Women’s Issues Are Still Underreported in the Media

If you were paying attention to the election coverage – especially if you were paying attention to it on a cable news network – you’d think that much of the vote depended on what were described as “women’s issues.” With all the focus on these so-called women’s issues, you’d think that there is a renewed focus on issues and problems of special interest to women. The truth is, though, that with a few exceptions, most women’s issues are still underreported and largely ignored by the media, both mainstream and non-traditional.

If you were to judge by the coverage on the nightly news – even during the hotly debated election months – the most important issues for women are access to birth control, reproductive health and whether or not they’re allowed to sue a former employer for not paying them the same wage they paid males in the same position when they find out about the inequality.

Occasionally, a high profile case of domestic violence – hello, Rihanna and Chris Brown – brings the problem of domestic violence into focus, but the focus soon shifts away. In the most recent high profile case – the murder of Kassandra Perkins by her boyfriend, Jovan Belcher and his subsequent suicide – the issue of whether or not the Kansas City Chiefs should have played their scheduled game the day after the murder/suicide overshadowed any discussion of domestic violence – at least until that controversy was overtaken by the outrage that Bob Costas dared to bring up gun control or domestic violence during said football game.

As a society, we have an odd and awkward relationship with the realities of abuse and crime that affects women and children more than it affects men. We acknowledge domestic violence these days, at least, and it’s politically incorrect to openly blame women for their own victimization if they are raped, imprisoned, sold into slavery through trafficking or routinely paid less than men are for doing the same jobs. In most states, the laws no longer recognize a man’s innate right to “discipline” his wife – but it’s been fewer than 20 years since the last state rescinded laws that tacitly stated it was impossible for a husband to rape his wife.

So where does this odd relationship leave us? It leaves us in a place where most American adults can reel off the facts about domestic violence – how many women are beaten or abused by domestic partners each year, that three of every four American women will be involved in an abusive relationship in their lives and that partner battering is among the most common causes of hospitalization among young adult women – but probably unable to name a single woman of our acquaintance who is a “victim” of domestic violence.

The sad fact is that being a “victim of domestic violence” has come to mean something that doesn’t evoke sympathy – something that no woman wants to admit. Despite the visibility being brought to the issue of domestic violence – and many other similar women’s issues – the women who are the most affected by it remain invisible – until they become a statistic, and then they are all too visible… but beyond help.

The Intersection of Women’s Issues and Romance Novels

Modern women’s issues and romance novels may not seem to have a lot in common on their face, especially if your view of romances was formed by the formulaic quick-reads of the 1950s and 1960s. Modern romance novels tend to be more complex, and many of them focus on events and happenings that lie at the root of problems that affect women all over the world. These issues often get little attention from the world at large but they affect millions of women in countries on all continents.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence may be the most visible of all modern women’s issues. Statistics show that nearly one in four women will be affected by domestic violence at some point in their lives. The violence may come at the hands of an intimate partner, a parent, a roommate or even a teenage or grown child. There are shelters for women trying to escape abusive situations, and over the past decade or so, there have been a number of laws passed to help protect these women from abusive partners.

Despite its public visibility, though, when it comes to recognizing and dealing with domestic violence in our day to day lives, there is still a remarkable shroud of silence surrounding the subject. Neighbors don’t know how to broach the subject even when they hear the beatings through the walls and floors night after night. Women hide black eyes and bruises with makeup rather than admit to a brother, sister or mother that she can’t keep her boyfriend or husband from hitting her. A large part of the problem is that society still, by and large, places some of the blame for domestic violence on the victim who is somehow not strong enough or smart enough or determined enough to get out of her situation.

Popular romance novels are increasingly taking on tough issues like domestic violence, human trafficking, illegal adoption rings and drug cartels as women’s issues – crimes and violence that affect women proportionally and substantially more than they affect men. The heroine of the modern romance novel faces these issues head on, battles them and comes out a winner. In the process, she exposes and explores the effects of violence, crime and other issues on the lives of women, both for herself and for the readers, who may be living those situations in their own lives.

By highlighting and exploring issues that affect so many women, today’s modern romance novel helps pave the way for understanding some of the thorniest women’s issues of today, and eventually, for eradicating them permanently.

Shining the Light on Women’s Issues and People Empowerment

People empowerment may sound like a buzzword, but it has a deep and profound meaning to people who are living in difficult circumstances. It involves creating and promoting policies and actions that empower people to help themselves and move themselves out of danger and disadvantage and move into safer, more fulfilling lives. People empowerment can be the key to addressing many difficult women’s issues and societal problems. By promoting policies and actions that empower women and other disadvantaged people, society engages the most important and potent allies for women and families – the women and families who most need help.

