Newsletter: Fall 2004: The Next Four Years

Will rape shield laws disappear, or will they grow stronger?

 Will our military continue to tolerate sexual assault within its ranks? Within its prisons? 

 How will we react when foreign governments use rape and subjugation of women as domestic policy?

 Will New York City provide more dollars for services for adult survivors of sexual assault?

 Will sexual violence be treated as a public health emergency?  As a purely criminal justice issue?  As an irritating distraction?

 Over the next few years, we will see the legislative and judicial tone in which the anti-sexual-violence movement operates changed forever. Dozens of bills affecting victims of violence will be passed or killed. Dozens of judges will be given lifetime appointments.  Millions of dollars will be spent in New York City; billions will be spent worldwide.  Who will set the agenda?

 Right now there's one thing that everybody can do.  Vote.

 The country is divided as never before.  The upcoming elections are certain to be decided by razor-thin margins.  And, although the presidential election is important, equally urgent are the hundreds of federal, state, and local contests.  We all know about the 537-vote margin in Florida that put Bush into the White House.  But in the same election, a shift of 2,772 votes could have changed the party balance in the U.S. House of representatives; and in 2002, a senate race was decided by just 524 votes.

 And in 2000, if women hadn't voted, eight of the senate elections - one in four -- would have been decided differently.

 Don’t know where to go?  To find your polling site, call the Voter Phone Bank:
1.866.VOTE.NYC

 Or to have your polling place location e-mailed to you, send your complete home address to:
vote@boe.nyc.ny.us

Fewer than one young woman in three voted in 2000; help mobilize campuses with feminist.org at
www.getouthervote.org

 Or lead a team with Chicks Rock Chicks Vote, at
www.chicksrockchicksvote.com

 Will ending the crisis of sexual violence become a true city, state, and national priority?  The answer will have a lot to do with how many women vote in the next election.