Gov. Nikki Haley needs to pull her head out of her ass

Yes, we have all heard about the war on women.  The attempts to abolish the Roe v. Wade ruling, new laws that require doctors to essentially lie to their pregnant patients regarding the ill-health of their fetuses... but now "pro-lifers" want living folks to die, and not just by rulings of the death penalty. Gov. Nikki Haley of SC is doing away with aid for battered and sexually abused women.  In a recent legislative decision, Gov. Haley vetoed any state funding programs that would provide support to said women, which to her is such a "small portion" of the state's ill or abused. More on Haley's statement here.


When I moved to South Carolina six years ago, I was so excited to be living where it was warm year-round.  To live where I could go to the beach at 3am.  Hell, I was just excited to be able to purchase fireworks legally!  Alas, I matured, I paid attention to political issues, and now I am fed up with this Southern bull shit that seems to be pouring from everyone's mouths.


I was aware of sexism and abuse, but never before I moved here had I experienced it.  The first apartment I moved to in South Carolina, my neighbors had nightly disputes.  I would hear the woman screaming and crying, her running up her stairs, her husband chasing after her, doors slamming, children crying, pots and pans crashing to the ground.  I called the police multiple times, and that poor woman never did anything to have her husband taken away.  My only assumption is that she feared so much for herself and her children that she just continued to allow this to happen to her.  I would never see her outside her own home, yet I felt so much love for this woman that I had never met.  I could only imagine how she felt, essentially locked inside her house.
Now, perhaps I just choose to live in not-so-great areas, but I presently live across the street from an abused teenage girl.  I often see her outside with who I am assuming is her boyfriend.  I hear them fighting and arguing about drugs and money.  I have seen him push her out of her own car.  I have seen him urinate on her in a drunken stupor.  Again, as a concerned neighbor, I have contacted the authorities, and yet he still continues to frequent her property and the same arguments occur once and again.  I have even gone so far as to attempt to befriend this teen's mother, but even she tends to shy away from me when her husband comes home.


These are just two, although I can probably safely assume three, examples of abuse that I myself have witnessed in this state.  How can Gov. Haley be so blind to matters such as these? Shit, I have a magnet on my refrigerator with local emergency numbers such as police, fire safety, and at the bottom is a toll free number for abused women.  Obviously when I moved here, there was a high enough concentration of abused women in this state that it occurred to those magnet-distributors to include an abuse hotline.  Alas, that number is no longer valid due to the CASA- Citizens Against Spousal Abuse board of directors abusing what little financial support they had. (Sound familiar, Komen?) Yet, Haley has decided that abused women are in such a small number in this state, that any funding is no longer needed for their further assistance, whether it be with CASA or any other organization aiming to help these women and children.  How can Haley do these things to members of the same gender, just for Republican political support?  How can she turn such a blind eye to the real issues in this state (and country)?  How can she not realize that the "perfect world" of yesteryear that she is trying to reach was also so full of abuse?  Gov. Nikki Haley needs to perhaps spend a night away from her mansion and perfect southern-belle life and get a big whiff of what's really happening in her state and why we women need all the support we can get.


In my effort to help in what little ways I can, I am soon going to be offering my time as a volunteer at the Horry and Georgetown Counties Rape Crisis Center, pending approval of my application and training.  Very exciting stuff indeed.  For more information on finding a crisis center in your area, visit  http://centers.rainn.org/