Shining the Light

The first step to solving a problem is recognizing its existence. For generations, society ignored the reality of domestic violence and accepted its existence. In some cultures, domestic violence is still an accepted part of the way the world works. In those societies, women are still viewed as property, belonging to their fathers in their youth and their husbands after they are married. Even in so-called enlightened Western cultures, women are not accorded the same rights and respect as men and lingering attitudes about a “man’s castle” and a “woman’s place” empower abusers to continue their violence rather than empowering women to escape from it. Until 1994, there were still places in the United States where a woman could not charge her husband with sexual assault. That means that as few as 20 years ago, it was still legal for a man to rape his wife. Despite that, there’s a commonly held assumption that we’ve taken on the specter of domestic abuse and are eliminating it.

In fact, crime records show that nothing could be further from the truth. Statistics show that domestic violence is one of the leading causes of death among women ages 15 to 44. One in three women report that they have experienced violence at the hands of a current or former boyfriend or spouse. One in four women of college age report that they have been subjected to intimate partner violence.

Despite this, women who are involved in relationships with abusive partners believe that their situation is unusual. They may feel that they are at fault, or that they can control the situation and their partner’s violence. They are also subjected to judgment – much of it well-meaning – about their self-esteem issues and their weaknesses. Those judgments often make it difficult for a woman to admit that there is a problem in their relationship. She knows that the moment she admits to someone outside the relationship that there is a problem with violence, the world’s view of her will change. She will no longer be a strong, adult woman living through a difficult situation. Instead, she will be a weak victim who stays in a dangerous relationship because of low self-esteem. She will be lectured, pitied and, in many cases, avoided by the people she loves and trusts.

The people empowerment route to dealing with domestic violence, and with other women’s issues such as illegal adoption and human trafficking, is to shine a light on it – not just on the horror of it, but on the strength and dignity of the women who survive it, one day at a time.

About Women’s Issues in Popular Literature

Women’s issues often loom large in the field of popular literature, particularly if you count romance novels as part of that field. While much of the reading intelligentsia looks upon romance and thrillers as pabulum, fit for consumption only by those who haven’t cut their teeth on the weightier tomes that rise to NYT bestseller status, romances and other so-called lightweight reading often tackles some of the knottiest issues facing society today. Far from being popcorn for the brain, many of today’s women’s novels provoke deep thought and touch upon women’s issues that affect millions of people around the world.

The Stereotypical Romance Heroine

The stereotypical view of romance novels is supported by the impression of the stereotypical romance heroine, often put forth by some academician who hasn’t cracked the cover of a romance novel since they were in their teens – if even then. Thus, they cling to the notion that the typical plot of a romance novel involves some helpless-but-plucky young woman who gets herself into a series of scrapes and must be rescued by her Prince Charming. In their view, the most pressing problem faced by the main female character in a romance novel is her quest to find the right man and live happily ever after with him. Her prince, of course, is dashing, mysterious and handsome – and probably misunderstood.

To be fair, those views were once supported by the literature itself to some extent. The old-fashioned stereotypical romance novel sold women a vision of that romantic, mysterious, strong-but-silent man who was emotionally distant and often physically abusive – something for which the heroine invariably took the blame.

Today’s romance novels have a far different take on the subject, though. When they tackle subjects like domestic violence, they frequently do so with a sensitivity and strength seldom seen in more mainstream coverage of most women’s issues. Where old-fashioned romances often left women living in abusive situations helpless and guilty, today’s romances offer a variety of people empowerment – a validation of her strength and encouragement to keep on surviving.

More to the point, when romance writers tackle domestic violence and other women’s issues, such as illegal adoption, drugs, human trafficking, sexual violence and cartels, they provide a window of understanding into a world where these women are discounted, victimized and discarded. By shining a light on the strength and endurance that allows women in these situations to survive and become stronger, today’s romance novels may have a positive effect on women attempting to better themselves by escaping from their imprisoning situations.

Five Women’s Issues You May Not Understand

When someone says “women’s issues,” what comes to mind? Over the last few decades, the phrase women’s issues has become very closely associated with a couple of specific societal problems. Those particular issues include equal pay for women, quality child care for working women, access to high-paying careers and jobs, and violence against women, including domestic violence. These high profile issues that affect women barely scratch the surface, though. In fact, many social workers and others who work with women would tell you that, with the exception of domestic violence, most of these better-known women’s issues have little effect on the day-to-day lives of most of the world’s women.

On a real and personal level, though, there are a number of problems that most people would never think about as issues that affect women’s lives in unexpected but entirely predictable ways. They are also very poorly understood by most people who don’t see their effects up close and personal.

Domestic Violence

While the specter of violence against women looms large in political discussions and in the wider media, domestic violence continues to imperil millions of women every year. Despite the fact that one in every four women will be battered or abused by an intimate partner, the myths that surround domestic violence make it hard to address in a meaningful way. Far too many people, including many of those in law enforcement, still think that women in abusive relationships somehow contribute to their own abuse. Even those who are sympathetic and want to help find it hard to understand the ways that domestic violence, controlling relationships and society’s lack of resources conspire to trap women in relationships where they are at risk of injury and death.

