So, to really get at the problem of police excessive force, the Department of Justice must also, as it examines the impact of racial bias, look at how increasing the numbers of women in policing holds the key to substantially decreasing police violence while also improving police relations with the community.
Incidents of intimate partner violence by the man involved in the pregnancy went down among women who were able to have an abortion, but remained consistent for women who carried their pregnancies to term. The reason, according to Foster, was that “being unable to have the abortion tethered women to violent men, while women who have the abortion were more able to escape abusive relationships.”
On Sept. 12th, Jennifer Whalen, a 39-year-old mother of three in the rural town of Washingtonville, Pa., went to jail to begin serving a 9-to-18-month sentence. Whalen’s crime was, in effect, ordering pills online that her older daughter took in the first several weeks of an unplanned pregnancy, when she was 16, to induce a miscarriage.
The Times article about Rhimes’ new show led with a sentence that struck many people as offensive and racist: “When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called ‘How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman.’”
The reasons Black women suffer disproportionately from abuse are complex. Racism and sexism are two of the biggest obstacles that Black women in America face. But because many Black women and men believe racism is a bigger issue than sexism, Black women tend to feel obligated to put racial issues ahead of sex-based issues.