Lady Business: Guns, domestic violence, and mental illness; Ice dancers in Internet-love
Hello and welcome to Lady Business, a weekly newsletter about women, the business world, and all the ways they overlap. You can sign up for Lady Business and read previous issues here. This is the eighteenth issue, published February 22, 2018.
Violence Against Children, Violence Against Women
Last week was another bad one for children in America, but at least we're progressing from the “denial” stage of mourning to “anger.” I’ve been thrilled by the well-expressed, smart, yet very real fury radiating out of Emma González and the other survivors of the Parkland school shooting, and I hope it yields other results than the “hopes and prayers and waiting for the next one!” cycle of the past decades.
(Though it’s also notable, as the New Yorker and others point out, that being telegenic and furious with lighter skin helps: “While the students and parents speaking up were no more passionate than the young people of, say, the Black Lives Matter movement, it was clear that the political establishment was going to receive them a different way.”)
The Parkland shootings have given the White House and John Kelly some relief from the Rob Porter fallout, although of course both stories are linked: like Porter, the Parkland shooter abused and threatened women.
This link between domestic terrorists and domestic violence has long been known: 57 percent of mass shooters target a spouse, former spouse or family member in their rampages, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and 16 percent of these men have official domestic violence charges in their past.
That second percentage looks small, but of course domestic violence is one of those crimes that is under-reported and then under-believed when reported, as Porter’s ex-wives found out. So 16 percent feels pretty indicative of many more un-tracked crimes. As one expert told the New York Times:
“Having a history of violence might help neutralize the natural barriers to committing violence.”
It’s almost like the personal really is political.
Also related to Porter and last week’s Lady Business, here’s one domestic violence non-profit in LA recommended by my friend Sandra (who’s also how I originally found Sanctuary for Families): Peace Over Violence.
Lady Bits:
--My ice dancing journey over the weekend went very quickly from “oh right, this is that time every four years that twizzles are a thing” to “now I’m having viewer anxiety about wardrobe malfunctions for every woman with a flapping costume strap” to, well, this:
I finally watched their routine and while I don’t know if they are dating, I definitely believe that they are going to live a long life together and die at exactly the same time in each others’ arms #VirtueMoir
— Mara “Get Rid of the Nazis” Wilson (@MaraWilson) February 21, 2018
I also loved how much the entire Anglophone world is shipping them. On the one hand, it feels a little invasive, though inevitable in our reality television age; The Bachelor has pretty firmly lifted the barriers to shipping real people with performative relationships. Virtue and Moir also seem to be fairly willing participants, and masterful self-marketers. Though if it is all marketing and no real romance, I’m impressed and a little sad for them, and more sad for their future partners.
--Over the weekend also I caught up on My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which went to a dark but smart place this season, with its prolonged examination of mental illness. Rebecca’s finale speech about how her illness does not excuse her from facing the consequences of her actions (and crimes) felt sadly well-timed to the Parkland shooting and the ongoing “It’s not guns! It’s mental illness!” rhetoric. Plus the show’s wry, feminist meta-commentary remains on point:
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