Maria Abenes

The main thing that I will take away from this conference as a young woman of the YWCA is the feeling of unity and belonging attached to being part of a national movement. I was one of 400 individuals from across the country congregating in our nation’s capital because we all believe in the same mission of empowering women and eliminating racism…so powerful! Although I come from a very small local organization, this experience has made me feel stronger and connected. I can’t describe the pride I felt seeing persimmon everywhere especially since they were accompanied by warm smiles and welcoming words.  I think Vice President Joe Biden said it best when he shared, “I came among you, you took me in and I am so proud to call you my friends.”

Thank you to the YWCA USA for the opportunity to attend, the camaraderie I experienced and valuable knowledge I attained.

Maria Abenes has been with the YWCA Central Orange County for almost seven years and currently serves as the Executive Director. She received her Bachelor’s in Psychology from Loyola Marymount University and Masters in Counseling Psychology from Argosy University and is currently working on her Educational Doctorate in Counseling and Non-Profit management (Dissertation Phase). She has been working in the social service field for almost 11 years, focusing on at-risk youth and the issues associated with this population such as substance abuse, resiliency, self-esteem, eating disorders and domestic violence. 

Qudsia Jafree

by Qudsia Jafree
Field and Policy Coordinator, YWCA USA

Today, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 4970 to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).  Enacted 18 years ago, VAWA has been nothing short of life-saving for millions of women and children across the nation, providing a comprehensive, streamlined and national response to the crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking.

Each reauthorization has enjoyed bipartisan support, rallying members from both sides of the aisle around the common cause of protecting some of the most vulnerable women in their constituencies.  And, each reauthorization has been crafted using data that was evidence-based, victim-centered, and trauma-informed to ensure that the bill is effective, efficient, and far-reaching in its scope.  It is these very considerations that have led to tailored measures and provisions throughout the years to include traditionally underserved communities, such as immigrants, young women on college campuses and trafficked women.

That will all change, should H.R. 4970 pass today.  Critical provisions to protect some of the most vulnerable women in our communities – immigrants, Native women, and the LGBT community – will be stripped from the bill.  Instead of crafting legislation that takes into account the insidious dynamics of abuse and assault in some of our most vulnerable communities, H.R. 4970 has unfortunately served as a platform for certain members of Congress to espouse their political rhetoric in this election year.

Let’s be clear: supporting provisions in VAWA that protect immigrant women is not a betrayal to your traditional, party-line stance on immigration.  VAWA is not an immigration bill – instead, it is legislation that addresses the unfortunate reality of the pervasiveness of violence in ALL of our communities. With a national population estimated around 37 million, immigrants are an integral part of our communities.

Immigrant women are threatened with deportation, separation from their children and revoking of their visa or naturalization applications should they decide to leave an abusive home.  Many immigrant women require multilingual services when filing for protective orders, appearing before courts, participating in trainings on financial empowerment and receiving therapy for the trauma they experienced.  This is not about border control and your party stances on immigration; this is about recognizing that stripping VAWA of key accountability and confidentiality measures deliberately puts an entire segment of your constituents in real danger.

Supporting provisions in VAWA that protect LGBT women does not translate to your endorsement of same-sex marriage.  It is about recognizing that LGBT women experience a higher threshold of challenges when seeking safety from violence.  The lack of specific protections for LGBT women is alarming: 45 percent of LGBT victims are turned away from domestic violence shelters, and 55 percent are denied protective orders.  This means your constituents systemically being denied services and protections based on their sexual orientation.

Supporting provisions in VAWA that protect Native women is not about giving tribal governments power over non-tribal courts. It is about recognizing that 34 percent of Native women – one in three – will be raped in their lifetimes; 39 percent will be subjected to domestic violence in their lifetimes; and on some reservations, Native women are murdered at more than ten times the national average.  It is about realizing that the epidemic rates of violence in Native communities occur because of flaws in the system because non-Indians cannot be prosecuted in tribal courts – a fact many non-Indian abusers have systemically exploited.  Fifty-five percent of Native women are married to non-Indians and 88 percent of all violent crimes against Native women are committed by non-Indians.

As of today, over 200 national organizations have come together in strong opposition to H.R. 4970.  Last night, President Obama issued a statement stating that he will veto H.R. 4970 if it passes in the House of Representatives today.  Opposition to this bill is not about political rhetoric in an election year – it is about valuing and protecting the lives of ALL women and children, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or geography.