Trafficking

Human trafficking, sexual trafficking and even drug trafficking are more prevalent problems than most people understand. Specifically, few people understand how these particular types of trafficking victimize women and children far more than they affect men. Aside from dramatic stories of “white slavery,” few people even realize just how widespread and prevalent human and sexual trafficking is in the world and in the United States. Millions of women worldwide are bought and sold to serve as prostitutes, domestic servants, nannies and wives. In fact, the mail order bride industry, which is often seen as an area where women have the advantage, often entraps women in abusive relationships and situations that are nearly impossible to escape.

Illegal Adoption

The typical movie of the week story involving illegal adoption usually focuses on the couple who is being cheated out of the child they so desperately want. More often than not, the natural mother is portrayed as a greedy woman taking advantage of the desperation of a childless couple. The reality is usually far different. In the overwhelming cases of illegal adoption, the child’s natural mother is also a victim. Opportunists in foreign countries may kidnap children or force women into bearing children to put on the black market for adopted children.

The underlying cause of all of these women’s issues – as well as many of the more visible ones discussed above – is the same: poverty and powerlessness, and the most important and vital single thing that can be done to address them is to attack and eradicate this root cause. Programs that empower women to stand on their own, earn a living and make their own way can give women the tools they need to escape poverty and abuse. Without them, most women don’t stand a chance.

Women’s Issues: Victimized Twice

Women and girls – and, for that matter, children of both genders – who are victims of violent crime, including domestic violence and human trafficking, are often victimized twice, and that makes equity in the prison and criminal justice system one of the least under-reported women’s issues of our times. While we, as a Western society, like to believe that we have evolved enough to treat women equally, that we do not oppress women and we allow them equal opportunity to jobs, education and the elements of a happy life, the facts – not the statistics, but the facts – say otherwise. In fact, far too often, women who are injured and caught up in domestic violence, drug trafficking, human trafficking and so-called victimless sex crimes, are victimized a second time by our societal judgments and by the criminal justice system.

Attitudes Toward Domestic Violence

One in four U.S. women will be victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. Of all women’s issues, the issue of domestic violence may be the most pernicious and intractable. When we talk about spousal abuse, relationship abuse and intimate partner abuse publicly, most people say all the right words. Most people believe the things that they say – but far too often, when they are confronted with real incidents of domestic abuse in their lives, they question everything they think they know. They find themselves wondering:

Why doesn’t she just leave?

How can she keep going back?

Why does she antagonize him when she knows he’ll hit her?

Why did she take him back… again?

If it’s your sister, your mother, your best friend, your neighbor – you sometimes see the effects up close and personal. It can be enormously frustrating when you watch the person you love go back into an abusive situation again and again. It’s easy to throw up your hands in defeat, or to condemn her for staying.

It’s even worse when the woman has been dragged into committing crimes. Drug cartels, for example, often use women to prepare drugs for sale and transport them, often under threat of physical abuse or violence against their families. The societal attitude toward a woman charged with a crime under these circumstances tends to penalize them even further.

These women’s issues are not easy to understand and deal with. There are no simple answers, and even the complicated ones often victimize women further. If you know someone who is in a difficult situation, the most important thing you can do for her is to just be there to listen and try not to judge.

The Influence of Politics on Women’s Issues

In this presidential election year, a great deal of attention has been focused on women’s issues and the “war on women” – but somehow, in all the verbiage about wage equality, birth control, reproductive rights and women in politics, there has been remarkably little talk about the real and very personal war on women, waged in homes, neighborhoods and streets around the country and around the world. And that’s a sad and sorry thing, because as important as it is for a woman to be able to earn a decent living, relegating more unsavory women’s issues like domestic violence, human trafficking and violent crimes against women to the back bench makes it easier to ignore them and pretend we’ve got it covered.

Here’s a news flash for anyone who has taken their eye off the ball – or who thinks that enabling women to make an equal wage is more important than protecting her from being murdered in her own home. Candlelight vigils may have raised the visibility of domestic violence and violent crimes against women, but they certainly have not eradicated it. In fact, since the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act, incidents of domestic violence have held steady. According to statistics presented by the current administration, 70 percent of those murdered by an intimate partner in 2007, no different than the same statistic in 1993. In addition, domestic violence accounted for 23 percent of the violence against women in 2007, and 3 percent of violent crimes against men.

Those statistics only present a very small part of the problem. For example, while television shows and news reports sensationalize cases where men are stalked by females – Fatal Attraction ring a bell? – about 80 percent of stalking victims are women. About 1 in every 12 women reports being stalked at some point in her life, as compared to 1 in 45 men. Four of every five stalking victims are women, and less than one-fourth of them are stalked by strangers. In fact, the majority of women who are stalked by men are stalked by a current or former intimate partner, and one-third of them report having been sexually or physically assaulted by their stalker in the past.

Even more disturbing, the National Violence Against Women Survey, which collected information about stalking from 8,000 men and 8,000 women, found that just over half of the women who said they had been stalked had reported the stalking to the police. When they did, fewer than 13 percent of their stalkers were criminally prosecuted.

While you will hear a great deal about women’s issues during this election season, you’ll hear remarkably little about domestic violence and other crimes that affect women. With notably few exceptions, protecting women from violence is something on which both parties agree – and sadly, because it is not usually a contentious subject, these women’s issues take a back seat in importance to other issues that generate more controversy. Sadly, that means far less protection for the women who suffer beatings and abuse in their homes and on the streets.

