It doesn’t get more personal than the Violence Against Women Act

**Trigger warning**

L.Y. Marlow, who was a guest on “Melissa Harris-Perry” last week, has a breathtaking follow up piece at the MHP blog, about her personal stake in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

I come from a family of five generations of mothers and daughters who all suffered and survived more than sixty years of domestic violence, so I have a personal stake and passion for any matters concerning violence against women.

My grandmother was powerless as my grandfather mercilessly beat her and her eight children until they were all bloody. My mother, her lungs crushed by my father’s vicious beating, was told to kiss her five children goodbye from herPhiladelphiahospital bed.

My daughter’s father kicked me in my belly and spit on me as I lay on the ground hemorrhaging, eight months pregnant. And that same daughter’s boyfriend, years later, strangled her while their six-month-old baby girl, named Promise, lay on the bed beside her.

To the 22 men who voted against the VAWA, tell me: What is so “unconstitutional” about giving legal protections to women like us?

Does the Constitution not protect our rights? If my family’s stories are not worthy of the same protections afforded to all of our fellow citizens, what stories are?

Marlow goes on to talk about the enormous amount of legislative work that can be – and should be done – around violence against women. And she shames the legislators who “spent the last year playing ping pong.” You should read the whole thing, and so should every single legislator who stood up and voted against this bill.