on Congress to ratify CEDAW. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-California, introduced a resolution early in January with 121 co-sponsors, urging Senate action on the treaty.”

“CEDAW,” Simpson notes, is “essentially is a bill of rights for women and has been used as a gold standard for many global grass roots groups seeking to shape laws that would expand rights of women in their own countries.”

Simpson quotes Sarah C. Albert, “a front-tier activist on behalf of CEDAW,” who notes that there is “’a renewed interest in how the United States is seen from abroad,’” and “a realization that continued U.S. opposition to CEDAW complicates its efforts to call out human rights offenders in other countries.”

(Like, say, Afghanistan, for instance? That country which, despite having ratified the treaty in 2003, just this week passed a law that among other things will force women to have sex with their husbands every four days…or else?)

CEDAW was first brought before Senate by President Carter, and President George W. Bush gave it his support initially. “In 2002, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that CEDAW was ‘generally desirable and should be ratified’,” according to Simpson, but Ashcroft opposed it, which effectively buried it for the remainder of Bush’s presidency.

“This year,” Simpson reports, “Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, is poised to hold Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearings on the treaty.”

Boxer has said she wants to start with a clean version of CEDAW, shedding the dozen restrictions added in 2002 during the unsuccessful attempt to ratify it. These so-called RUDs – for reservations, understandings and declarations – included stipulations that the treaty could not compel the government to provide paid maternity leave or force women to serve in military combat units. The most contentious stipulation, however, and the bid to win over religious right opposition, was that the treaty should not be construed as creating a right to abortion.

Ah. There it is: ”The most contentious stipulation, however, and the bid to win over religious right opposition, was that the treaty should not be construed as creating a right to abortion.”

Once again, American women’s rights are held hostage to the issue of abortion, and women on both sides of the aisle are trapped behind the logjam this issue creates.

So…what if a bunch of us elected to put the abortion issue aside -– not giving up our personal positions, but choosing to work together on other fronts, fighting any number of other fights for women? What if we decided that getting more women elected and addressing violence against women and equal pay for women and sexism in the media were issues that could be tackled by women from both the left and the right, while we refused to play with the political football that the abortion issue has become?

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t mean to trivialize reproductive rights, but let’s consider the lesson learned from CEDAW, which is that the issue of choice separates women and drains away our power.

Our government is comprised of 83% men. The status quo will naturally keep giving men a disproportionate degree of power, and choice is a convenient way to keep women divided and block any meaningful progress that we can make on the 80% of issues that impact all women — the issues that, if resolved, would give us more seats at the table, and shift the balance of power in our favor.

It’s 2009. CEDAW is 30 years old. The game is rigged against us. The old agenda doesn’t work. This is The New Agenda.

The Violence Against Women Forum will feature four of the New York area’s preeminent experts on domestic violence. Each expert will speak about a specific topic that she feels is currently noteworthy.

One of the four panelists, Irene Weiser, President and Executive Director of stopfamilyviolence.org will speak on “The family court crisis – what’s happening, why, and how we need to organize to address it.”

Details of the event and the other panelists can be found by clicking here.

Monserrate’s History of Mental Health Problems

• A former marine and NYC police officer, in 1999, Monserrate filed for a disability pension from the NYPD, “citing mental problems, including post-traumatic stress syndrome”, as well as depression and anxiety;
• Police seized Monserrate’s guns after a psychological assessment, ordered as a result of the claim, was completed;
• On Sept. 10, 2001, Monserrate was reportedly arrested for running over the leg of a tow-truck driver who was attempting to tow his vehicle;
• Perhaps owing to the date of the incident, the case was never processed.

Facts Surrounding the Indictment of Monserrate

• A quarrel between Hiram Monserrate and girlfriend Karla Giraldo is alleged to have erupted Dec. 18th at Monserrate’s Jackson Heights apartment when he found another man’s police union card in Giraldo’s wallet;
• Security camera footage shows Giraldo running to a neighbor’s door and shouting before Monserrate grabs her violently and pulls her away;
• Individuals who viewed the video report that Giraldo appeared “scared out of her mind” as she screamed and pleaded at a neighbor’s door for help;
• Monserrate is in security camera footage forcing Giraldo out of the building before driving    her to a hospital 20 minutes from his home;
• 20 to 25 stitches were required to close the gash around Giraldo’s eye;
• At the hospital, Giraldo claimed that Monserrate had deliberately slashed her face;
• Monserrate was arrested Dec. 19, 2008, and charged with felony assault and possession of a weapon for stabbing his girlfriend, Karla Girlado, in the face with a broken drinking glass;
• Giraldo later made a statement recanting those allegations, claiming she had been coerced by police into making the earlier statement;
• Monserrate and Giraldo both now claim the injury occurred when he tripped while carrying a glass of water, and they “stumbled into each other”;
• In preliminary court proceedings, a judge upheld a protection order that would keep Monserrate from seeing Giraldo despite her request for it to be withdrawn;
• On March 23, 2009, Monserrate was indicted by a grand jury on six counts of felony assault;
• On March 27, 2009, Monserrate was arraigned on felony assault charges;
• Monserrate entered a Not Guilty plea.

