Dear Senator Ernst:
I recently donated $50 toward your re-election campaign, so I was especially disappointed that you co-signed the letter demanding that coronavirus bills provide funding for Violence Against Women Act programs: https://www.ernst.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/e899e13a-b415-45b9-a099-bb36394d7a52/76B673E37BDB48B336800CA110FDC429.final-letter-on-domestic-violence-programs-at-doj.pdf
VAWA is a biased and unproductive program that Joe Biden pushed through while specifically excluding testimony from researchers. After all, the scientific research has consistently found for over 40 years that women initiate domestic violence as often as men — https://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm — (and that children are as harmed watching mom hit dad as they are watching dad hit mom)! Senator Ernst, I am referring to thousands of scientific studies!
On the other hand, the statistics being bandied about to push this windfall to the domestic violence industry (much of whose corruption and ineffectiveness has been revealed in government audits) are not based on scientific research.
The dirty little secret of the domestic violence industry is that domestic violence within lesbian couples is as high as within heterosexual couples. But, for financial gain and because there is no man to blame, this research is not very well known. Indeed, one woman came to me for help because her female abuser was a high official in her local shelter.
This industry is exploiting the coronavirus for another windfall by cherry-picking areas where domestic violence is increasing (while omitting the greater number of jurisdictions where the level has either decreased or remained the same. By “another windfall” I am referring to their practice of piggybacking on events and conning well-intentioned agencies and corporations out of millions of dollars — for example their hoax about Super Bowl Sunday being the most dangerous day for American women, a hoax that was exposed by the Washington Post only after they had shaken down the NFL for millions of dollars.
Please, see some alternative sources of information such as:
http://endtodv.org/pr/hoax-alarming-claims-of-domestic-violence-spike-cannot-be-verified/ and
Sincerely,
Fredric Hayward