To restore its credibility, Komen needs to build more bridges with the feminist movement. An easy place to start? Ribbons.

Each October, we see a parade of ribbons–the pink ribbons of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the purple ribbons of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

I’ve worked in many domestic violence shelters and prevention programs. Every September, in preparation for the month ahead, staff and volunteers brought out our glue guns and pins, spending hours creating and folding purple ribbons to raise community awareness. This is done between answering the hotline, facilitating support groups and finding other ways to assist the women, children and men who came to us for help.

Yet come October, our communities are awash in a sea of pink, with the occasional splash of purple. Staff and volunteers distribute our purple ribbons as best we could, but our efforts always pale in comparison. Breast cancer awareness groups seemed to have more staff, more volunteers, more funding, more organization–and more societal acceptance of breast cancer as a priority.

All of us supported breast cancer awareness and research. Most of us knew someone with breast cancer–some colleagues of mine were breast cancer survivors themselves. But it was frustrating to see the disparity between the issues; I began jokingly to call Komen the “Pink Juggernaut.”

But I realize now that our two groups have quite a bit in common, besides sharing a month. Both domestic violence and breast cancer predominantly affect women. Both have been historically underfunded. Both suffer from common myths and misconceptions. Most of all, both have a major detrimental effect on women’s health.

Instead of competing every October, why not work together? Instead of choosing either pink or purple ribbons, why not distribute ribbons that are half pink and half purple?

Across the country, cash-strapped shelters are closing their doors and laying off staff. Komen could offer grant money for shelters who use the pink/purple ribbons and for breast cancer awareness groups that do the same.

Komen’s leaders have an opportunity this month to launch the pink-and-purple ribbon: the World Conference for Women’s Shelters in Washington, DC. They can follow up at the International Conference on Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence and Stalking this April in San Diego, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Conference this July in Denver, bringing ribbons and support to each.

As Katha Pollitt wrote in The Nation:

Komen miscalculated by thinking its base cares only about breast cancer: In fact, those women in pink t-shirts and sneakers, raising their thousands upon thousands of dollars a year for breast cancer research, understand quite well that women’s health means more than tumor-free breasts. If Komen understood that but thought–and maybe still thinks–it can deceive those activists … it will dwindle and die.

If Komen wants to prove its commitment to women’s health, the pink-and-purple ribbon could go a long way.

Back in the good old days of 2008, same-sex marriage was legal in the Golden State of California for 143 days, and during that time 18,000 same-sex couples legally tied the knot. The existence of those 18,000 is why Proposition 8–which made same-sex marriage illegal later that year–is unconstitutional, according to today’s ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court. By a 2-1 vote, a court panel upheld the historic 2010 decision by Judge Vaughn Walker to strike down Prop 8 as unconstitutional.

Since Prop 8 set out to “eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California,” without providing any legitimate state interest for doing so, the appeals court calls that open discrimination:

All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation of “marriage,” which symbolizes state legitimization and societal recognition of their committed relationships. Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.

The court rejected one of the more ridiculous Prop 8 proponents’ arguments–that the constitutional ban “advances California’s interest in responsible procreation and childrearing”–and denied the much-criticized assertion that same-sex marriages cause any harm to straight ones:

It is implausible to think that denying two men or two women the right to call themselves married could somehow bolster the stability of families headed by one man and one woman.

The court also suggested that Prop 8 was “born of disapproval of gays and lesbians,” noting that Prop 8 was “presented to voters in terms designed to appeal to stereotypes of gays and lesbians as predators, threats to children and practitioners of a deviant ‘lifestyle.’”

Despite its strong wording, the decision is disappointingly narrow, applying only to the state of California and not to all of the western states under the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction (Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii). But the precedent could nonetheless have far-reaching effects: in states like Iowa, where marriage equality has been granted but is contested, or states like Maine, where marriage rights were granted to same-sex couples and then taken away. At stake is the issue of second-class citizenship. As the court noted,

The elimination of the right to use the official designation of “marriage” for the relationships of committed same-sex couples send[s] a message that gays and lesbians are of lesser worth as a class–that they enjoy a lesser societal status.

