Domestic violence takes place in up to a staggering 40 percent of law enforcement families. But police forces mostly ignore the problem, writes investigative journalist Alex Roslin in his award-winning book, Police Wife: The Secret Epidemic of Police Domestic Violence. The excerpt below is adapted from the book. His 2004 article in This about an RCMP officer who killed his ex-girlfriend was nominated for a National Magazine Award.

At 3 p.m. on April 26, 2003, Crystal Judson-Brame was speaking with her mother Patty on a cell phone while walking from her car to the pharmacy in a shopping mall parking lot.

“I think I see David,” she said referring to her estranged husband David Brame, the chief of the Tacoma Police Department, just south of Seattle. Brame had just pulled into the parking lot in another car with the couple’s two children.

Crystal’s father, Lane Judson, at home with Patty, told his wife, “If she sees him [David], tell her to get the hell out of there.”

But Crystal ended the call. “I gotta’ go, I gotta’ go, I gotta’ go,” she said.

Patty Judson tried to call her daughter back seven times in the next 12 minutes, but there was no answer. In the parking lot, Crystal returned to her car. But David slipped past her into the driver’s seat and sat with his feet on the ground, stopping her from getting into her vehicle. Witnesses heard raised voices.

“Oh no, don’t. Don’t!” Crystal was overheard saying.

David Brame suddenly pulled Crystal’s head down—or she may have crouched to protect herself; it’s not clear. The police chief drew his .45-calibre Glock service pistol and shot Crystal at point-blank range behind the left ear.

Crystal fell forward, a quarter turn to the right toward the rear of the car. David then shot himself in the right temple and fell backward while the couple’s two young kids sat in the other car nearby.

The children ran to their parents, their eight-year-old daughter screaming, “Daddy shot mommy! Daddy hurt mommy!”

With attention nationwide focused on the terrible incident, Tacoma city officials at first said Brame had been a good police chief and that the murder-suicide was “completely unexpected.” But evidence soon emerged that officials had covered up for Brame and refused to heed warning signs or take action that may have averted the tragedy.

Investigators quickly found that red flags were apparent even when Brame was first hired as a cop. As part of the screening, a psychologist recommended against his hiring. A second psychologist said Brame was “deceptive,” “defensive,” and a “marginal” applicant. Brame had also failed the behavioural portion of the entrance exam at another local police agency, the second psychologist noted.

The Tacoma Police Department ignored the concerns and hired Brame, the son of a cop, anyway. As a police officer, Brame was the subject of a rape complaint and an allegation that he had threatened a girlfriend with his gun, though investigations never led to charges. He rose through the ranks and eventually became chief of police.

At home, David Brame was reported to be exceptionally controlling, checking on his wife’s whereabouts and receipts and giving her $100 every two weeks for household expenses for the family of four. He reportedly called her “fat” and “ugly,” saying no man would want her.

“He would say, ‘You know, I can choke you out so quickly or I can snap your neck,’” Crystal’s mother Patty later said. He reportedly tried to badger Crystal into participating in threesomes and foursomes.

In a declaration she filed as part of a divorce application a month before she was murdered, Crystal said her husband had tried to choke her twice in the previous six months, said he could break her neck and pointed his service gun at her saying, “Accidents happen.” “I do remain very afraid of my husband,” she said.

Around the time of this declaration, Crystal told Assistant Police Chief Catherine Woodard that David had threatened to kill her, investigators later learned. Instead of reporting the allegation or starting an investigation, Woodard turned her notes about the conversation over to David Brame.

Stories about the abuse allegations came out in local media in the days before Crystal was murdered. Instead of taking any action, city manager Ray Corpuz defended the police chief, saying Brame was “doing a great job.” Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma also dismissed the allegations as a “private matter,” calling Brame an “outstanding chief.” Also unheeded was a recommendation from city human-resources officials that Brame’s gun and badge be taken away.

Crystal’s parents and other family members filed a $75-million wrongful-death suit against the city of Tacoma and the local county, saying officials failed to deal with Brame’s behaviour and protect Crystal. In 2005, Tacoma agreed to settle the suit by paying the couple’s orphaned children and Crystal’s estate $12 million. As part of the settlement, the city also pledged to improve police procedures and declare April 26 each year Domestic Violence Awareness Day. In a separate settlement, the county agreed to create the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center, which offers free food, help and shelter to domestic violence survivors.

Crystal’s parents also took their campaign to the state legislature. As his daughter lay dying in the hospital after the shooting, Lane Judson, a retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer and former manager at Boeing, had promised her he’d do everything he could to prevent such crimes from happening to others. In 2004, the Judsons’ campaign convinced the state of Washington to adopt a law requiring all police agencies to have a strict policy on domestic violence involving police officers.

But the Judsons knew the problems went beyond their state. They continued their campaign on the national level and scored another breakthrough in 2005 when they convinced Congress to vote to create the Crystal Judson Brame Domestic Violence Protocol Program as part of legislation to extend the Violence Against Women Act.

The measure gave law enforcement agencies access to a grant fund (currently worth about $220 million annually) that they could use to create programs to stop police officers from committing domestic violence, sexual assault and other crimes and to help survivors of such crimes.