The Romance Approach to Women’s Issues

It’s clear that romance novels speak to women about women’s issues. They are the only books where women always wins, and that’s very powerful.

Ah, romance novels. For decades – centuries, even – romance novels have provided escapist fantasy for women. In recent years, there’s been a tendency to equate popular romance novels with the unsavory, referring to them as “bodice rippers” and “housewife porn.” Some preachers have taken to the pulpit to condemn popular romances – even Christian romances – as damaging to marriage, and popular books and magazine articles have referred to women “addicted to romance novels” who grow dissatisfied with their ordinary, good husbands and long for the impossibly perfect, rugged and handsome men depicted in popular romance novels. But there’s another point of view about the place of these novels in the lives of women and it bears examination, especially because it rings far more true for women of today.

First, some facts and statistics:

-          Percentage of popular paperback books that are romance novels: 55

-          Percentage of romance writers who are women: 99

-          Percentage of romance readers who are women: 91

-          Number of people who have read a romance novel in the past year: 41.4 million

If you extrapolate that out, more than 37.5 million women read at least one romance novel in the past year – and that doesn’t include all the women who may be embarrassed to admit that they read anything that fluffy and insubstantial. That’s a powerful lot of women reading romances. So what do they find in these largely derided pieces of fiction that is so attractive?

A growing number of professionals in the fields of literature, religion and psychology suggest that far from escaping into a fantasy world where they are constant victims being rescued by impossibly strong men, women who read romance novels are finding empowerment in them.

Consider this. In a romance novel, the central character is a woman. She always wins. She is the center of the story. Her actions move the other characters, advance the plot and resolve the conflicts. In the modern romance novel, the woman is not a pathetic dependent. She is a strong survivor. And the things she survives are things that loom large in the pantheon of women’s issues in today’s world: domestic violence, human trafficking, emotional abuse, poverty and crime. The female heroine of a romance novel may be kidnapped by drug cartels, trapped in an abusive marriage, battle human traffickers or fight a chauvinistic real estate developer intent on taking over her ranch to build a new shopping center. She may track down the kingpin of an illegal adoption ring or go toe to toe with a con man running Internet scams and love/money scams. The one common thread they share: through her wits, intelligence and ingenuity – and sometimes through her physical prowess and determination – she always wins.

At the Christianity Today blog, writer Caryn Rivadeneira writes about her first guilty foray into reading romance novels. With all she’s read about the evils of the romance novel, she writes, “I figure by the end, I’ll either hate my husband or hunger for more of the escape they offer.”

Instead, she finds a far different realization – “It’s nice to enter a world where broken people get their pieces put back together,” she writes.

Those who read today’s romance novels would take that a step further and posit that a well-written romance novel is the ultimate people empowerment tract, a story where broken people recognize the women’s issues that hold them back and take the steps to put themselves back together. And that, my friends, can be powerfully empowering.

Romance Novels That Stand Up for Women’s Issues

Next time you start feeling guilty about enjoying that romance novel, consider this. Romance novels can have a profound effect in the perception of many women’s issues. A case in point: in 2010, a romance author penned a law that changed the lives of every woman in her state who gives birth while imprisoned. In doing research for her book, “Unlawful Contact,” writer Pamela Clare learned that it was the practice of the state to shackle pregnant women to their beds when they were in labor. She wrote a happy ending to her book – a hero senator pens a bill that outlaws the practice and it passes. But it wasn’t enough for her. She eventually penned a law forbidding the practice, and it passed in her state. Thanks to that law, the state of Colorado no longer routinely chains women in labor to their beds.

Now, women in prison may not be your choice for a “Woman of the Year” award, but keep in mind that the imprisonment of women for relatively minor offenses and the treatment of incarcerated women is one of the very real women’s issues of our time. And it is only one of many women’s issues that are routinely explored and exposed in romance novels written by aware and pro-active romance writers. Author Patti Ann Bengen, for example, has built a career on weaving various women’s issues – and individual solutions to them – into her novels. Bengen’s novels have explored domestic violence, human trafficking, sex trafficking and drug trafficking, the role of women in violent cartels, and even the victimization of women through love/money Internet scams.

The women in Bengen’s adventure-romance novels are strong and compelling, and the women’s issues explored are very real. With a deft, sympathetic touch, she brings her heroines to life and shines the light on some of the most troubling issues of our times. Any woman who has been involved in – or known anyone involved in – a relationship based on domestic violence and abuse will recognize Heather Langdon, the heroine of Bengen’s novel, New Beginnings. Outwardly, Heather has the perfect marriage. Behind her front door, though, her life is one of fear, emotional abuse and physical beatings. The novel explores the relationship through Heather’s eyes, allowing readers to recognize and realize the reasons that women often find it impossible to break out of abusive relationships. Bengen brings a storyteller’s eye to the issue, infusing it with adventure, intrigue and mystery, but the heart of the story lies in the evolution of Heather Langdon and her escape from domestic abuse.

