Ranking highest in the percentage of incarcerated women and home to a Native American community that endures much more more violence than the general population, Oklahoma paints a vivid picture of the need for advocacy, Women’s Studies Director Jill Irvine said.
OU’s Women’s Studies Program and the Xenia Institute will sponsor “Don’t Look Away: Violence Against Women and Human Rights in Oklahoma” 7 p.m. Thursday in the Sandy Bell Gallery at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.
The event will be led by five panelists involved in different aspects of violence prevention in Oklahoma. After the discussion, the panelists will take questions from the audience.
Irvine said she expects the panelists to address violence in Oklahoma relating to the high rate of incarcerated women, and how their incarceration may be linked to domestic violence. Irvine said battery is the leading cause of injury among women in the United States, and Oklahoma ranks fourth in the nation in the number of women killed by men.
Panelist Kelly Stoner, director of the Native American Legal Resource Center at Oklahoma City University, will discuss high rates of assault against Native Americans relative to other demographics.
Irvine said because Native American police departments do not have authority over non-natives, Native American women are subjected to three times the amount of violence than the rest of Oklahoma women. Eighty percent of assaults on Native Americans are by non-native people, she said.
Women’s studies spokeswoman Karin Jonsson said that because of complications arising from the complex relationship between the Native American and state authorities, Oklahoma has a responsibility to seek new ways to lessen domestic violence.
“It seems that policies that are often created to help are counterproductive,” Irvine said. “Women fear losing their children if they admit that there is domestic violence in their home.”
Jonsson and Irvine said the event’s main is to engage the community to seek solutions for domestic violence.
“We often think of human rights [violations] as taking place somewhere else,” Irvine said. “Intimate violence represents a human rights issue, and it is all around us. I hope that will help people take notice of what they can do locally to help.”
The Oklahoma Daily is pleased to provide you the opportunity to share your thoughts about this article. We encourage lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask you refrain from using profanity or other offensive speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising, or straying from the topic at hand. To comment, you must be a registered user of OUDaily.com. Thanks for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register
briareus 3 years, 1 month ago
In fact the number of women who are incarcerated is far lower than the number of men. About 95 percent of the people in prison in the US are males. If feminists are sincerely interested in equality, they would want more women in prison, not less. And women are just as prone to commit an act of domestic violence as men.
mustafa 3 years, 1 month ago
For a woman, as previous studies on domestic violence have shown, the most dangerous relationship is a lesbian relationship, the next dangerous is unmarried/living together , and the safest is in marriage. How whatta know.
By all means let hear the facts concerning each of OK's female inmates.