The Judsons’ campaign didn’t stop there. They continued to speak across the U.S. and beyond about domestic violence in police and other homes, often bringing audiences to tears with their emotional account of the impacts on their family. “We grieve every day,” Lane and Patty wrote in their foreword to Police Wife. “How we all miss Crystal during the holidays. There are no more phone calls, just to talk. Crystal will never become a Gramma. Everything taken for granted daily is forever lost to Crystal and her children.”

***

Police domestic violence isn’t simply about a few badly behaving cops. It is by all evidence a rampant, systemic problem—a serious job hazard for many police officers—rooted in the very nature of law enforcement and likely existing in any society where police have a similar structure. It thus requires systemic solutions.

Even a zero-tolerance police policy on officer-involved domestic violence does little to tackle the underlying causes of the abuse: power and control, anti-woman attitudes and impunity. The strictest policy will deal mostly with symptoms, not the deeper structural problems.

Without deep changes, the abuse epidemic thus appears inevitable in any country where police exist in the same form. It is likely to persist so long as and wherever police carry on as an institution focused on power and control, predictably attracting abusive men who shield each other from punishment and strive to maintain a male-dominated police culture.

Professional policing is a fairly recent human invention. The first large modern-day professional police forces emerged in the 1800s in Europe and North America as industrialization transformed farmers into factory workers in quickly growing cities. The social upheavals forced governments to create the “broad historical project of police,” which had as its mission “fabricating a social and economic order,” according to a study co-authored by Carleton University professor George Rigakos.

“The police project, therefore, has a long history, emerging as a civilizing ‘science’… and eventually as an essential system of order maintenance for the discipline of the indigent, the poor and the working classes.”

Police play a similar role today. “Police power assumes its most formidable aspect when cops deal with the underclass. This is the group they’ve been pressured, implicitly, to control,” said Anthony Bouza, a former commander in the New York Police Department and ex-police chief of Minneapolis, writing in his book The Police Mystique. “When cops deal with the poor (blacks, Hispanics, the homeless and street people), the rubber of power meets the road of abuse…. The underclass must be kept in its place or the chief will lose his or her job.” Instead of addressing racism in society and other problems that create an underclass, “the usual answer is to get the police to clean up society’s failings.”

Statistics back up this view. The number of police officers per capita in the U.S., Canada and other countries is closely correlated with unemployment, income inequality and economic marginalization, particularly among women, African Americans, First Nations people and youth, according to data compiled for this book. The more inequality and marginalization, the more cops we tend to find.

It’s of course simplistic to say police exist only to mishandle calls about abused or missing women and oppress the marginalized. But the correlations do support Chief Bouza’s claim that policing the “underclass” is a central part of a cop’s life. A key tacit function of the police seems to be to preserve order in the face of the disruptive impacts of women’s inequality, poverty, economic marginalization, discrimination and subjugation of First Nations people. By so doing, police in effect help to preserve these injustices.

The data on correlations tells us an ugly truth about policing in our society—and in turn about what’s really needed to stop police domestic violence. The family troubles of police officers are inextricably connected to the marginalization present in a highly unequal, divided society.

Those who hope for a more just society would do well to make police domestic violence a key priority. The issue is a critical fulcrum for the entire system. That means abused police wives hold a key to sweeping social change. They are a terrorized and powerless underclass, literally at the heart of power and without voice, with the massive might of the state arrayed against them. Their conditions are so atrocious and precarious that not only do they almost never speak out in their own name, but they also can’t usually join other women and advocates to work together to improve their collective situation.

Most other disadvantaged groups collaborate publicly to build lasting social movements. Not police spouses. They usually wage their survival struggle utterly alone, in anonymity, with little or no help or knowledge of others in the same situation, each woman reinventing her struggle anew. Their unique position is why their condition is so little known and why improving their lives is so difficult. Real improvement can’t happen without deep social changes on many levels.

But despite the powerlessness of abused police spouses, they do hold great power in their hands over not only their own fate, but also the entire social order. Because of the resilience and resourcefulness of the human spirit, police spouses do break free and speak out, and they do so more and more. In their titanic struggle, their accumulating voices are not only testimony to the horrors they personally overcame, but also to some of the most extreme conditions of inequality and injustice existing in our society—an indictment of a social order that makes their condition inevitable.

That is the ultimate truth of police domestic violence. It is a mirror reflected back on ourselves.

Find a longer free excerpt at Roslin’s blog.

Trudeau volunteered at McGill University’s sexual assault centre. He notes in his interview that he was one of the only male facilitators there. His work there is what he credits for his response to two Liberal MPs who were proven to have sexually harassed multiple women. After the first report was made to Trudeau directly, he suspended Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, and eventually expelled the pair after an investigation. During his interview he says of the events, “When she came to the leader of a different party to talk about this, I realized that this was something that I wasn’t going to simply shrug and look away from.” Though he says in the same interview that any sort of violence against women is unacceptable, and that his party will strengthen the criminal code for repeat offenders, he could not offer a dollar figure for what was being put aside for places like women’s shelters: “The issue with the infrastructure program we’re putting forward is we’re being a partner to municipalities and provinces. I don’t think it’s up to the federal government to draw lines on a map or to tell a municipality what it needs and where.”

