Treating Male Violence against Women as a Bias Crime
![handle is hein.journals/bulr76 and id is 585 raw text is: TREATING MALE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
AS A BIAS CRIME
KRISTIN L. TAYLOR
To understand women's experiences of men's... intimidation and
violence is also to understand that society allows for, and on many
levels encourages, male intimidation and violence to women .... By
separating women's experiences of sexual and/or physical assault from
women's experiences of sexual and/or physical intimidation, as many
are likely to do, we see each assault as an aberration or random occur-
rence-a 'personal' problem. Alternatively if we link them together,
we can create new information on the overall treatment of women by
men. What emerges is not random or isolated. What emerges is a
flood of common experiences.'
Just as it is important to document that cross burnings are more
than 'arson' and that swastikas painted on synagogues are more than
'vandalism,' it is important to recognize gender-motivated violence
for what it is: a violent form of gender oppression.2
Bias crimes, sometimes called hate crimes, are crimes committed
against one's person or property not because of the perpetrator's person-
al animosity toward that individual, but because of that victim's actual or
perceived membership in a particular group.' Today, forty-seven states
have enacted some form of bias crime statute, with Nebraska, Utah, and
Wyoming being the exceptions.4 Yet as of 1991, only ten of the forty-
1 ELIZABETH A. STANKO, INTIMATE INTRUSIONS: WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE OF
MALE VIOLENCE 18 (1985).
2 Elizabeth A. Pendo, Recognizing Violence Against Women: Gender and the Hate
Crime Statistics Act, 17 HARV. WOMEN'S L.J. 157, 179 (1994) (quoting 134 CONG.
REC. H3373, H3378 (daily ed. May 18, 1988) (statement of Rep. Kennelly) (internal
quotations omitted)) [hereinafter Pendo, Recognizing Violence Against Women].
3 Steven B. Weisburd & Brian Levin, On the Basis of Sex: Recognizing Gender-
Based Bias Crimes, STAN. L. & POL'Y REV., Spring 1994, at 21, 22 [hereinafter Weis-
burd & Levin, On the Basis of Sex] (defining bias crimes as involving the inten-
tional selection of a victim based on the offender's bias or prejudice relating to an
actual or perceived status characteristic of the victim); see also Pendo, Recognizing
Violence Against Women, supra note 2, at 159 (noting the existence of a variety of
definitions of bias crimes, and further highlighting the California Attorney General's
Commission on Racial, Ethnic, Religious, and Minority Violence's definition as the
most comprehensive to date).
4 JACK LEVIN & JACK MCDEvITr, HATE CRIMES: THE RISING TIDE OF BIGOTRY](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/bulr76&div=37&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Treating Male Violence against Women as a Bias Crime
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most