Bengen explores other women’s issues with the same deft, sympathetic touch in other novels. In  The Devil’s Dance, Bengen explores the underground world of drug trafficking and its effects on the women who live on its fringes, and in her newest novel, Sex, she rips the covers off the world of underground sex trafficking and human slavery.

Romance novels are far more than guilty pleasures. They have the capacity to raise consciousness and change minds – and even laws. So cover up your romance novel with a glitzy book cover to hide it if you must, but put away your shame. You’re not consuming empty calories. You’re learning more about women’s issues than you ever thought you wanted to know.

The Olympics and Women’s Issues

What do women’s issues have to do with the Olympics? Surprisingly, a great deal, as it turns out. The Olympics has always represented the best of the world coming together to celebrate and elevate the best in sportsmanship, sports and athletics. In truth, however, half the population of many countries that participate in Olympic competition have gone unrepresented – until this year.

As the Olympics continue, news outlets all over the world are celebrating 2012 as the Olympics “Year of the Woman.” For the first time in Olympic history, there are women representing every single country that is taking part in Olympic competition, even those countries that routinely oppress and suppress women at home. It’s a significant, historic moment – but the presence of women athletes on three teams that traditionally banned women from competing is little more than window dressing. The situation of the two women representing Saudi Arabia in the 2012 Olympics paint a stark picture of how little opportunity exists for young women in many countries around the world.

Saudi Arabia, often touted as one of the U.S.A.’s staunchest allies in the Middle East, is also one of the countries that is most oppressive of women’s rights. Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed many of the rights that women elsewhere take for granted. They can be punished for allowing their hair to show. They can be arrested if they dare to go for a morning jog in sweats and a T-shirt. Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive and must get the permission of a man – a father, husband, uncle or brother – before getting a job, going to school or traveling anywhere, but especially outside the country. Women’s sports clubs are forbidden by Saudi Arabian law, which doesn’t even allow physical education in schools for women.

With all of these known women’s issues and restrictions on the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, how then did any women train or qualify for the Olympics?

One of the women who will be competing for the Saudis in the 2012 Olympics, Sarah Attar, was raised in Escondido, California and ran cross-country for her high school track team. The other, Wodjan Shahrkhani, was trained completely in the privacy of the family home by her father, an internationally known coach and referee in judo, and has never competed in public. Both have been afforded opportunities and advantages that their sisters, living under a rule that is hostile to women, have not had and will never have until the world forces the government of Saudi Arabia to recognize the equal rights of women in their country.

It’s easy to believe that this kind of oppression only happens in “those other” countries, but the statistics on important women’s issues tell a different story. We live in a world where domestic violence, despite its recent higher profile, is routinely overlooked and excused, and where victims of human and sexual trafficking are routinely blamed for their own victimization. Until the world as whole recognizes the rights and worth of women, we will continue to live in a world where half the population of the world is undervalued and oppressed – and few people even recognize the fact that it’s happening.

Women’s Issues Feed Romance Novels and Thrillers

There’s a new breed of romance novels and thrillers that go beyond the fare of murders and secret trysts to delve into some of the most compelling women’s issues of our times. Taking a cue from the most famous popular writers of other eras, many of today’s writers are choosing to take on such challenging women’s issues as domestic violence, illegal adoption, trafficking, drugs, cartels and even Internet scams and love/money scams.

Unlike the romance heroine of yesterday, whose biggest problem was trying to figure out if the man of her unlikely dreams was interested in her and vice versa, today’s romance heroine may find herself confronting domestic violence and spousal abuse either in her own relationship or in the relationship of a close friend. These novels bring a gritty reality to situations that are far too often hidden under a veneer of a happy marriage, and highlight the dangers that women and children living in families torn by domestic violence face every day. In a world that often treats those affected by violent relationships as somehow at fault, these romance novels shine the harsh light of reality onto these situations and force readers to recognize and understand the choices made by women who stay in relationships that are harmful to them.

Thrillers, once the bulwark of male writers telling stories of spies, government infiltration and industrial espionage, have likewise seen an influx of women writers telling stories of concern to women – stories that deal with women’s issues like trafficking and illegal adoption rings, drug cartels and the toll they take on the women who are often dragged into them unwillingly and trapped there by circumstances they can’t control. They feature unlikely heroines like adoptive mothers with no special skills or training who track down the origin of the child they’ve adopted or women who hunt down and rescue the sister bilked by an Internet con man.

While these novels and stories are designed to appeal to women, they do far more than entertain. By bringing light to these pressing women’s issues, they help raise the visibility of many crimes that fly under the radar and make more people aware of the silent victims of these crimes and attitudes. Just as Dickens’ novels raised awareness of the plight of the poor in Victorian England – and in doing so, changed the attitudes toward those poor – so this new breed of women’s romance novels and thrillers may, in time, chip away at the ignorance and silence that allows these crimes to continue.