Trudeau often spoke of misogyny within the old boy’s club of politics, and in older generations. However, when asked about why it exists in younger generations, he mentioned misogyny in certain types of music and absent fathers in certain communities. “Is it a coincidence that two of the three factors Trudeau cited about violence against women are well-worn stereotypes about black people,” asked activist and writer Desmond Cole while tweeting about Trudeau’s interview last month. Trudeau responded to these questions regarding subtle racism when speaking with reporters in Montreal on September 22, “I wasn’t speaking of any community in particular. I was saying as leaders, as parents, as community leaders, we need to make sure we are combating misogyny in all its forms, wherever it’s found. Whether it’s in fashion magazines or popular music or popular culture, we all have to work together.” Still, this wasn’t what was initially said. His original comments were pretty specific and the dots were not hard to connect. Even the most well-intentioned rich, white dude is bound to be out of touch with the rest of us, but I hope he continues his education on the social factors he admits to playing a role in our society’s acceptance of misogyny.

The Liberals talked about improving childcare throughout their campaign. Something that is much needed, especially after being destroyed by the Conservative party. A national childcare plan has not been laid out. Instead, money will be given to each province to address their specific childcare needs. But as Up for Debate interviewer Fracine Pelletier says, this does not necessarily mean better childcare, “[Mulcair’s] saying, you get this money if you do a daycare. You’re saying we’ll give you money, we hope you do daycare.” This is a fair point, and it would certainly be more comfortable knowing there is a solid national childcare program in place.

Another fair point was that though Trudeau and his party are pro-abortion rights, Prince Edward Island, lead by a Liberal government, does not have access to abortions. Trudeau responded saying this needs to change and that he will have a conversation with any jurisdiction not living up to its responsibilities under the Canada Health Act, which includes reproductive rights.

When Harper said Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women were not radar-worthy, the Liberal party said a national inquiry is needed. The party’s Policy Resolution 110: A Resolution for Action for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women states the Liberals will reinstate the research funding the Tories took away from Sisters in Spirit, a research, education, and policy initiative run by Indigenous women researching and raising awareness about violence against Indigenous women and girls. The party also says they will align themselves with Indigenous advocacy groups.

The Liberals opposed Bill C-36 and Trudeau has said they will be looking at the Nordic Model when reforming the law. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network quote the party saying it will “deliver on prostitution reforms laws formed in consultation with experts and civil society, including sex workers themselves, which includes rigorous examination of supporting facts and evidence.”

There are so many more questions regarding women’s rights that have yet to be answered. Unfortunately this is all a wait and see situation, one that we need to keep on top of whilst trying not to be distracted by a no-more-Harper afterglow. Seriously, though, that was a heck of a celebration.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Here’s a glimpse so far:

Up for Debate

Wouldn’t it be handy if there were a debate specifically about women’s issues? There hasn’t been one since 1984. That means there has not been a debate focused on women’s issues in my lifetime. Up for Debate, an alliance of over 175 national women’s organizations, invited Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, and Elizabeth May to debate such issues. Mulcair was proud of the fact that he was the first to accept the invitation. Trudeau and May also accepted, and Harper did not. When the time came, Mulcair backed out. If Harper wasn’t doing it, neither would he. As a result, because two men didn’t want to play, organizers canceled the event. Up for Debate went ahead with Plan B, where one-on-one interviews with the politicians were arranged. Mulcair—the guy who backed out of the debate last second—took this opportunity to identify as a feminist. Trudeau also says that he is a proud feminist. Harper did not participate in the interviews.

I was looking forward to this debate. Very disappointed it had to be cancelled. https://t.co/q2Awq4iQcX

—    Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) August 24, 2015

Where did our debate go, @ThomasMulcair? And @pmharper? #women #GPC http://t.co/iSLL9pN4Ue pic.twitter.com/m1cQArPhnZ

— Green Party Canada (@CanadianGreens) August 24, 2015

Transcripts of full interviews:

Mulcair

Trudeau

May

Munk debate

The Munk debate is a charitable initiative of the Aurea Foundation, a right-wing organization founded by Peter and Melanie Munk of Barrick Gold. The September debate was on Canada’s foreign policy. Unlike the women’s issues debate, RSVPs to to the invitation of right-wing millionaires were quickly accepted, disheartening to say the least. May was not allowed to attend. The Munk Debates reasoning is the Green Party does not have party status. However, as a charity they are not legally allowed to support or oppose a political party. So the reason is official, not because of the boys-only nature of the Munk Debates. In the end, May used Twitter to participate in the debate. Trudeau said May should have been able to attend. Yet, he still attended, as did Mulcair and Harper.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Harper has said there really isn’t an issue around the fact that Indigenous women are over-represented among Canada’s missing and murdered women. For him, it is a non-issue that does not rank high on the Conservative radar. Not all candidates agree with him. “”Do you think that if 1,200 women who had been murdered or had gone missing in Ottawa, we’d need the United Nations to tell us to have an inquiry?” Mulcair asked at an August rally. “It would have happened a long time ago. This is about racism, that’s what this is about.” The NDP leader says he will launch a national inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women. May has said the same and Trudeau has committed to support indigenous advocacy groups.

Childcare

Women today can work! Just for less money. Oh, and often only within daycare hours—which usually do not reflect the precarious shift work so many women undertake. Currently, Harper maintains he will slash all benefits for low-income earners, including childcare. Trudeau says he will end this trend and help families with lower incomes. Mulcair promises affordable childcare, saying, like healthcare, childcare is worth the money. May agrees that childcare is kind of a big deal.