Monserrate in the NY State Senate

• Monserrate was sworn in to the NY State Senate on January 7, 2009, with felony assault charges pending against him;
• The NY State Democratic Party has a senate majority for the first time in four decades; without Monserrate, they might not be able to hold on to that majority;
• Monserrate had initially declined to support the nomination of Malcolm Smith as Senate Majority Leader, but after a reported negotiation with Smith, Monserrate gave him his support;
• Subsequent to his swearing-in, Monserrate was appointed by Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith to chair the Consumer Relations Committee;
• Monserrate had said he would forego the salary ($12,000) provided by that appointment;
• On January 31, NY NOW held a press conference to demand that Monserrate be removed from his position as Chair of the Consumer Protection Committee until the charges against him are resolved;
• A group called Women in Defense of Women held a counter-protest outside NOW’s press conference;
• Some of the women defending Monserrate belong to organizations that have been recipients of funding directed by him;
• Monserrate temporarily stepped down from his chairmanship of the Consumer Protection Committee and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith defended his handling of the issue;
• Monserrate has allegedly used some left-over campaign money to pay a PR firm to rehabilitate his image;
• The New Agenda has been contacted by this PR firm.

Related posts:

• http://thenewagenda.net/2009/01/09/wheres-the-line-between-political-expediency-and-evil/
• http://thenewagenda.net/2009/01/29/press-conference-saturday-now-nys-will-speak-out-against-hiram-monserrate/
• http://thenewagenda.net/2009/02/02/hiram-monserrate-poster-boy-of-domestic-violence/
• http://thenewagenda.net/2009/02/06/the-new-agenda-sent-out-the-following-press-release-on-hiram-monserrate/
• http://thenewagenda.net/media/press-releases/the-new-agenda-calls-on-ny-senate-to-force-monserrate-to-step-down/
• http://thenewagenda.net/2009/02/07/monserrates-reputation-manager-contacts-tna/
• http://thenewagenda.net/2009/02/28/monserrate-goes-back-to-court-and-a-letter-from-a-dv-expert/
• http://thenewagenda.net/media/press-releases/indicted-state-senator-must-step-down/
• http://thenewagenda.net/2009/03/26/open-letter-to-ny-state-senators-regarding-the-indictment-of-hiram-monserrate/

Visit our Facebook discussion page on the Monserrate case

As the MSM collapses under the burden of its sins and the public increasingly hunts its news down on the information superhighway, the blogosphere suddenly finds itself in pole position on the issues that matter today — able to frame the discourse in a way and with a voice it never could have anticipated.

If ever Feminism had a chance to make its concerns known to a wider audience, to get them out there where they will be heard and to demand a response, this is it.

This is our time.

We have the opportunity to speak out in collective voices, to push the issues of women’s equality into the public domain and ensure that they remain there.

To be good at this — to really take make use of this opportunity — we need to be talking to each other, sharing information, sharing news, stories, press releases, action alerts, initiatives of all kinds.

We do okay at it now — word gets around — but I know we can do it more efficiently, more effectively.

To that end, I’ve created a google group called New Feminist Media. Within the next week or so, I’ll be inviting hundreds of feminist bloggers to join. The purpose of this group will be strictly information sharing. Whatever ‘type’ of feminist you are, if you’re a voice for women’s equality, there’s a place for you in this group. Those invited will be able to opt in and opt out again any time they choose.

The group is intended to make it easier to share information, and while The New Agenda will benefit, it will not own or run the group as an adjunct to the organization. The group will be self-owned, and non-hierarchical, except to the extent that there will be a group mandate and volunteers who will ensure we don’t deviate too far from it.

If this sounds intriguing and you want to be included, please drop me an email at newfeministmedia@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure you get an invitation.