The constitutional grounds for denying Prop 8 lie in the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment of the federal Constitution, which the court says was violated by using an initiative “to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so.” The appeals court even injected some humor into their ruling, invoking Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to make the point that domestic partnership is not the same as marriage, and that separate is not equal:

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of ‘registered domestic partnership’ does not.

The judges drove the point home with yet another laugh line:

Had Marilyn Monroe’s film been called How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire, it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous meaning.

It’s unclear whether gay marriage rights will be immediately restored in California or whether they will be placed on hold, pending further appeals. Let’s hope that Proposition 8 will be stricken from the books right away so that lesbians and gay men will be able to marry the millionaire or average Jane or Joe of their dreams.

Nanny is thought to be a member of the Ashanti Kingdom of West Africa brought to Jamaica as a slave in the 18th century. She led a community of fugitive slaves (or “maroons”) in the rain forest called Nanny Town. Legend has it that through the 19-year “First Maroon War” she held out against the British colonizers and slaveowners through both militaristic and magical powers, defeating English armies by catching bullets in her buttocks and hurling them back. It is believed that she died in battle around 1734.

You can find historical accounts of Nanny of the Maroons in Jenny Sharpe’s Ghosts of Slavery and in Madeleine Burnside and Rosemarie Robotham’s Spirits of the Passage. But I am not very concerned with distinguishing between what of Nanny’s story is factual “history” and what is simply “myth.” As an interdisciplinary black feminist scholar, I tend to agree with Trinh T. Minh-ha in her phenomenal Woman, Native, Other, when she reminds us that Western historians and anthropologists long dismissed the vast historical knowledge of indigenous women since its tellers refused to distinguish between what was “just a story” and what “really happened.” When receiving the history of a Jamaican icon like Nanny, is it important to debunk if she really had magical powers? Scholar Raquel Z. Rivera, who coined the theory of liberation mythology,  says:

I look at myths not as stories or beliefs that are (necessarily) untrue but as tropes that poetically attempt to explain or get us closer to the unexplainable. The myth may or may not be true; my aim is not to determine if it is or if it isn’t true, but to explore the ‘dreams of freedom’ at the root of myth-making.

Myths, says Rivera, allow us to look back at the past to imagine larger-than-life outcomes and possibilities.

Today, Nanny of the Maroons is officially recognized as one of Jamaica’s national heroes (the only woman among seven). She is featured in the Jamaican Heroes National Park and appears on the Jamaican $500 bill. Jamaican author Michelle Cliff included Nanny in her novels Abeng and Free Enterprise. Not too long ago, Jamaican American artist Renee Cox featured Nanny as a subject in her art series, Queen Nanny of the Maroons.

Nanny is yet another black woman of history whom we can look to as a model of successful strategies of resistance. May we pour libation for these spirits who quite literally placed their bodies on the line for our freedoms.

Drawing of Nanny of the Maroons from the National Library of Jamaica, via Yale.edu.

Mary is a 28-year-old mother of two. She works as a medical assistant at a religiously-affiliated hospital. She had multiple complications with her most recent pregnancy and was told that she should never become pregnant again. For Mary, another pregnancy could be life-threatening. Mary loves her two children and wants to make sure she stays healthy for them. She and her obstetrician decided that an IUD would be the best way to prevent a future pregnancy.

At her doctor’s office, she found out that her insurance, because it is through her work, does not cover contraception. She was surprised and confused that, despite her doctor’s recommendation of an IUD, her insurance would not cover it.

I met Mary when she came to our Title X clinic. We were able to provide her with an IUD through a family planning grant. It was unfair to Mary that her insurance did not adequately protect her health and that she did not know in advance about the gaps in her coverage. I hope that in the future women like Mary can rely on their insurance plans for the resources to stay healthy and be there for their families.—Tara Kumaraswami, MD, Chicago, IL

Maria is 15 years old. I met her after she had her first menstrual period. She bled so heavily that she had to be admitted to the hospital and receive a blood transfusion. The best treatment for Maria’s condition (menorrhagia) is birth control pills. They regulate the menstrual cycle and prevent dangerous bleeding for patients like Maria. In fact, one-third of U.S. teens use contraception for reasons other than avoiding pregnancy.