Sex Work and Bill C-36

Harper passed Bill C-36 into law, further endangering the lives of women in sex work. But actually, he is saving them, because these women need to be saved by the morals of rich white men, as do we all. (Sarcasm intended.) May says the Green Party will repeal C-36, and Trudeau said, last year, that his party would be looking at the Nordic Model. More information about parties’ positions on sex work can be found here.

Domestic Violence

Those who participated in the Up for Debate interviews touched on this subject. Prior to the debate, the only thing the Green Party addressed in terms of domestic violence, according to a Toronto Metro article published August 26, was that “false allegations” were common. OK. At least, by the time the interviews were done May, a self-described feminist changed her tune, saying Canada needs a national strategy to confront domestic violence against women. Both Mulcair and Trudeau spoke about Parliament being a boys’ club and that they will lead by example there to make it less so.And money for shelters is a good idea, says Trudeau, but it isn’t up to the federal government to create them because municipalities, he believes, should do it. So, someone is going to do something, don’t worry about it.

Abortion

Pro-choice, anti-choice, reproductive rights. Light stuff, right? Harper doesn’t actually come out and say he is anti-abortion rights. Instead he says that abortion should not be discussed within politics because it is a matter of faith and morals. And although his own faith condemns these rights, he isn’t in the good books of anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition (CPL). The Conservative party is, though. At least there is someone out there ready to police women’s bodies. Phew. The CPL hates Trudeau, so that’s a good sign for the Liberals. Mulcair’s NDP is also pro-abortion rights: “A New Democrat government will increase funding for women’s organizations, particularly women’s rights organizations. Family planning, reproductive and sexual health, including access to abortion services, must be included in Canada’s approach to maternal and child health.” May is also on Team Abortion Rights.

The Niqab

Conservatives were getting attention for doing things like peeing in people’s mugs, and that was weird. So, a distraction—I mean, very important issue—was created by the Harper government. The niqab is a veil that covers part of the face and a sign of faith worn by some Muslim women. It is also being attacked for being anti-Canadian—as decided after settler colonialism. The argument goes something like this: “My white grandparents knew what it was to be Canadian (after white folk made what it is to be Canadian tailored to said grandparents) why can’t everyone else?!”

While fostering xenophobia the Conservative party is saving women by oppressing women. Anti-Muslim propaganda is being circulated on social media and women are being attacked because of this federally accepted hatred of the “Other.”

Mulcair says this is wrong. Like, no one likes the niqab, he says, but we need to trust the authority of tribunal decisions. Trudeau is also opposed to Harper’s stance. At a Maclean’s sponsored debate the Liberal leader said:  “You can dislike the niqab. You can hold it up it is a symbol of oppression. You can try to convince your fellow citizens that it is a choice they ought not to make. This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state’s power to restrict women’s religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn. It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot wear.” As for May, at a televised French debate she said, “It’s a false debate . . . What is the impact of the niqab on the economy, what is the impact of the niqab on climate change, what is the impact of the niqab on the unemployed?”

Fun Facts

• Trudeau addresses misogyny, in certain communities.
• May re-started a women’s caucus in Parliament.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

While writing my reading piece “She Asked For It” I was thinking about all the bystanders who watch their friends/sisters/peers get physically and verbally abused by their partner, or the adults who don’t stand up for abused children. I was thinking, too, about the public backlash women receive when coming forward about abuse, especially publicly like in the cases of Jian Gomeshi and Bill Cosby. There is this strange obsession to defend the most popular and charming, and this terrifies me. Almost as much as public speaking.

Here is the written piece read that evening:

She Asked For It

It seems so obvious to the outsider, get hurt, you go.

And that’s what makes them outsiders: the dichotomy of you and them.

So when that person makes those fists – just like dad used to make – and they tell you it isn’t just you and them, it is the two of you against the world, that’s all you got.

White trash can’t get hurt.

As Other, they can not feel.

The beatings and mockery vye for what hurts most, but don’t dare take first place from isolation.

Teachers ignore signs of quiet and retraction amongst bouncy, vibrant peers.

The church keeps secrets hushed behind decorated doors.

The police don’t write up, they write off.

Nurses say, “We don’t use the word rape here.”

A distance is created.

Friends don’t want to believe it.

She asked for it.

They watch and do nothing.

Drinking buddies before hoes dominates so-called progressive punk rock mantras.

Left alone, seeing your valueless and disposability, even you can’t stand being by yourself.

Prosecutions doled by class bracket dictations.

So, you have this guy – who makes fists just like dad used to make – who makes it both of you against the world that doesn’t want you.

You latch.

It’s all you got.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her first year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

So I did. And then I was faced with more discouraging questions: Was I sure I wasn’t exaggerating? I got through court dates and the gossip. I re-grouped, and I had help from some family members and Luke’s Place, an amazing Durham Region-based organization that helps abused women get through the court process.

But why did I need help? It sounds simple: If someone is hurting you, you leave, you certainly don’t continue an intimate relationship with the person. As the Canadian Women’s Foundation points out, however, it isn’t that easy:

Domestic abuse is often a gradual process, with the frequency of assaults and seriousness of the violence slowly escalating over time. Since abusers often express deep remorse and promise to change, it can take years for women to admit that the violence will never stop and the relationship is unsalvageable. The long-term experience of being abused can destroy a woman’s self-confidence, making it more difficult for her to believe that she deserves better treatment, that she can find the courage to leave, or that she can manage on her own.