—o—o—o—

One of our founders sent this around this morning:

The Low Road, Marge Piercy

What can they do to you?
Whatever they want.
They can set you up,
they can bust you,
they can break your fingers,
they can burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you can’t walk, can’t remember,
they can take your child,
wall up your lover.
They can do anything
you can’t stop them from doing.
How can you stop them?
Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse,
you can take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting back to back can cut through a mob,
a snake-dancing file can break a cordon,
an army can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other sane,
can give support, conviction, love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge.
With four you can play bridge and start an organization.
With six you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no seconds,
and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time.
It starts when you care to act.
It starts when you do it again,
after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each day,
you mean one more.

Not The New Agenda, specifically, but bloggers, and particularly feminist bloggers, who have a powerful set of common interests and common goals. As print media shambles toward increasing obsolescence, eclipsed by the rapidly evolving world of electronic information, we who communicate in this medium have an opportunity to come together and speak in a single, booming voice that will reverberate all the way into the precincts of power.

Make no mistake: we will be heard. Which is why the choice of Valerie Jarrett as Chair of the White House Commission on Women and Girls ought to be taken as a positive sign.

No one would accuse me of being an optimist, and yet I find the prospect of Valerie Jarrett heading up this initiative very encouraging—maybe more so than any move made by President Obama so far.

Why? Because she’s one of his three top advisors. She’s been close to him, advising him, for years. She’s one of Michelle Obama’s closest friends, and her former employer. She’s almost one of the family, and she has been entrusted with some extremely important and delicate tasks, such as overseeing the transition team.

Obama trusts her. He relies on her. Obviously, she’s proven herself an invaluable member of his inner circle.

So the fact that Obama has put her in charge of this Commission tells me that he understands the importance of careful handling, of moving the agenda forward, of getting the job done for women. He’s chosen someone in whom he has confidence. This tells me that he takes us seriously.

Because we’re not going to be gone in four years. The New Feminist Media is not going to fade into the background. We’ve only begun to fight, and in the next few years we will become stronger and more organized and more vocal. We’re not going to go back to that fractured, isolated state we were in before, where we despaired of ever seeing redress for women’s unequal status. We’re a force. We’ve found our tribe and we’ve found our voice.

Valerie Jarrett is a woman, and she gets some support from me for that fact alone. She’s a woman in power. We need more women in power — Yay, Valerie! It’s not fair to say that she’s anti-woman. She’s been a friend and advisor to Obama since long before he entered politics. I wouldn’t say Michelle Obama is anti-woman for supporting Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, and I can’t make that accusation of Valerie Jarrett or Rahm Emanuel, either. They’re loyal to Obama, and I see loyalty and longevity as virtues.

I’m excited. In my mind’s eye I picture Valerie Jarrett, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton and I think, this is going to be good for women.

UPDATE

Apparently, I’m not the only one with this view on the Jarrett appointment. Gloria Pan at Fem 2.0 has written an opinion the conclusion of which is so close to mine, that if I didn’t know better, I’d think I’d cribbed it from her.

The graph reflects the weekly earnings of subjects working full-time who are 16 years-of-age and older. Only occupations that had a minimum of 50,000 respondents were included in the study. In each occupation, women did the same job as men.

Nearly every occupation has the gap — the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between the size of the paycheck brought home by a woman and the larger one earned by a man doing the same job. Economists cite a few reasons: discrimination as well as personal choices within occupations are two major factors, and part of the gap can be attributed to men having more years of experience and logging more hours.

Click on the link above or the image below to go to the NYTimes article. Mouse over the dots to see the disparity in earnings by gender.

Why is her paycheck smaller?

ECONOMIC BULLYING: What would you put up with in order to keep your job?

Liz Ryan interviews employment attorney Cynthia Wellbrock for Colorado Biz Magazine.

The recession isn’t just hard on those who’ve already lost their jobs. These troubled economic times also create stress in the workplace, where people are anxious about the future, wondering if they’re about to lose their jobs. According to Cynthia Wellbrock, employees are being physically threatened, harassed, denied pay, and being told to quit if they don’t like it.

One person with over 15 years experience told me his boss flew into a screaming rage and threatened to shove him down the stairs over a minor issue – yet he’s afraid to speak up. I asked him what would make his supervisor behave like that, and he said, “Everyone is scared of losing their jobs. The stress is incredible.” That’s no justification, but he is right and more and more workers are unwilling to say or do anything about abusive behaviors for fear of termination. I’ve started to call the phenomenon economic bullying.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Workplace bullies who have kept their abusive behavior in check in “normal” conditions now feel free to unload on people who are too terrified of losing their jobs to speak up. The bullies are scared, too, of course, and therefore more inclined than ever to take out their psychological distress on others.

