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WASHINGTON (AVfM) Yesterday, September 28th, Vice President Joseph Biden appeared on “The View” a popular daytime television show to talk about violence perpetrated against young women aged between 18 and 30. Biden, champion of the Violence Against Women Act which passed in 1994 which is currently past due for renewal, predictably spoke of all types of intimate partner violence as a gender specific crime with men being the sole perpetrators and women being the sole victims. He even invoked the memory of his father who he quoted as saying “you should never ever raise your hand to a woman in anger” and then went on to tell viewers that violence against women and victim blaming was a norm in our society.

Woopie Goldburg, moderator on the show and a popular entertainer known for her role in the 1985 film “The Color Purple” in which she portrayed a victim of domestic violence, interjected abruptly during Biden’s diatribe stating: “And will you just also remind people, remind the women that the way to get a man’s attention is not to hit him? Do not hit him. (applause) Because this is something violent in itself, is something we need to teach kids is not to perpetrate on each other. No?”

Despite a smattering of applause, Neither Biden or any of the other moderators on the show showed any appreciable reaction to her comments.

The letter cited a number of credible sources including studies performed by the CDC and the American Journal of Public Health that cite violence perpetrated by teenage females as a rapidly growing problem.

Excerpt from the letter:

“• According to the 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey, 10% of teenage boys were victimized by dating violence in the past year, compared to only 9% of teenage girls experiencing dating violence (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss5905.pdf – Table 12)

• According to a national survey of young adults ages 18-25, in cases of one-way violence, females were the aggressors in 71% of the cases, and males the initiators 29% of the time. (Whitaker DJ et al. American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 97, No. 5, 2007)”

This letter, like Woopie Goldburg’s comments on the show, was ignored by Vice President Biden.

S.A.V.E. also called upon concerned citizens on Monday to contact the White House to express their concerns. After Biden’s appearance emails were sent out to those on S.A.V.E.’s email list urging people to express outrage at the misrepresentation of the true nature of intimate partner violence and an email link to the White House was provided.

Sources:

http://www.saveservices.org/2011/09/save-sends-letter-to-vp-biden-regarding-his-upcoming-appearance-on-the-view/

http://abc.go.com/watch/the-view/SH559080/VD55145134/the-view-927

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