Band Back Together, a weblog maintained by “a band of survivors,” describes emotional abuse as brainwashing: “it erodes a person’s self-esteem, confidence, and trust in their own judgment.” In other words, if you’re abused your thought process becomes hardwired with doubting. You ask yourself questions like: “Am I sure what is happening is abuse?”

This is hard to shake off. (In many cases, people won’t let you shake it off.) In my life, no matter what accomplishments I’ve made since, there will always be people who are certain that I am incapable of making any healthy decisions. Maybe it is out of a place of concern, I’d like to think, but I also know better: if you want to help an abuse victim feel like they are competent again, telling them what to do and questioning their life decisions does not help.

Violence Against Women, a section on a U.S. site, WomenHealth.gov  says you can’t rescue an abused friend: “Support her no matter what her decision.”

If you have a friend who cannot leave, or are being abused and are struggling to leave, know that this does not make you a bad person—it just means your abuser is very good. It just means that leaving an abuser is incredibly difficult. HelpGuide.org provides the following Dos and Don’ts:

Do: ask if something is wrong, express concern, listen and validate, offer help, support his or her decisions.

Don’t: Wait for him or her to come to you, judge or blame, pressure him or her, give advice, place conditions on your support.

Half of all Canadian women have experienced physical or sexual violence. This isn’t a problem regarding poor choices, it is an issue that deserves more attention and victim support.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna writes Gender Block every week and maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

The post begins with 17 years worth of good things—Parsons love of animals, a box he planned to give her full of childhood crafts—before Canning recounts the heartbreak his daughter felt the last 18 months of her life. The Nova Scotia family says that Parsons was raped, at 15, by four boys. Pictures of the gang rape circulated social media sites, the teen received text messages from strangers asking for sex, and was bullied even after changing schools. The authorities said there was not enough evidence to charge the boys. Only after she killed herself, has the case been reopened.

“Rehtaeh Parsons thought the worst outcome for her case would be no charges against the men who raped her but we all know better. The worst thing that could happen would be charges,” Canning added, directly addressing the Justice Minister of Nova Scotia. “That they would be found guilty, and that Rehtaeh would sit on a court bench and listen in utter disbelief as they were given parole, or a suspended sentence, or community service. All for completely destroying her life while they laughed.”

Unfortunately, Canning’s not exaggerating the possiblity of light punishment. “Nova Scotia has the highest rate of sexual assault and some of the lowest charge, conviction and sentencing rates in Canada,” Liberal MLA Kelly Regan told the legislature April 9. The rest of Canada isn’t so great, either. Consider this: two years ago Kenneth Rhodes served no jail time after he raped a woman because a Manitoba judge said the victim’s wardrobe—a tube top—suggested, “Sex was in the air.” With such bleak facts and the added confusion to an already life-altering situation, it is no wonder only 10 per cent of sexual assaults against women are reported.

Oshawa-based Luke’s Place is the only Canadian support centre for abused women and their family going through the court system of its kind. Founded in September 2003, the centre helps victims connect with emergency shelter, lawyers and other social services. Its staff also offers help with court paperwork, guidance through the court system, counselling, information resources and provides someone to attend court with the abused.

In addition to such on-the-ground work, the organization also brings public awareness to the issue of violence against women. This includes sexual, physical, psychological and economical abuse. Their website provides six Ontario-based research reports on over 132 abused women and their experiences in the courtroom. In the reports, women detail any combination of: feeling threatened, fearing retaliation, not being able to find representation, reliving abuse, and not being able to afford court expenses.

Many also said they were frustrated with court policy interfering with their cases—such as the sparse contact between family and criminal court. In one example, a man was sentenced to a month in prison for strangling his partner; this information was not relayed to the family court responsible for determining child custody. Sixty-two per cent of women said they wished judges and lawyers had a better understanding of the impact of such violence.

In many ways, it seems justice comes down to money. Women make up the majority of lone parent families and have an average annual income of $30,000. Legal Aid will not be rewarded until all assets are sold and savings are spent. Even then, Legal Aid can run out, and legal bullying can extend the process. Examples of this include: when the accused brings forward motions or appeals even when it’s likely they won’t be successful, or when the accused changes lawyers just to extend the court process—causing victims more pain.

If the judicial system is so intimidating for victims, important case evidence can not be brought to light, restricting any true justice.

Another new entry today in the Verbatim series, the transcripts we provide of our Listen to This podcast. (Just a reminder that you can catch new, original interviews every other Monday—you can subscribe with any podcast listening program by grabbing the podcast rss feed, or easily subscribing through iTunes.)

In today’s interview, associate editor Natalie Samson talked with Eternia, a Canadian rapper whose music and volunteer work challenge gender-based stereotypes and injustices, including sexism in the music industry, violence against women, and rape. Eternia was in Toronto two weeks ago for the People’s Summit, the alternative gathering to the G20 leaders’ conference, where she performed for a rapturous crowd. Eternia’s newest album, At Last, a collaboration with Canadian producer MoSS, came out on June 29, 2010.

Q&A

Natalie Samson: You were involved in the People’s Summit in Toronto last weekend. Can you let me know how you got involved with that?

Eternia: To be honest with you, it was as simple as them reaching out and asking to book me. When they initially reached out I was under the assumption that it was more of a gender equity conference and then they changed the name of it. So my assumption is that they thought to reach out to me just because they were discussing gender equity issues and I’d done a little bit of work in that area, touring schools, and then also the fact that I am a woman and I do what I do—it’s kind of a nice slant on the gender equity narrative, and that alone is kind of cool for people.

