Joan,

I very much appreciate your bringing up violence against women. The personal and political are sometimes difficult to express at the same time, but I would like to respond to your email in terms of my past experience. People often have a difficult time talking and listening about violence, and so we need to learn how to discuss the problem and learn from each other before we will get very far.

For example, the first time I put myself forward to become a member of a political group, I listed my political experience in sexual assault victims' rights. I explained that I had been the victim of a break-in and attempted rape in the county, and that I had joined a group that successfully reformed Victims' Compensation. I noticed that several people in the room winced, and when I was one of the few not chosen, I felt that the issues were painful for people and I wondered if perhaps relating my experience with sexual assault and its issues had alienated people, perhaps without their realizing it.

Some of the questions I've been asked on George Loper's website have brought me back to that time, and I've discussed that context with George, the question on guns, for example. The question about voter registration. My first years in the city I was registered at my family's residence, where I felt personally secure and rooted, instead of at my new home, as a direct result of the feeling of impermanence that the break-in in the county had caused.

You are absolutely right about the cost level of assault, and the issue does overlap with the issue of being a woman and being a woman in politics. No voter seems to want to identify a candidate with being a victim. Candidates need to be winners, perfect, the kind of people who don't have bad things happen to them. Yet one out of four women have been victims. What does that say about women in politics? I believe that it says we can bring added empathy with people who have problems, people who don't have things going their way all the time, but who are trying.

I support you in your initiatives, and education about beliefs and attitudes toward women is a wonderful way to start.

Alexandria Searls (electronic mail, February 9, 2002)