Maria and her family are practicing Catholics. I discussed birth control pills with her parents. If she did not start the medication, every time she had her period she would be at risk of bleeding so much she would need another transfusion—possibly every month. After carefully weighing the decision, her parents decided that birth control pills would be the best way to keep Maria healthy and out of the hospital.

Birth control pills are not just for contraception—they help manage conditions like Maria’s as well as lower the risk for certain cancers. All families need affordable access to medications that safeguard their health, including birth control.—Yolanda Evans, MD, MPH, Seattle, WA

When I was in residency, I took care of Rita, a young Catholic mother of five. Rita was suffering from a serious heart defect. She was six weeks pregnant and had a defective cardiac valve that had to be replaced with a synthetic one. Pregnancy put her at high risk for a blood clot forming on the new valve and traveling to her brain, where it could kill her.

Rita had not been using contraception because she had no insurance to make it affordable—not because she didn’t want to use it. While in the hospital, despite taking blood thinners to treat her clots, Rita had a stroke. The woman I had spent hours with talking about caring for her five living children, her marriage, how to handle her unplanned pregnancy—that woman could now no longer speak or walk. When I think of birth control access, I think of Rita and her family.—Jennefer Russo, MD, Pittsburgh, PA

Susan worked in administration at a Catholic Archdiocese, and her employer provided health insurance that did not cover contraception because of the employer’s belief that birth control is immoral. Susan was in a relationship and did not want to become pregnant. Her partner refused to use condoms and the burden to prevent pregnancy fell on her.

Because of her high blood pressure, Susan could not take birth control pills, and she and her doctor decided that an IUD was her best preventive health care option. But Susan could not afford the hundreds of dollars for the device and insertion. She went without any birth control, became pregnant and then had an abortion that should have never become necessary.—Anonymous U.S. physician

Four years ago I graduated from medical school. I had paid for school on my own and was deeply in debt. I was excited to begin my residency and start earning a small paycheck. At the beginning of my residency I had an intrauterine device (IUD) placed using my new health insurance from Catholic Healthcare West. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t become pregnant and I knew an IUD was the best option for me. IUDs cost about $1,000 up front to insert. There was absolutely no way I could have afforded the payment without insurance. I shudder to think of women out there who would be left with few options if religious insurance plans were allowed to refuse this coverage.—Angela Angelucci, DO, Los Angeles, CA

My patient Ava is 45 years old and has four children. Two years ago she suffered a stroke. To prevent future strokes, Ava must take a blood thinner. Her condition is complicated because that medication causes heavy, sometimes life-threatening, bleeding when she has her period. An IUD is the safest option to reduce that bleeding.

But Ava’s husband works as a facilities engineer at a large Catholic hospital, and his insurance will not cover contraception for any reason. The fee for an IUD is over $1,000, an outlay that Ava and her family could not afford. I had to refer her to a Title X clinic for assistance. IUDs not only prevent unintended pregnancy, but they also help keep women like Ava healthy. An employer’s refusal to cover this necessary medication creates hardship for families like Ava’s and stretches the safety net meant to cover those without insurance.—Lori Gawron, MD, Chicago, IL

I care for many women who are employees and students at a large, well respected, Catholic college. These women have no objections to birth control—they are either not Catholic, or among the ninety-eight percent of Catholic women who have used birth control. Most have no idea their insurance does not cover birth control pills or any other contraceptive until they begin working or studying there. When they find out, some panic because they cannot afford the full cost. These amounts can be prohibitive for a family on a budget. The college educates and employs thousands of women; they should not be denied affordable birth control as a condition of studying or working there.—Anonymous U.S. physician

I recently cared for a 24-year-old woman named Somsri. She had come to see me about contraception. Somsri has a genetic blood disorder that caused a dangerous blood clot in her leg. To manage this condition, she needs to be on an anticoagulant cocktail for the rest of her life. Somsri also should not get pregnant because it would be very dangerous for her.