Natalie Samson: I was wondering, too, what you think your role is when you get involved in these sorts of events like the People’s Summit. It’s obviously political and an activist event.

Eternia: My show is super-high-energy and it also—if you listen to my lyrics—there is a certain slant to my music as well. But it’s super, super-high-energy, super-empowering, super-integrational, super-positive. People were listening to speakers for, I don’t know, a couple hours before I went on stage. The room was clearing out when I went on stage because people had been there for so long listening to speakers. So I think a main thing of what I do—other then being the physical manifestation of a walking anti-stereotype, which is what I like to call the music that I do—it really just gives people a chance to get up, to stand up, (they had literally been sitting the whole time) put their hands up, and literally be like “Yeah!” for something that they believe in. If you look at musicians that perform at rallies and musicians that generally do that circuit, that’s what they do; they get people riled up, they get people riled up for their cause.

To me, the definition of good music is music that makes you feel. And that relates to all different areas, including music that makes you feel angry about the current state of affairs in your country ,and music that makes you feel inspired to change things that you don’t like about your political system, or globally. I don’t view myself as a political activist in any way, shape, or form, or overly involved in a lot of these issues. I kind of feel ignorant to a lot of these things that are going on—I shouldn’t say that but its true. At the same time, the music that I make is music that inspires a whole bunch of people that are not ignorant to what’s going on, that do need change, that need a soundtrack for that. I feel like at the end, when I do perform at these kind of events, its like a soundtrack for the dialogue. That’s what it is. And it gets you feeling and it gets your blood pumping, and it gets your emotions rising, and it gets you ready to do something about it.

Natalie Samson: You kind of touched upon it a little bit earlier about your involvement with Oxfam. I was wondering if you could talk a little about the work you’ve done with Plan Canada.

Eternia: This is the first time that I can recall that I’ve been directly booked and involved with Oxfam, although of course their reputation precedes them and I was really honoured. I believe that was based off the work I did with the 4 in 1 Initiative for change with Plan Canada. We toured high schools for many months, thousands of kids—over 10,000 kids—speaking about girls’ rights. We also did AIDS awareness, but specifically with Plan Canada it was about girls’ rights. That was just literally about bringing awareness about the situation of women and girls around the world and bringing it home to girls that are in grade 5 all the way to grade 12. We wrote content specifically for the tour that was educational but still entertaining at the same time for these girls so they could rock out with us and put their hands up, but that they’re also hearing things that make them think. So I think based off that and some of my other material that I have, for example my Amnesty International violence against women song that I dedicated to that cause, “Love,” stuff like that is probably what made Oxfam consider me for the gender equity summit.

Natalie Samson: Going back to the 4 in 1 initiativeve with Plan Canada, why did you get invovled with those initatives in the first place?

Eternia: I jumped at the chance to speak to people. It’s a situation I could relate to, number one. I’ve been through—I guess we all face—gender discrimination we just don’t know that we do, but I’ve been through specific things. Whether it be because I’m a woman in hip-hop, which is male dominated, or whether it be because I’m a woman growing up in this society in general,  I think other people can relate. I think other people have experienced that as well, especially young girls that I’m speaking to in these schools, and I think they need to hear from someone they might look up to as a role model or a mentor or a star, whatever they view us as, and hear what’s going on, and how to deal with it, and what to do, and how you can get involved.

Basically what I mean to say is that I’m a woman, and so on a personal level issues relating to women really impact me and affect me and I care. In the end it was one of those things where it was like. this is what I want to be doing—this is what I want to be doing more then regular rap concerts. I don’t want to fake the funk, I don’t want to speak about things that I don’t personally feel passionate about or relate to, and that is why the girls’ rights and the gender equity issues are so near and dear to my heart. And especially speaking about violence against women, instances of sexual assault or physical abuse in a woman’s life—you know the stat about one in three women will experience abuse in their lifetime, it’s that serious–stuff like that hits home for me and I can relate to it just for my own personal life story. I don’t know if that answers your question other than I relate to it, I feel it and I want other girls to know they’re not alone when they’re going through things.

Natalie Samson: I did want to touch on something that you mentioned, that you do face a lot of gender discrimination in your profession and in general in your life. I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit more and maybe give us some examples of the barriers you’ve had to face and overcome doing the work you do.

Eternia: It’s so subtle, and that’s whats interesting: it is so prevalent and so subtle, so it’s hard to pinpoint one example. There is a lot of ego in hip-hop, I think people are hesitant to co-sign for a woman for whatever reason—generally because the statement “girls can’t rap” or “I don’t like female rappers” is not even viewed as problematic. Whereas if you were to fill in those two words with something else, like exchange rapper for guitar player and exchange female for a certain race, that would be extremely offensive. I was speaking about this last night with another interview, there is something about sexism specifically that doesn’t seem to get people up in arms or offend most people, especially in hip-hop. So its like the little things that happen all the time, little statements, little experiences, I find that often times when it comes to technical stuff, like mixing and mastering a record, my opinion’s not really taken seriously, but if I get my male manager, my male business partner, my male representative to be my mouthpiece—to open his mouth and say what I want him to say— they will listen to him. But the people that are being my mouthpiece are people that have way less experience then me. So the male who has way less experience then me is listened to over the women that’s been in the industry for 15 years.

