I am thinking of the rape and murder of women and girls becoming once again an acceptable epidemic in this country. The latest being the 20 year old pregnant marine, raped by her superior, who made a rape complaint and was betrayed by the Marine Corps, her fellow soldiers, her adopted mother, the local police and left to the vengeance of her rapist. I am thinking of all the disappeared women killed by police officer husbands, their complaints ignored by the husband’s friends on the force. I am thinking of the women in Family Court trying to escape abuse.

As women are silenced now, censored for naming the degrading practices of Islam, the rights we have won after long struggles are being rolled back. We are unsafe when we try to oppose patriarchal force in this county. No woman will find shelter when the courts force her to turn her children over to an abuser as she tries to divorce him. No shelter will have the courage to hide her in the face of a court order demanding she return to honor the abuser’s right to his children. I saw women forced tom produce the children of batterers from shelters where they had fled for protection. How can we think we can protect Muslim women when we cannot protect any woman as our shelters have become ineffective.

Women are betrayed first by “feminist” organizations who adopt doublespeak and denial, techniques written about by Mary Daley in “Gynecology” and Phyllis Chesler in ‘Woman’s Inhumanity to Women” and “Death of Feminism”.

Do you know that Gender Equity at the University now means trans-sexual rights? Women’s discrimination funds have been diverted to men who want to be accepted as the worst stereotype of women at the expense of all the other women’s issues, such as the lack of representation, the sexualization of children and violence against women.

When I say lack of representation, I mean the absence of our voice and our reality in curriculum and text. For instance, if women judged which society or social order was best for women, would we choose Hammas or Hezbolla over the political system in Israel? Why is MS afraid to make that comparison? Why is that analysis absent in women’s studies or political science courses? That is what I mean when I say OUR voice has been silenced. When we who made domestic violence a political issue are silenced, the teachers find it easy to ignore the welts on the faces of the crazy man’s girls, and the social workers find the complaints “unfounded”.

Silenced from defining middle east patriarchy, silenced in foreign policy, silenced in immigration policy and silenced therefore in our own political and personal life in the US. What comes around goes around. My hands are empty.

Phyllis – keep writing – your voice is our sword and a shield against the darkness. I fear, like the great tribes, we feminists are ghost dancing on the eve of extinction.

Like some wave will women recede back into the traditional roles? What woman will stay in the Marine Corps? Where are the women electricians, plumbers and carpenters? Where are the female auto mechanics? Who will enter male dominated fields when there is no protection from male violence and retaliation? When women learn within the family that there is no protection, what will become of us all?

Will we lose this battle with the police and child protective agencies to effectively prevent and prosecute domestic violence? Is our refusal to protect middle eastern women and children even when they are in the U.S. foreshadowing the loss of our ability to protect any of us?

At least we will not disappear without our great writers documenting how it happened for women to read and understand. To leave a record in the face of overwhelming power is something important. Write on, Phyllis.

I can easily imagine the police officers and social workers assigned to deal with the father concerned about severely damaging their careers. The MSM is especially reluctant to address this crisis during an election year. It only helps to elect conservative Republicans. Democrats and politically correct George W. Bush Republicans shy away from these “family matters.” They don’t know what to say.