The YWCA urges the House of Representatives to do the right thing and vote against H.R. 4970 – millions of lives depend on it.

Related Posts:

• Mothers, Daughters, Sisters and Neighbors – The YWCA is a Safe Place for You
• Update: Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), H.R. 4970
• Why is the U.S. Senate Playing Politics with Violence Against Women?

Danielle Marse-Kapr

In April 2011, I joined a group of YWCA advocates under 30 in Washington, D.C., for the YWCA National Conference. We joined thousands of activists around the Capitol building for the “Stand Up for Women’s Health” rally to protest the defunding of Planned Parenthood as a stipulation of a new healthcare bill.  Each evening we would huddle around the TV to see what would become of Planned Parenthood’s funding.

As staff of the YWCA, an organization which functions as both a social service and a social justice agency, we are very familiar with the lives of women who need the affordable care that Planned Parenthood offers. Furthermore, we have all personally accessed Planned Parenthood for healthcare and reliable healthcare information. By the end of the week, though we were relieved that Planned Parenthood had not been defunded, the narrow 42-58 vote was an ominous foreshadowing of what was to unfold over the next 12 months — a brutal assault on women’s reproductive rights.

A year later the struggle has only intensified. Legislators are sponsoring bills that: require women to undergo medically unnecessary procedures before terminating a pregnancy, claim that fetuses have “personhood,” dictate that life begins before conception, among others. Pundits and political leaders are asserting that women ought to hold aspirin between their knees, that the Catholic Church should be given power to dictate the healthcare women receive, and, perhaps most famously, that women who want affordable birth control are sluts.

But young women will not be shamed out of protecting their reproductive rights. Generations of feminists before us taught us to be thick-skinned when powerful men call us prostitutes for demanding basic human rights. We’ve been trained to ignore the lie that our autonomy is not important and that our bodies are not our own. Even having been born into a post-Roe v. Wade America, young women are cognizant that these rights are still new and vulnerable.

We may not have been expecting it when Pennsylvania began considering a bill to force doctors to perform a transvaginal ultrasound on women seeking an abortion, but we were equipped with the feminist rationale and activist know-how to combat it.  When the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation pulled funding from Planned Parenthood, we knew within moments and took to our keyboards, the funding was renewed within hours.

A women’s advocate in her 60s asked me what it would take to get young women out into the streets. In a sense, we are on the streets. We are the generation of the online petition, the satirical meme, and the trending Twitter hashtag.  We may not always march in protest (although many times we do!), but we are constantly dispensing information, telling the public and our elected officials what we think, and organizing to ensure that we can access reproductive health services.

At the YWCA, we are doing work to mobilize more young women to the voting booths. This November, young women will ensure that anti-choice politics does not decide the future of our reproductive rights.

This article first appeared as an op-ed in the Times Herald-Record.

A life-long feminist, Danielle Marse-Kapr is the gender equity coordinator at YWCA Orange County, New York. Danielle’s work primarily focuses on women’s economic empowerment including nontraditional job preparedness, salary negotiation, legislative advocacy, and professional development for young women. Danielle is also the co-chair of Emerging WomYn Leaders, an initiative for women under 30 in YWCA’s northeast region. You can follow Danielle on Twitter at @DMarseKapr.

Gloria Lau

This Sunday, May 13, is Mother’s Day, an opportunity to honor mothers, daughters, sisters and neighbors across the country.  It is a chance to remind ourselves how far we have come as women and – for some of us, as mothers.   It is also an opportunity to rally together to ensure the legacy we leave for our daughters and granddaughters is not dismantled in the current political climate.

I have two stories I would like to share with you as we head into a weekend celebrating mothers:

At a recent White House event, a staff member shared with me that her mother had a YWCA story.  Her mother came to Washington, D.C. in the 1950s.  She searched far and wide in the segregated city for a hotel that would take her, a young African-American woman away from home in a strange city; she had no luck.  That is, until she called the YWCA.  The YW was the only place she could find in the nation’s capital that would provide her safe lodging.  I remember the staffer’s words vividly – with the hint of tears in her eyes, she said, “My mother had no place to go except for the YWCA.”

I’ve also been told about a D.C. cab driver who years ago advised a young woman passenger who asked to be taken to a hotel in the District, “Don’t stay there – stay at the YWCA.  That is a safe place.”