An IUD would be the best form of contraception for Somsri. Unfortunately, her health insurance did not cover the IUD’s cost, and she did not have $1,000 to pay for it out-of-pocket. Somsri left without an IUD. Her only affordable option was condoms, which have a significant failure rate.

Six months later Somsri was pregnant. Because of her condition, her pregnancy was very complicated and she nearly died, ultimately needing a hysterectomy to stop her bleeding.

All women deserve accessible and affordable contraceptive services, no matter where she works or how much money she makes.—Orawee Chinthakanan, MD, Atlanta, GA

Melanie has worked for many years as an emergency room nurse at a Catholic hospital. She wanted a long-acting, reversible contraceptive, specifically an IUD. But the hospital’s health insurance did not cover birth control. Melanie paid for birth control pills out-of-pocket, but she had experienced an unintended pregnancy while on the pill and knew that an IUD would be more effective.

However, Melanie could not afford the nearly $1,000 for the IUD and its insertion. Instead, Melanie obtained an IUD from a nearby study of a new, experimental type of IUD. Her need for an IUD plainly outweighed her worries about using a contraceptive without FDA approval.—Anonymous U.S. physician

Liz is 27 years old and has three children. I cared for her last year when I delivered her youngest child. Ever since then we have been trying to find her an affordable form of birth control. She is on Medicaid and has a managed care plan through a religious carrier. Most Medicaid plans cover birth control, but her policy has an exemption for contraception.

Liz lives with her children in a homeless shelter. She is trying to get on her feet and create a better life for her and her family. Her inability to access affordable contraception puts her at high risk of unintended pregnancy at a time in her life when she is already struggling for survival.—Dana Schonberg, MD, New York, NY

My patient Julia is in her 20s and poor. Julia loves her two children very much, but their births were medically complicated, and Julia does not want to have another baby. She is content with her family.

Even though Julia is Catholic, she decided that a tubal ligation—or “tying her tubes”—was the best way to prevent an unintended pregnancy. But Julia has Medicaid through a religious carrier, and her plan will not cover a tubal ligation. She had had no idea that her plan could refuse to cover certain services. Now Julia has to go back to using less effective forms of contraceptives that have failed her in the past.—Kathleen Morrell, MD, Brooklyn, NY

Kristen worked as a nursing assistant at a Catholic hospital. Her insurance did not cover contraception. Kristen, who is not Catholic, did not know about this policy until after she started working at the hospital. When Kristen first refilled her prescription for birth control pills, she discovered that she would need to pay $50 per month, a new expense for which she had not budgeted, as her last employer had covered contraceptives.

Kristen was able to afford her prescription for a few months, but could not continue. She later had an unintended pregnancy and needed an abortion.—Anonymous U.S. physician

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Photo from Flickr user nateOne under Creative Commons 2.0

Last year, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications published the magazine, Native Daughters. With a grant from the Carnegie Foundation and under the guidance of five university professors, students spent 18 months reporting and writing about American Indian women who are artists, activists, lawyers, cops, warriors, healers, storytellers and leaders.

Now the Nebraska Department of Education has also released a companion curriculum for the magazine. You can download it for free here.

Can’t wait even one minute more to learn about Native women? Here’s a teaser of what you can learn more about in Native Daughters—and what you can share with your students via the new curriculum.

1. “A lot of people think that us women are not leaders, but we are the heart of the nation, we are the center of our home, and it is us who decide how it will be.”–Philomine Lakota, Lakota language teacher, Red Cloud High School, Pine Ridge, S.D.

2. The art forms Native women practice stand as reminders of cultural endurance. “Their crafts survived the Greasy Grass (Battle of Little Big Horn), Wounded Knee One (1890) and Two (1973),” writes Christina DeVries in Native Daughters. “Their spirits survived the Trail of Tears, the Relocation and Termination program and continued struggles against cultural annihilation.”

3. In 1997, Ms. magazine named Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabeg) Woman of the Year. That same year, the activist also debuted her first novel, Last Standing Woman.

