Rep. Gwen Moore speaks out against the House’s weak VAWA bill

We’re all pretty pissed about the incredibly watered-down Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill the House passed on Wednesday. But perhaps no one is more outraged than Rep. Gwen Moore–and with good reason. The legislator from Wisconsin shared her personal history with sexual violence during House debate on the bill earlier this year. And yesterday she spoke out again–denouncing the House bill as a victim of rape and a woman of color.

One experience that I had, that occurred to me, that I thought of this morning, was a time that I took a ride with a guy that I thought was a friend to go to get some fried chicken. And he decided to take a detour behind some buildings to rape me and choke me almost to death. I was sort of seeing that little light that you often hear about. As woman of color, I am particularly aggrieved that this bill ignores the special circumstances of women who are minorities. Women who are in the shadows. Stop playing games with the lives of women! This is yet another–they don’t want to hear us talk about it being a war on women, but this is a direct assault on women’s lives. Three women a day die from victimization. And i would implore my colleagues to stop playing games.

Watch the video on Maddow.

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Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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