As I’ve repeatedly stated over the past ten years, cops are not only not protectors of women; they are an active menace to women. They regularly stalk and sexually harass women, and that often escalates to rape, a crime for which they only rarely face any consequences even when they don’t claim the rape was “consensual sex“, a “search“, or a “prostitution investigation“. They beat their wives with horrifying regularity, and have apparently no compunctions against violently attacking or restraining women who pose them absolutely no physical threat. And yet probitionists want to give these deranged perverts even more power over women’s lives. For four decades I’ve talked about this, only to be repeatedly dismissed as a crank, a political extremist, or simply a whore with an axe to grind (sometimes all three). But thanks to the current zeitgeist, it has now become possible for a woman whose name isn’t Maggie McNeill to publish something like this:
…the notion that abolishing the police will have negative repercussions for women radically misunderstands both American policing and sexual violence. Police abolition need not be considered an abdication of the responsibility to protect women, but rather a way to fulfill it…police…frequently use the privileges and protections of their job to hurt women with impunity. Police households have dramatically higher rates of domestic violence than other homes, with approximately 40% [beating their wives], compared with roughly 10% of the general population. Worse, women beaten by cop partners often have no one to call: the very people they are told to seek help from are the friends and colleagues of their abusive husbands and boyfriends. And if their abuser is a cop, he has a gun, knows the locations of women’s shelters, and knows how to shift the blame to his victim if she seeks help…The police also have a tendency to commit sexual violence on the job…sexual violence is the second most commonly reported kind of police misconduct…A large, unaccountable group of primarily men, empowered to commit violence to maintain existing hierarchies of power, is not going to end the scourge of sexual violence against women. As feminists, we must recognize that the police are more likely to hurt women than to help us…
If “feminists” had spent more time listening to sex workers and less gazing into their own navels, they’d have understood that 50 years ago instead of conspiring with armed rapists against other women. But you know what? I’m not actually bitter. I’m just glad these dumb bunnies are beginning to wake up, albeit decades too late.