Women’s Issues Feature in Newest Romance Lines

Women’s issues have always featured in the plots of romance novels, though that fact has seldom been recognized. In fact, many people concerned with women’s issues such as domestic violence have complained in the past that romance novels had a tendency to romanticize abusive relationships. While they often featured strong-willed heroines, those heroines were far too often involved with “bad boys”, men who treated them badly, and the plots too frequently turned on the strong-willed heroine coming to realize that she loved the brooding, vaguely threatening hero who sometimes physically or emotionally abused her. These heroines, people empowerment advocates argued, presented a role model that young women might emulate and normalized behavior that is abusive and disrespectful to half the human race.

But just as poor role models can influence and reinforce dangerous stereotypes of women, new romance novels that feature strong women dealing with some of the most troubling women’s issues of our times can help women in real life who are dealing with these same issues. A new genre of romance has arisen that tackles issues like domestic violence, trafficking and the dangers of drugs and cartels to women head on – and the women emerge the victors.

These novels, suggest many specialists in women’s issues, can help women on many levels. Women dealing with domestic violence in their own relationships, for example, may recognize themselves in a sympathetic character who thinks and acts the way they do. They may find the validation they need that they are not bad people and that they do not deserve the treatment they receive, one of the first, most important steps in breaking out of violent relationships.

At least as importantly, the strong female characters trapped in difficult situations provide insight for those who are not involved in violent situations and who, too often, tend to see women who are trapped by life circumstances as being somehow to blame for their own victimization. Popular fiction and culture imagines that these women, who may be kidnapped, drawn into working for drug cartels or trapped in abusive and dangerous situations because of where they live, as being too weak to break free, or fools because they fell for a scam or greedy because they put themselves in the position to be victimized in order to earn money.

Domestic violence is only one of the women’s issues taken on by this new breed of romance writer. Other issues they tackle include the victimization and dangers of illegal adoption, the heartache of women caught by Internet love/money scams and the precarious lives of women involved with drug cartels and other violent cultures. These romance novels follow a long tradition of popular fiction that highlights social issues and brings them to the attention of the general public, which is the first step in addressing social problems.

Three Ways to Tackle Women’s Issues That Anyone Can Do

The statistics are stark. Every nine seconds, a woman in the United States is assaulted or beaten. One in every four women experience domestic violence at some point in their lives. Three of every four U.S. adults know someone who is or has been involved in a relationship in which she was or is being physically abused. As visible as domestic violence has become – thanks in large part to activists who have worked hard to shine a light on this particular women’s issue – it is only one of many women’s issues that affect all of society. In part, domestic violence is more visible than other women’s issues because these activists have worked hard to remove the stigma from women in these relationships.

There are other societal ills that disproportionately affect women and children that don’t get the same attention, in large part because so few people realize the extent to which they affect and harm women. These include drug cartels, which often entrap and employ women to package and transport drugs; illegal adoption, which victimizes both prospective parents and, far too often, young women and girls forced to give birth to babies who are then sold on the illegal adoption market, and Internet love/money scams, which entrap thousands of women a year and defraud them of tens of thousands of dollars.

The statistics can be discouraging to someone who wants to make a difference, but there are things that you can do to help, even in a small way. Remember that as little as 15 years ago, it was legal to beat and sexually assault your wife in some states. Few cities had the resources and facilities to help a woman who wanted to escape a violent life. Now nearly every city in the country has shelters, safe havens and crisis hotlines to assist women who are trying to make new lives for themselves. The same kind of public awareness can shine a light on other women’s issues and help the women victimized by them.

What You Can Do to Help with Hidden Women’s Issues

-          Learn. Research and get to know the problems that affect women and the women who are entrapped by them. The more you know, the better equipped you will be to help.

-          Listen. Women who have been victims of domestic violence often say they were too ashamed to tell anyone because of the judgment they faced. Be open and non-judgmental and listen.

-          Share. The recent attention to women’s issues in Congress has done more than raise awareness. A number of strong women who hold seats in federal and state legislative bodies have put a very public face on women’s issues like domestic violence and violence against women. Every time a strong woman steps up to say “It happened to me,” she extends a hand to every other woman living in silence and violence.

The Most Important Women’s Issues of Our Times

Lately, the news is full of stories about the politics of women’s issues – bills before Congress, presidential candidates and political parties each accusing the other of not caring about the issues that affect real women every day of their lives. In the midst of all the talk and controversy, the missing element has been reality – the reality of how many issues that we don’t commonly think of as “women’s issues” affect women every day. These are the issues that keep women imprisoned, frightened, impoverished and powerless – and few of them are recognized for the way they disproportionately affect women and children. Of them all, only one is commonly seen as an issue that affects mostly women.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence affects hundreds of thousands of women, men and children in the United States. No one is unaffected by it, even those who think they don’t know anyone being abused in their own homes. The grim statistics say that a woman in the United States is beaten or assaulted every 9 seconds. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here are a few more statistics about domestic violence that you may not have heard.

-          3.3 million children witness domestic violence every year.

-          Children in homes where domestic violence happens are 1500% more likely to be seriously neglected or abused than other children.