4. Of nearly 2 million women enlisted in the U.S. armed forces, 18,000 are American Indian women.  Their representation in the military is disproportionately high—and Native women are more likely to be sexually harassed, which increases their chances of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

5. The number of Native women applying to medical school has increased since 2003, peaking in 2007 when 77 Native women applied nationwide.

6. In 2007, when Cassandra Manuelito-Kerkvliet (Diné) was named president of Antioch University, she became the first American Indian woman president of a mainstream university. Not only that, but about half of the nation’s tribal colleges are led by Native women presidents.

7. Cecelia Fire Thunder (Lakota) became the Oglala Lakota Tribe’s first woman president. She has fought against domestic abuse, saying it’s not a part of traditional culture, and been a leader for women’s reproductive rights. In 2006, when the South Dakota state legislature prohibited abortion, Fire Thunder announced plans to build a women’s clinic on the reservation, and therefore beyond state jurisdiction. She was impeached by the tribal council, who said she was acting outside her duties as president.

8. Women lead nearly one-quarter of the nation’s 562 federally recognized tribes.

9. “Through the late 1700s, Cherokee women were civically engaged. They owned land and had a say during wartime,” writes Astrid Munn in Native Daughters. “But this changed after the tribe ceded large tracts of land to the U.S. government in 1795.”  Since the mid-1980s, though, a generation of Native women activists, lawmakers and attorneys have been changing that history and working to empower women again.

10. Indian Country could never survive without Native women.

Photo of  magazine cover. To order copies of the magazine, contact Joe Starita. You can also visit nativedaughters.org to watch video clips and extended raw footage of the interviews.

Komen’s story that the decision wasn’t a political one was a hard sell, especially after it was reported that Karen Handel, the senior vice president of public policy, retweeted (and later deleted), “Just like pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river.” Sure, it’s not political.

Anti-choice zealots have been gunning for Planned Parenthood and reproductive health care providers for years now. They’ve created obstacles to women’s reproductive health care by misconstruing, misinterpreting, misrepresenting and misusing facts to try to convince women that they don’t know what’s good for them.

Some of their favorite “facts” are that abortions threaten women’s physical and mental health–despite years of peer-reviewed studies overwhelmingly showing abortions to be safe.

Now, an unbiased scientific study once again shows definitively that abortion is much safer than childbirth. It is 14 times less likely to lead to death.

I don’t expect anti-choice zealots to suddenly change their tune about the supposed dangers of abortion. I’ve been reading studies demonstrating that legal abortion is safer than childbirth since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Over that time, legal abortion has only become safer. The authors of this study, Dr. Elizabeth G. Raymond and Dr. David A. Grimes, found that:

The relative safety of abortion has increased substantially since the first decade after nationwide legalization, when child birth-related mortality was approximately seven times the mortality related to abortion.

These statistics and scientific facts don’t jibe with what the anti-choice forces want to believe. So they manufactured some “facts” of their own and proceeded to get legislators and policymakers to believe them–or at least pretend to believe them–and enact laws to protect women from themselves.

Anti-choicers have succeeded in getting laws passed in 22 states that require women seeking abortions to receive information about the procedure’s “risks.” Such information is often misleading, inaccurate and designed to frighten women away from terminating their pregnancies. A pamphlet mandated in Texas, “A Woman’s Right to Know,”  lists over 30 potential complications of medical abortion–but only six potential complications of vaginal delivery and eight of cesarean delivery.

The pamphlet also raises the specter of breast cancer. The anti-choice crowd has been trying to sell the idea that abortions raises breast-cancer risk for a long time, although any link between the two has been refuted in study after study. The American Cancer Society states that, “At this time, the scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer.” (Perhaps the Komen organization could focus its efforts on debunking this mythology instead of undermining Planned Parenthood.)

Raymond and Grimes’ report concludes:

Laws that compel exposure of women to such biased material thwart informed choice and contravene the ethical principle of autonomy. Moreover, they put clinicians in the untenable position of having to be complicit in misleading their patients. Since the early 1970s, the public health evidence has been clear and incontrovertible: induced abortion is safer than childbirth.