Natalie Samson: Is that where your campaign, My Favourite Rapper Wears a Skirt, comes into play?

Eternia: By the way, that’s just one example of thousands. I don’t want you to think that’ the big example. “My Favourite Rapper Wears a Skirt”—somebody said that to me one day and something went off in my head the minute I heard that come out of his mouth. So it was really a kind of organic thing, I didn’t really sit there thinking about it. But what is awesome about the shirt is it really creates dialogue and gets people talking. So when people wear that shirt the assumptions that come out of it, like if a dude wears it it’s just funny. If a man wears my shirt other men will come up to him like, ‘what, your favourite rapper is gay, your favourite rapper is a cross-dresser.’ They still assume he’s talking about a dude, meaning they don’t even consider that he could possibly be referring to loving a female on stage.

Natalie Samson: People come up to me, even, and ask that question when I’m wearing that shirt.

Eternia: Really? That’s awesome! So not even men. I assumed that when girls wear it people would assume girl-girl but that’s just my assumption. So, yeah, exactly, even when you say my favourite rapper wears a skirt people still assume it has to be a man. You know what my next slogan may be? When I was doing the girls rights tour we were in middle schools, we were spitting all these stats at the kids, lots of stats and information while we’re performing and at the end we asked “what did you learn from the presentation?” and this one little boy puts up his hand, and he’s got to be like grade 6, and he’s like, “I learned that sometimes girls rap better than boys.” That was the highlight for me because it’s not what we taught him, but it’s so awesome that he would get that from the presentation. And not just on an ego level—its not just about me—but that is kind of what were talking about when we talk about gender equality and inequality. Most people don’t ever consider that. So that was pretty cool, that might be my next shirt: “Some Girls Rap Better Than Boys.”

Natalie Samson: It’s an interesting approach to the issue of gender equity and gender justice.

Eternia: It really felt fitting the first time we did the girls rights tour, George Nozuka was performing and so was I and so was Masia One. But the cool part was George Nozuka, he’s, you know, a man, he was doing very sensitive, soft, you know, if you saw me in heaven playing the guitar-type strumming which, you know—gender roles generally say the sensitiveve stuff, the mushy emotional stuff…you know where I’m going with this. Then the women were rocking out in the show were all high energy very—for lack of a better word—hyper-masculine in a way, you know: ego, bravado, strong. My voice alone is very strong. And so I just felt that it was so fitting, without us even stating it, it never had to be mentioned that we were doing a tour on issues of gender equity and issues on women and girls worldwide, and literally these are the roles, and it was a role reversal. I thought that was really cool, that men can be emotional and soft and women can be aggressive and hard. To be honest with you, I think girls seeing a women on stage rapping, without it having to be said, is like, okay this chick wants to be a skateboarder, or this girl wants to be, you know, maybe she wants to be a biophysicist, or whatever. We talk about the fact that guidance counsellors and people in schools will often gender-stereotype you and put you into this instead of that. Girls will put up their hands and share their stories, and so it’s really awesome that even if they don’t want to rap, they see a woman doing something normally defined as a male task or a male occupation, and I think it speaks to their lives directly.

Natalie Samson: Music: it’s obvious how candid it is and how rooted it is in your own personal experience. You bring up issues like abortion and violence against women and domestic abuse. How have you been able to do that–to go up on stage do after day and address these issues?

Eternia: It’s very freeing. There’s a song on the album—it’s the most personal I’ve ever done in my life—and it’s called “To the Future,” it deals with a lot of things I haven’t mentioned in previous songs, even though I’ve mentioned a lot of stuff. So, like, specifically relating to sexual assault and abortion as well, and my father being violent to my mom. So to answer your question, once it’s written and once it’s recorded, I don’t want to say I’ve kind of grown numb, but by the time I’m performing it on stage I’ve heard it a million times. So it’s one of those things where it’s like I put myself in the moment and I feel it but it’s not like the first time I wrote it.

What will often happen is I will write something personal and kind of devastating and I’ll cry when I write it and when I get in the studio I’ll be frustrated. The song I’m referring to now, I did in one take and it really knocked the wind out of me—like it really knocked the wind out of me. After I was done I was on the floor of the booth like “Yeah, not doing that one again.” But once I get on stage it’s freeing. It’s the most amazing feeling ever, and so it’s kind of like what a therapist would tell you to do. You need to work through your shit and you need to write it down and that’s what I do. So by the time I’m performing it I can see the impact that it has on other people, which is amazing and I don’t take that for granted, but for me it’s like I am a woman working at becoming, I guess you could say, healthy, adjusted, and whole. And a part of the process of becoming whole is writing this music. I’ve always been an open book so it’s one of those things where it’s like, “Yeah, this happened, yeah this happened, yeah this happened.” No shame. And guess what: you shouldn’t have shame either.

Natalie Samson: Have you ever faced any difficulty with any of your collaborators, or anybody in the business, for getting this message out because of the content? Because you’re talking about violence against women and these kinds of issues?