-          63% of boys ages 6 to 20 who commit a murder kill the man who was abusing their mother.

Domestic violence and abuse is at the root of many behavioral and cognitive problems in children. It affects the way they learn and interact with others. It affects society in profound ways. Stopping the cycle of abuse is not just about protecting the women directly affected by it. We are all affected by it in one way or another.

Other Women’s Issues

Women are often disproportionately affected by other crimes and issues than men, and in ways that men are not affected. Drug cartels, for example, often employ women to carry drugs, pack drugs and trade for drugs. They are often connected with prostitution and slavery rings. They may kidnap women or buy them from impoverished families. Besides drugs, there is a dark and thriving underground market in human trafficking that feeds the illegal adoption industry. Women are doubly victims in that market – they are often impregnated by force and held prisoner throughout their pregnancies only to have their babies taken and sold, most often to another woman who is desperate to be a mother.

Combatting these abuses and this violence takes more than an act of Congress – even if Congress were willing to act on them. It requires raising the awareness of people throughout the country to recognize the dangers and to understand that these happenings are not rare, they do not just affect individuals, they are not just “women’s issues” and unless they are stopped, we all, as a society, suffer the consequences.

Bringing Attention to Five Important Women’s Issues

In recent months, we’ve heard a lot about women’s issues and their importance. A Congress debates reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act – and allows politics to get in the way of providing important protections for women who are surviving domestic violence – little attention is paid to other important women’s issues. While these particular issues are not always seen as women’s issues, they do disproportionately affect women and children. Unfortunately, many people only see or hear of these issues in random newspaper stories – or when one of them affects someone they love. Reading and hearing stories of women who are living through or have survived these problems can put a human face on them and start bringing the power of people empowerment to bear against them.

Domestic Violence

While domestic violence gets a lot of attention in the newspapers and on the legislative floors, many people still have trouble understanding how women can get trapped in abusive relationships and situations. It’s easy to dismiss domestic violence as something that happens to weak women or women who lack self-esteem. The reality is far more complex, but until we are affected by it personally – either as a victim or because someone we know and love becomes a victim – women will never feel that they can come forward and openly admit that they need help.

Trafficking and Drugs

Cartels that traffic in people and drugs tend to go hand in hand. Whether they are shipping human cargo across the borders to bring undocumented workers into the United States or selling black market babies, these criminals are the modern-day equivalent of slave runners. They spread violence in their wake and use women and children as bargaining chips, slaves, sex workers and domestic workers. It is an enormous underground market run by violent cartels that gets very little attention. Likewise, those criminals that traffic in drugs also victimize women and children, ruining lives left and right. All too often, the children and women victimized by these cartels are further victimized by the legal system which often sees them as criminals rather than victims.

Illegal Adoptions

Illegal adoptions are an offshoot of the human trafficking market. Desperate would-be parents often have no idea of the conditions that birth mothers may be held in. Selling babies on the black market is big business, and women are often treated as little more than breeding livestock. This market is one of the most under-recognized and acknowledged women’s issues of our time.

Internet Love/Money Scams

Women who are victimized by Internet love/money scams are often embarrassed to report the crimes, ashamed to admit that they were so needy or foolish. Few laws exist to deal with these criminals even though they victimize a surprisingly large segment of the population.

These under-reported women’s issues affect a huge segment of the population. Until we see their human face, they’re likely to continue being swept under the rug and forgotten along with the women who are their victims.

Making Real Life Women’s Issues Relevant to Everyone

Lately, politics has been focused heavily on women’s issues, but many people have only a basic intellectual understanding of how these issues affect women in real life. That can make it difficult for lawmakers and others who don’t see the daily effects of such women’s issues and people empowerment issues as domestic violence, human trafficking and drug cartels, to understand what it’s really like to live in a world that’s shaped by them. The inability to see the daily realities faced by women and children affected by these issues can further isolate their victims and make it seem almost impossible to ever rise about their current circumstances.

Storytelling Puts a Human Face on Women’s Issues

Throughout history, stories have put a real face on human issues. Traveling minstrels are credited with rallying the countryside to deal with injustices and occupations. They carried the stories of heroism and daring deeds to all corners of the known world. Writers like Shakespeare and Charles Dickens highlighted everyday injustices and corruption in high places, quietly fomenting revolutions that brought around huge social changes. It has always been the job of the storyteller to highlight societal problems and bring awareness to issues that matter in the world around them.

Today is no different, though we may not recognize the Shakespeare and Dickens among us. News stories only go so far in defining the scope of a problem. A statistic is just a number, and it’s hard to care about a number. You may hear that a woman is abused every 9 seconds in the United States or that one in every four women will be victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives, but there is no real emotional impact to those statistics because there is no human face attached.

Fueling People Empowerment with Stories About Women’s Issues

No change ever takes place until people care about those changes. Stories make people care. It’s easy to dismiss a faceless woman every 9 seconds, to believe that she brought it on herself somehow or to wonder why she doesn’t just leave. When that woman is someone you’ve come to know and care about, it’s much harder to dismiss her – and not just her, but the societal problems that create the situation in which she finds herself.