But a lawsuit, Wellbrock notes, is a risk the bully may not be able to afford, and an employee who has lost her job has nothing more to lose if she takes action. Bullying will also cause a loss of productivity.

The longer people fail to speak up to their boss or to HR, the greater their stress will become, and symptoms of stress, like depression, anxiety, and illnesses increase. Stressed and sick employees aren’t productive, and tend to miss more time. The result is decreased productivity at the worst possible time and costly emotional distress damages in the event of litigation.

Wellbrock outlines steps companies can take to help employees and managers cope with stress and “stand by their companies’ values such as an equal opportunity and respectful workplace.” Making sure laws are complied with, keeping lines of communication open, and responding proactively to symptoms of stress in employees and managers will help keep a situation from escalating to the point where the company is put at risk.

Employees, Wellbrock says, should make sure they “document incidents as they occur.”

Speak up to the bully or harasser in a calm manner and ask them to stop. Report the incident to HR. Insist that HR take action immediately to investigate your complaint. In instances of unfair wage & hour practices track the hours you worked but for which you weren’t compensated properly. In the event of litigation those records are crucial. In certain situations, and employee is required to report harassment or discrimination to upper management or HR when it happens. Failure to do so could bar the employee from suing in the future.

Wellbrook ends by warning employers that terminating an employee who has complained for a minor infraction, such as coming in late, will likely backfire. And once you fire a person, she has nothing to lose by suing.

Cynthia Wellbrock can be reached at cwellbrock@comcast.net.

Liz Ryan is the CEO of Ask Liz Ryan, a Boulder human-resources and career-coaching firm. She can be reached at liz@asklizryan.com .

Me: Gloria Steinem.

The defense is claiming that the charges against Monserrate are being driven by a political agenda, rather than a quest for justice. Karla Giraldo made conflicting statements to police and hospital staff about how she acquired her injuries, but her first statements and footage from security cameras in Monserrate’s building indicate that Monserrate may be guilty of attacking her with broken glass, leaving a cut above her eye that required 20 stitches to close.

—o—o—o—

ON A RELATED NOTE, this week we received the following email. The author – we’ll call him DV Prosecutor – wrote to commend The New Agenda for our stance on Domestic Violence, and to join our cause.

I just read and reread Amy Siskind’s article, “The Debate Over Assiya’s Murder.”  It was well written, passionate, and made me wonder if Ms. Siskind used to be a DV prosecutor. Too often discussions over brutal acts of domestic violence get pulled in unreal directions. What I so enjoyed about Ms. Siskind’s article was her focus on the simple and ugly truth. DV is the most important criminal, health, and social justice issue in our country. The numbers, even at their most conservative, are staggering. I have been a DV prosecutor in [redacted] for 12 years and am constantly amazed at the fleeting attention paid to DV homicides or the constant torrent of brutal DV acts in my community. Sadly, the vast majority of politicians have become experts at paying lip service to the cause of DV, while doing little or nothing to advance research, services, or criminal justice response.

When I visited The New Agenda’s web site I saw that reducing DV was one of your priorities. I was specifically interested in the line “We will also push prosecutors to adopt a zero tolerance approach in these cases and seek tougher sentences for those who are convicted of domestic violence.”

I wish I heard more people or organizations say that. I know many DV prosecutors work very hard to do the best they can to keep victims safe and hold offender’s accountable. However, when one looks at the bottom line at how offenders are sentenced, no matter the state, the results are disheartening.

The laws make great pronouncements about victims, but have little follow through and often leave prosecutors to select from a menu of very poor choices. In [redacted] state many of us have been working to improve the DV sentencing laws, but it has been difficult to get buy in from legislators. I would like to join your organization, and think that a focus on the reality of DV sentencing (the bottom line of the criminal justice system) is imperative. Violence against women should be more than an occasional footnote in a discussion of political philosophy cited only when there is a high profile DV homicide.

Sincerely,
Domestic Violence Prosecutor

—o—o—o—

Related links:

http://thenewagenda.net/2009/01/09/wheres-the-line-between-political-expediency-and-evil/

http://thenewagenda.net/2009/01/29/press-conference-saturday-now-nys-will-speak-out-against-hiram-monserrate/

http://thenewagenda.net/2009/02/02/hiram-monserrate-poster-boy-of-domestic-violence/

http://thenewagenda.net/2009/02/06/the-new-agenda-sent-out-the-following-press-release-on-hiram-monserrate/

http://thenewagenda.net/media/press-releases/the-new-agenda-calls-on-ny-senate-to-force-monserrate-to-step-down/

http://thenewagenda.net/2009/02/07/monserrates-reputation-manager-contacts-tna/