Eternia: The only thing I would say is my first album got criticized for being too personal. One of the most running critiques of It’s Called Life was, “Great album, great album, too personal.” So it’s almost like people don’t want you to go that deep, almost like it made them uncomfortable. But I can say for the most part people really relate and appreciate having someone else speak their story. What I often hear is, “You took my life and put it in your song.” Sometimes it gets really overwhelming when you’re making people aware of an issue and there are so many elements to it—it’s complicated and it’s not simple. The music that I do is very personal to me, so when I start doing it in relation to a lot of issues I kind of just feel like I’m one narrative. The only difference between me and the people I’m rapping to—for example at the Oxfam event—is that they gave me a microphone. But everyone could technically have a very moving compelling personal story that would call you to action. And that’s what it’s about: it’s change. Let’s not be satisfied with the status quo.

Feminists need to listen to the "men's rights" movement.

It’s hard to listen to someone who compares feminism to “the historical rise of Nazism in Germany,” a phrase once written by prominent men’s rights activist David Shackleton. But while the men’s rights movement does have more than its share of extremists, that doesn’t mean feminists should dismiss the whole cause.

I believe that some moderate activists have made some sensible points and that we feminists ought to engage with our detractors if they’re willing to engage—reasonably—with us. Comparing their arguments with our own ensures that feminism remains relevant to our time and place.

One such argument is the concept of equal parenting: the idea, advocated by many men’s activists, that both parents should be equally involved in their children’s lives postseparation. Some feminist critics find it a dubious concept. Pamela Cross of the Ontario Women’s Justice Network has pointed out that equal parenting doesn’t account for domestic violence issues and is often accompanied by questionable ideology. Still, changes in family structure—and skepticism about the women-as-nurturers assumption—make the issue worth considering. “You’ve got women who I’m sure would love to have the opportunity and the freedom to enter into the workforce on a full-time basis, who are being saddled with full [custody] … It should be a joint responsibility, as well as a joint right,” says Kris Titus, national coordinator of Fathers 4 Justice Canada.

Another popular cry in the men’s rights movement is that domestic violence affects women and men equally. A 2005 Statistics Canada survey did find that 653,000 women and 546,000 men had been subjected to spousal violence over the past five years. Feminists have since questioned the study’s methodology and critiqued its numbers as deceptive (women are more than twice as likely to suffer an injury or be the target of frequent attacks, and far more likely to be murdered). But while flawed, the study does highlight that men can be victims, as well as knock down the stereotype that women are never aggressors. With some 90 per cent of shelters refusing to admit men, it’s clear the issue warrants serious consideration.

Undoubtedly, misogyny (or pure bitterness) motivates much of men’s activism, but beneath the often ludicrous rhetoric are some legitimate issues that we feminists shouldn’t be wary of addressing. The trick is to figure out where fanaticism stops and the real arguments begin.

It is because of cases like this that a group of activists is lobbying Toronto council to adopt a policy that would prevent city workers, including police, from inquiring about the immigration status of people seeking services. It would also prevent them from passing on information about immigration status to any federal or provincial agency. “We felt it was essential for a lot of people we were working with to be able to access services without fear,” says Sima Zerehi, a campaign organizer with No One Is Illegal.

Zerehi says the idea came about in 2003, after organizers heard of a similar policy in New York City and began to realize how many of the non-status people they worked with in immigration detention centres had ended up there as a result of trying to access city services. Non-status persons, sometimes called illegal immigrants, are people who entered the country legally but lost their right to remain here, either because their refugee claim was denied or they overstayed a tourist visa. Until they are ordered deported or granted status, they are stuck in a legal limbo, with no official immigration status. And with an estimated 20,000 to 200,000 non-status persons living in Canada—half of those in the Toronto area—Zerehi says it’s imperative the city make it easier for them to access essential services without fear of being reported to immigration authorities.

Campaign organizers say non-status persons are entitled to services because the Canadian economy benefits from their labour. “Communities without status do contribute in a positive way to our economy. There really isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t be offered adequate services,” says Zerehi.

Police routinely ask about immigration status when investigating unrelated matters, such as domestic violence complaints. “If, through the normal course of an investigation, we find people with various immigration statuses, obviously we communicate that to Immigration Canada,” says Sergeant Jim Muscat of the Toronto Police Service.

That’s precisely the kind of situation organizers would like to change. But they realize that even having a policy might not make a difference immediately. For example, schools in Ontario are required to admit children whose parents are “unlawfully in Canada.” Yet, according to Martha Mackinnon, executive director of the Justice for Children and Youth Legal Clinic, about 100 children were denied access to Toronto schools this past year, even though the school board has a policy of admitting non-status children. “We took action, and to our knowledge, everyone was admitted,” she says. “Unfortunately, I think that we need more work on the implementation of the policy, especially at a local school level,” concedes school board trustee Bruce Davis.

With the campaign still in its early days, organizers are hopeful. Mayor David Miller supports the principle that all city residents should have access to city services: “The general policy in our administration is that, unless legally obliged, city workers do not ask about immigration status.” But despite his tacit endorsement and the fact that a variety of community organizations and three city councillors have come on board, the city’s official position is that non-status persons already have access to some services, such as public health nurses and homeless shelters, and that the city is prevented by provincial legislation from providing other services, such as social housing. Under the Social Housing Reform Act, for example, every person in the household must have legal status in order for the entire family to be placed on the waiting list.

Organizers say their next step is to hold a public forum this fall. The sooner council addresses the issue, the better, says Cindy Cowan, executive director of the women’s shelter Nellie’s, who sees first-hand what happens when women at risk are afraid to call the police and why a policy is necessary. “It would reduce the fear,” she says, “and enable women to get the support and services they need.”