Today, many writers are taking on the task of bringing women’s issues into the light of day. They are creating real, breathing, conflicted women who are living with the realities of domestic violence, drugs and cartels, human trafficking and the con artists who prey on women through Internet love and money scams. From romance novels to true-life memoirs, these stories help bring about people empowerment in the same way that Dickens and Shakespeare did in centuries past – by attaching these important women’s issues to stories and faces you’ll never forget.

Do Romance Novels and People Empowerment Mix?

When most people think of romance novels, it’s not likely that people empowerment springs to mind – but there’s a a whole generation of romance novelists who believe that their novels can raise awareness and empower women and others to come to grips with situations in their lives. They look at women’s issues and see not just the issue but the women and families affected by them. These authors recognize a basic fact that all the college professors and statisticians who want to bring awareness to an issue miss – numbers don’t motivate people. Stories do.

How Romance Novels Empower Women

For decades, the lowly romance novel has been seen as the poor cousin of the literary novel. They are generally ignored by the critics and looked down upon by academia – but in reality, they touch more lives than nearly any other type of literature, or, for that matter, more than other types of literature combined. They appeal to women – and many men who won’t admit to it – who don’t think of themselves as academics and who are reading for entertainment rather than enlightenment.

In recent years, however, a growing body of academics has begun to recognize a simple truth: romance novels speak to women because, no matter how escapist they may seem, they are about the issues that are central to the lives of women. They are about small-w women’s small-I issues rather than the self-important Women’s Issues with upper case titles. Many of those issues overlap – they include domestic violence, human trafficking, the effects of Internet scams and love/money scams and the devastating effects that illegal adoption can have on all parties. But where Women’s Issues look at the problem from the outside and take an impersonal, almost lecturing tone, romance novels approach women’s issues from the inside, the space inhabited by so many of their readers and the women loved by their readers.

In taking on the voice of women involved in desperate situations, romance novels achieve something that most people empowerment programs can’t – they forge a bond between the reader and the characters in the story. They create a sense of identity and serve as a vehicle for understanding.

For the woman who lives in fear of her partner’s violent outbursts, that identification with a character can be empowering and liberating. The story is acknowledgement – a recognition from someone outside her head that there is something wrong – and it is not inside her. Even that simple thing can be the first step in people empowerment – the feeling that you are not alone is a powerful and empowering thing.

For others, these romance novels that focus on larger women’s issues offer a window into understanding that goes beyond the numbers and the statistics. They introduce readers to real women who are not cardboard cutouts with numbers pasted across their foreheads. They are not stories of 1 in every 5 women who have faced domestic violence or a faceless silhouette on a news magazine show telling about her abduction or involvement in gangs or a drug cartel. They are the stories of one woman, with a name and a face, a woman who is struggling but who is no different than their mothers, their sisters or themselves, if the circumstances were just a little different.

The next time you’re about to turn your nose up at a lowly romance novel, think again. These formulaic books, roundly looked down upon by much of academia, are actually subversive documents – and some of the most effective tools available for people empowerment.

Women’s Issues In the Forefront as Women’s History Month Draws to a Close

What did you do during Women’s History Month? Did you learn something new about women’s issues? Did you hear the stories of women from around the world – including here in the United States – who have been victims of domestic violence, human trafficking or other issues that disproportionately affect women in the world? All month long, various news networks and television shows have focused the spotlight on the role of women in the world and the problems that affect them disproportionately. Some of it ignited heated controversy on all sides of the political spectrum, but there is no controversy at all about the fact that these issues need attention.

Raising Awareness of Women’s Issues

Much of the media spotlight has served one particular purpose – raising awareness of issues that affect women. For many people, though, the heated debates and sharp rhetoric that often accompany these highly politicized stories is not enlightening. Instead, it polarizes issues on which we should all be united. No woman should be afraid to report domestic violence, for example, but news stories and commentary that shame and blame the victim in those cases often make women living in violent relationships hesitate to come forward.

Throughout history, one method of raising awareness has always served better than any other to bring attention to an issue without polarizing it. That method is storytelling. A story puts a human face on any issue and can awaken sympathies that statistics can’t. A number has no face, no heart and no consequences. The true story of a survivor of human trafficking, on the other hand, gives those who have no experience with it a reference point and gives them a window into the world of the survivor.

One romance with a heroine who has survived domestic violence and is moving on with her life can do more to advance the cause of women’s issues than hundreds of demonstrations and boycotts. Thrillers about drug cartels and their cost in human lives touch people where they live and raise awareness in a way that is not controversial. A woman living in a violent relationship who reads a story where the heroine struggles with the reality of loving or leaving may finally find the courage to share her story with family or friends.

As this women’s history month comes to a close, think back on the stories you’ve heard from the media – the news stories and statistics – and consider which of them you’ll remember next month or next year. Then pick up a romantic thriller that takes on one of the difficult women’s issues of our times and read it. You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of how women and children dealing with these situations survive and make their way through them to come out on the other side.