It is unconscionable that our health care providers should have to misrepresent medical facts to women seeking abortions because of a vocal anti-choice minority. When will Americans acknowledge that, in the words of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts”?

Photo from Flickr user CarlB104 under Creative Commons 3.0.

Not only has the editorial board of the Post opined that the administration should have accommodated the “deeply held views” of those institutions, but the Post has printed other editorials in support of the Bishops, while refusing to print opposing viewpoints in favor of access.

If the administration had exempted every university, hospital, or business with a religious connection, it would have meant that millions of women of all faiths–students, teachers, nurses, social workers, marketing and administrative staff and other employees of those schools and businesses–would have been singled out to lose access to this important coverage, without regard to their own needs, beliefs and conscience.

The Post wants to put the Church hierarchy ahead of the right of individual women to be free from discrimination in their health care plans. That’s where the Post is just wrong.

Tell the Washington Post that women should be allowed to follow their own consciences.

Photo from fotopedia user dionhinchcliffe under Creative Commons 2.0.

My urge to scream is rooted in our common cultural practice of remembering Parks only as a demure and delicate old seamstress who sparked the civil rights movement. The common assertion is that Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Ala. But we must confront this assertion, because each time we confine her memory to that moment we erase part of her admirable character, strategic intellect and indomitable spirit.

To be clear, Rosa Parks left us a deliberate legacy of activism, not an accidental activist moment. Furthermore, she, like many other Black women, should not be remembered in the shadows of Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. or any other Black male civil rights activist, but rather right alongside of them. We must realize and teach that when Rosa Parks was helping lay the foundation for the civil rights movement, Dr. King was still in high school.

At the intersection of sexism and racism, it is not surprising that we remember Rosa Parks as demure and delicate, since the image of her sitting quietly with her hands folded politely in her lap is commonplace. However, if we get beyond our stereotypical expectations of who a Black woman can be, we bear witness to her steely grace and steadfast commitment to defending human dignity. She had been doing so for years before she ever got on that bus.

Rosa Parks was taught as a child to sleep with her clothes on in case she was awakened during the night to run from the Klan. Parks, as one of the first women to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), traveled throughout segregated Alabama to document racialized voter intimidation and brutality. It was Rosa Parks who interviewed Recy Taylor, a Black woman violently raped by six White men, and helped form the Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor. Parks was also a woman who vigorously supported the NAACP, Montgomery Improvement Association, Alabama Voter’s League and Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, just to name a few of her key activist roots.

Then in 1955 at age 42, she, like the women who did so before her, refused to give up her seat because of the color of her skin. Soon after that historic moment, those who loved her pleaded with her not to become the central figure of the Montgomery bus boycott–but it was Rosa Parks who courageously did so anyway, for her sake and for ours.

Please remember her this month, and every month, for all of who she was on the day she refused to give up her seat and changed our lives: a bold, remarkable, fierce, benevolent and righteously indignant woman. And join me in revealing more hidden activist histories of Black women. We can begin with those whose names we know, but then we must seek out the names and herstories of those we don’t. If you accept my invitation, here are some good books in which to begin the enlightenment: Freedom’s Daughter: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970; At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance-A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power; and Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.

Photo from Flickr user Matt Lemmon under Creative Commons 3.0.

According to the media, the public holds the bickering, do-nothing Congress in unprecedented low esteem. But here’s some good news: In the weeks and months ahead, there is one area where our legislators can redeem themselves. The Violence Against Women Act is up for reauthorization, and if Congress passes a strong bill, millions of girls and women will have a better chance to escape and heal from sexual, domestic, dating and stalking violence.

We only have to read the latest headlines to know that our nation must continue its work to prevent and respond to the cruel sexual violence, lethal battery and assault that lead to murder and destruction in whole families. Shockingly, three U.S. women are killed every day in domestic violence incidents.