As I travel the country for the YWCA, I hear stories like these often.  Every woman seems to have a YWCA story.  Personal safety and freedom from fear are fundamental to empowerment.  D.C. taxi drivers and most everyone else recognize this.

And the YWCA certainly knows this.  The YWCA is a safe haven for women.  These days, there are numerous choices for women travelers of any color to find lodging.  But, there are not enough places for women brave enough to escape a violent home.  The YWCA is the largest provider of battered women’s shelters in the country, serving more than a half million women and girls with programs that address violence.  It isn’t surprising that D.C. taxi cab drivers recognize that YWCA’s are a safe haven for ALL women.  This is a core guiding principle of our work – to provide a safe space for women and girls regardless of race, immigration status or sexual orientation.

Congress has an opportunity to build safe spaces for women and take steps to end sexual assault, domestic violence and rape in our communities by reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) after Mother’s Day.  The best gift that Members of Congress can give to their neighbors, sisters, mothers and grandmothers is to support a bi-partisan bill that protects women from all backgrounds.  Unfortunately, the Adams-Cantor (H.R. 4970) bill does not achieve this.  It ignores the unique needs of immigrant, Native women, and LGBT communities.  We are asking all Members of Congress to reject this bill and to pass a bill similar to the Senate version (S. 1925) sponsored by Senators Leahy (D-VT) and Crapo (R-IN) which passed with bi-partisan support a few weeks ago.

Whether it is a safe harbor from domestic violence, a mother seeking good child care or other avenues for safety and self-sufficiency, the YWCA is a place for you.  So, we want to thank the mothers, daughters, sisters and neighbors who come through our doors and those who welcome them with a place they can call home.  This Mother’s Day, we celebrate all of you.  The YWCA – for every woman.

YWCA USA sent this letter (PDF) to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee today.

Related Links:

• Why is the U.S. Senate Playing Politics with Violence Against Women? By Gloria Lau, CEO, YWCA USA
• View photos from the VAWA markup press conference on Facebook

Desiree Hoffman

Today is an important day for the YWCA and for all the women we serve.  Here in our nation’s capital, 250 YWCA leaders — from Oregon to New York, Texas to North Dakota — are gathered today to advocate for women, girls and families. Not just the ones that come through the doors of our 1,300 locations across the U.S. every day, but for ALL women and girls.

United to serve 2 million women and girls across country, YWCA is a force to be reckoned with!

Today we’re visiting the offices 241 members of Congress. Our goal is to educate the members and their staffs on the importance of legislative issues that are critical to YWCA’s mission of eliminating racism and empowering women. These meetings focus on securing full funding for these key priorities:

• Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG)  – a  vital funding stream that provides child care subsidies to low and moderate income families. CCDBG keeps people gainfully employed by providing quality affordable child care and gives children access to quality early childhood education.

• Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) — YWCAs depend on CDBG to provide core services. CDBG provides support for infrastructure, including YWCA buildings that house community programs and shelters. It’s an important source of funding for key YWCA programs, such as sexual assault and violence prevention programs and services, transitional housing for those escaping violence at home, and job training programs that empower women to support themselves and their families

• Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Funding – Funding for VAWA and VOCA support much-needed domestic violence, sexual assault , emergency shelters, transitional shelters – critical services to help survivors and victims of crime pick up the pieces after trauma when they need it most. Tomorrow we’re looking forward to hearing Vice President Joe Biden speak about the importance of VAWA at our luncheon.

• Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act– with VAWA reauthorization on the move, this is a critical legislative time. The Senate to a positive step forward by passing their version of the 68-31 last week. While there is overwhelming bipartisan support, there are key provisions of VAWA at risk of being stripped from the House version bill, including protection for Native American, immigrant and LGBT communities. YWCA supports HR 4271, the House version of VAWA sponsored by U.S. Rep Gwen Moore (D-WI), and our goal is to get as many cosponsors as possible.

Our fight today is every woman’s fight. Join us. Even if you aren’t in Washington, D.C., today, you can let your voice be heard!  Wherever you live, participate in YWCA’s National Day of Action by calling and emailing your Congressional reps to stand up for women in your community.

Today, hundreds of YWCA leaders from across the country are coming to Washington DC to exert our Persimmon Power!  Together we will call on Congress to support policies and programs that help girls, women and families!

Our face-to-face meetings with Congress will send a clear message:
Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and fund vital programs that help women, girls and families survive and thrive!

Not in Washington? Join us by taking action!

For all the rest of us who cannot get to Washington, we can be there in spirit with our emails and phone calls in a massive show of “E-Persimmon Power.”

Action:

Call your Member of Congress!

Call toll-free at (202)224-3121! You will have to make three calls: one to your Representative and one to each of your Senators.

To find the names of your elected officials, click here.

Message:

“My name is _________. I am a constituent and a supporter of the YWCA. I am calling to urge the Representative/Senator to support the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), the Childcare Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and the Violence Against Women Act.

All of these provide vital support for YWCA services that help countless women, children and families.

I am asking the (Representative/Senator) to support $3.46 billion dollars for the CDBG, an additional $825 million for CCDBG and to provide $644.3 million for VAWA programs for FY 2013.

Please circulate! Forward via Facebook; urge classmates, friends and family to make calls to their Members of Congress.

Want your Tweets to appear here? Be sure to use hashtag #ywca2012!

Christine Bork

Today, I’d like to discuss the wealth gap that exists between different racial/ethnic communities. In the current economic climate, inequalities that have historically hammered communities of color are amplified, and we see more clearly why wealth accumulation (assets minus debts) is so important. According to an executive summary from the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, many of the roots of the racial wealth gap lie in past and present institutional factors: “These include but are not limited to the ways in which government benefits, the tax code, and fringe benefits exclude many women of color from wealth-building opportunities that are provided to other segments of the American population.”

In other words, historically, U.S. domestic economic policy (i.e. The Homestead Act, the G.I. Bill and the creation of the Social Security system) has been constructed to put wealth in the hands of white men. Whether intended or not, the result of such racial segregation of poverty is stark. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 25 percent of households headed by white women with children live in poverty, compared to 41 percent of African-American women and 45 percent of Latina women^.

Much of wealth and asset building is dependent upon more than the family one happens to be born into. External factors, such as industry sector, wage growth, access to health care benefits, and even zip code contribute to a woman of color’s ability to accumulate enough to support her family across generations. Under-resourced women of color are more likely to work in service sector jobs that fail to provide a sustainable wage or enough hours to receive benefits – which also jeopardizes individual wealth and family stability. Moreover, huge numbers of African American and Latina women are segregated in communities that were sold the worst banking and mortgage products, endangering the most valuable of American assets – their homes. Without critical wealth and/or asset building opportunities, families of color are relegated to living paycheck to paycheck, edging one step closer to financial ruin when they encounter job loss or an illness.

If we want to invest in our community’s future, we must find a way to provide all women with what they need to support their families responsibly across generations. Undoubtedly controversial, this means progressive tax reform; it means affordable health care that isn’t dependent on employment; it means pay equity and sustainable wages that grow rather than flatten. Otherwise, the prospect of living in a society marked by such a widening wealth and racial divide is antithetical to the notion of justice.

CEO of YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, the oldest and largest women’s organization in Chicago, whose mission is to eliminate racism and empower women.  As CEO, Christine recently led the YWCA’s completion of a $5.4 million campaign in the worst recession since the Great Depression.  While most dread asking for donations, Christine believes, as phrased by fundraising pioneer Hank Rosso, that “fundraising is the gentle art of teaching people the joy of giving.” Christine is a sought-after speaker on leadership, bringing her twenty years of nonprofit management experience with the American Red Cross, Easter Seals, and Provena Mercy Hospital Foundation to business leaders in Chicago and across the country.  She also shares her expertise on issues affecting women and girls in her Huffington Post Chicago blog.  Christine was recently named one of Today’s Chicago Woman’s “100 Women Making a Difference.”  A graduate of the University of Chicago and Benedictine University, Christine is a member of the Economics Club of Chicago and The Chicago Network.  Christine loves watching movies with her children, and, in her limited free time, enjoys riding her motorcycle. Follow her on Twitter at @YWCAchicagoCEO.

This post is part of the YWCA Stand Against Racism blog carnival on issues of race, justice and diversity. We invite you to join the dialogue! Post your comment below, share your story and follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #StandAgainstRacism.

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx; Willie Ratchford, executive director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee; Maria Hanlin of Mecklenburg Ministries; and other community leaders rally with YWCA and urge the community to come together in a show of unity at YWCA’s  Stand Against Racism today at Polk Park.

This post is part of the YWCA Stand Against Racism blog carnival on issues of race, justice and diversity. We invite you to join the dialogue! Post your comment below, share your story and follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #StandAgainstRacism.