VAWA was originally passed in 1994 and currently has the bipartisan support of a third of the full Senate. In a nod to harsh economic times, the money authorized has been lowered to the 2000 level, programs have been consolidated, budgets tightened and accountability emphasized.

So why have two of VAWA’s former champions failed to sponsor this year’s bill? Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) are missing in action, and we all know that sexual and domestic violence still occur all across the nation, including Utah and Iowa.It isn’t just the shelters and crisis centers calling for full Senate support–the religious, health care and civil rights communities are behind VAWA as well. Most important, the law enforcement community joins our call to sponsor and pass VAWA, with 47 state attorneys general adding their voices, including Utah AG Mark Shurtleff and Iowa’s Tom Miller. Unfortunately, conservatives in the Senate are attempting to drastically reduce VAWA funding through a matching funds scheme that would effectively shut down many smaller anti-violence programs and seriously impact services in larger programs. NOW cautions that this could be the first step toward eventually eliminating federal support.

As both a public health and human rights issue, ending violence against women is a responsibility we all share. If we truly want a nation free of sexual and domestic violence, we must commit to this goal at every level–as individuals, in our communities, in state legislatures and at the federal level.

“I would be delighted to participate,” I said. “What would you like me to discuss?”

She was very specific: She wanted me to discuss how black women suffered more than black men under slavery since they were always getting raped. My heart sank.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no desire to downplay or misrepresent this particular history of racialized sexual oppression under slavery, one which basically institutionalized the practice of rape for both economic incentives (the increase in slave labor) and white supremacy (the sexual policing and exploitation of bodies). However, for a month that is designed to celebrate the achievements of black people in history, I was flabbergasted that this particular story was asked of me.

Fannie Berry, who tells her story to a black female interviewer (for what it’s worth, we may want to think whether or not Ms. Berry would have been as forthcoming to a white and/or male interviewer), remembers Sukie as a strong and willful slave woman who flat-out resisted her master’s sexual advances. As Berry put it: “She tole him no,” which led to a fight between the two parties:

Den dat black gal got mad. She took an’ punch ole Marsa an’ made him break loose an’ den she gave him a shove an’ push his hindparts down in de hot pot o’ soap … It burnt him near to death… Marsa never did bother slave gals no mo’.

For this little insurrection, according to Berry, Sukie was sold off. But the strong-minded woman would not be bothered. On the auction block, as potential buyers were examining her–including prying into her mouth to check her teeth, as was routine–Sukie abruptly lifted up her dress and told her audience to “see if dey could fine any teef down dere.”

I like Sukie. I admit it. I like her brazenness, I like her self-possession. I like that she was able to tell her master “No!” even if it meant the punishment of being sold away from her loved ones. Even if it meant further humiliation on the slave auction block, which she then turned on its head by volunteering self-exposure as a clear act of defiance and a subversive embrace of the vulgar–or what the Crunk Feminist Collective calls “disrespectability politics.”

But notice: Sukie’s actions of resistance prevented the master from trying to sexually assault another slave (according to Berry, he “never did bother slave gals no mo’”). Moreover, Sukie clearly warns her future “master” that he’s going to be in for some serious violence if he tries to subdue her like her former master.

We will probably never know the full story behind Sukie’s actions and what finally happened to her or where she lived out the rest of her life. Maybe she was able to run off, maybe she didn’t survive, maybe she was eventually freed during emancipation, as Berry was. What we do know is that other slaves (and a future generation of black women, as represented by Berry’s interviewer) took solace in her story.

And that for me is the point of remembering stories like Sukie’s. She offers us protest strategies and reminds us that, even within an institutionalized system of slave rape, we can still reclaim our bodies. Neither “ultimate victim” nor “porn fetish,” Sukie subverts the tools of sexual violence and the auction block to make her own claim for full womanhood and full humanity.

While I prefer the story of when Sukie resisted rape (versus the “unspeakable” stories of the times when she couldn’t), hers becomes a healing story of sorts. The 400-year-old trauma of “slave rape” requires cathartic release, in which the subjugated body can be reclaimed in stories of resistance.

Poster from a 2011 performance of “Do Lord Remember Me” at the University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff.