wednesday, march 11 , 2020. the washington post eZ su a27
BY JESS MCHUGHI
n Paris, the signs appeared seemingly
overnight: “She leaves him. He kills
her.” “My sisters were assassinated.”
“Femicide everywhere. Justice no-
where.” By fall 2019, the media took notice
not only of the block-letter signs across
France but also of the small collectives that
since 2016 had been keeping a tally of
femicides — usually defined in France as
the murder of women by a partner or
ex-partner. Soon, a march drew tens of
thousands of people into the streets in
protest.
As many as 151 women in France were
killed by their partners or ex-partners last
year. Approximately 219,000 French wom-
en each year are physically or sexually
abused by a current or former partner. And
France isn’t alone. Movements against
femicide in Mexico, Chile, Argentina and
Spain, among others, have demonstrated
that collective action can effect real
change. It’s time for the United States to
use these movements as guideposts.
In the United States, there have been no
mass protests and no prominent national
discussions. Approximately three women
are murdered by their current or former
partners every day, according to FBI data.
Young women and women of color —
including transgender women — are dis-
proportionately murdered.
Thousands of women in the United
States have survived attempted femicide,
including La’Shea Cretain, whose ex shot
her five times in front of her two children.
A recent study found that intimate-
p artner homicide was on the rise. With
10 million people affected by intimate
partner violence each year, this is nothing
short of an epidemic.
Femicide is defined differently around
the world, though it’s o ften symptomatic of
the same issues: domestic violence, sexual
violence and misogyny. In Mexico, it’s
defined as the murder of women based on
their gender, and femicides have increased
137 percent over the past five years, accord-
ing to Mexico’s attorney general. This has
spurred a vibrant grass-roots movement.
On Sunday, International Women’s Day,
authorities estimate that at least
80,000 people marched through the center
of Mexico City. And on Monday, women
stayed home as part of a nationwide strike
to call attention to the violence.
Ending impunity is the first step. Mexi-
can women are asking for a federal regis-
tration system of gender-based violence,
redistribution of resources to prosecute
these crimes, and an overhaul of corrupt
law enforcement. Accountability — both
from legislative bodies and criminal jus-
tice systems — has become a rallying cry
for women around the world.
Women across Latin America and Eu-
rope are calling for special training for
judges and police officers who handle
domestic violence cases, as well as more
and better-enforced restraining orders.
Many women killed had left abusive
relationships and even taken out restrain-
ing orders. Such was the case for Amie
Harwick, a therapist in Los Angeles. Police
allege that an ex-boyfriend strangled Har-
wick before throwing her from the third-
floor balcony of her home in February.
Harwick had previously taken out two
restraining orders against him. In France,
there was Ghylaine Bouchait, 34, who had
mustered the courage to leave an abusive
partner in 2017. As she was packing to
leave, her partner doused her with gaso-
line and lit her on fire in front of their
7-year-old daughter. She died of her inju-
ries two days later.
Femicide doesn’t happen because wom-
en put themselves in danger — it happens
because an unjust system fails them again
and again. Protest performances, such as
the viral “A Rapist in Your Path,” have
pointed to the complicity of the justice
system when it c omes to the i ssue. Symbolic
action, along with mass protests, can pro-
duce tangible results. This month, Chilean
President Sebastián Piñera signed a bill
into law to expand and strengthen existing
legislation around femicide.
It’s not only the criminal justice system
that needs to be reformed. Many survivors
of domestic violence are afraid to file
reports, and women need access to servic-
es such as domestic violence hotlines,
shelters or safe houses, and counseling.
Spain has become a success, effectively
halving the number of femicides over the
course of 15 years. Spain installed
10,000 emergency phones nationwide, in-
creased the issuance of protective orders
and created special courts tasked with
prosecuting domestic violence cases,
France 24 reported. Spain also put in place
a bracelet-tracking system that alerts po-
lice as soon as an aggressor is close to a
past victim.
There are myriad differences between
these countries and the United States. One
of the most challenging may be abusers’
access to guns. Legislation to close loop-
holes that allow some abusers to buy guns
recently stalled in the Senate. Of all women
murdered with a gun in the United States,
half were killed by an intimate partner.
While a handful of nonprofits and moti-
vated individuals are working on this issue
in the United States, a popular movement
needs to emerge. The leaders of these
worldwide uprisings were often regular
people who lost sisters, mothers, daugh-
ters or best friends. They have now trans-
formed their lives to fight femicide. It’s
time for the United States to do the same.Jess Mchugh is a journalist based in Paris.A different
worldwide
epidemic:
Femicide
C
ovid-19 is unhappy news. Pres-
idents never like unhappy
news, especially during an
election year. And Donald
Trump is president. Therefore, Presi-
dent Trump does not like news of
covid-19.
To tally understandable. What’s
dangerous is the fact that Trump and
his media antagonists have trained a
significant number of Americans to
view all news that the president
doesn’t like as manufactured, distort-
ed or fake. The unhappy news of
covid-19 is none of those things, but if
Trump supporters persist in believing
so, the impact of this public health
emergency will be amplified.
Why is covid-19 a big deal? After all,
it seems a lot like influenza — a
nothingburger for some, an unpleas-
ant experience for many, and a deadly
threat to the elderly and vulnerable.
We live with flu, so why are people
getting their knickers twisted over
this? An epidemic of Trump Derange-
ment Syndrome, perhaps?
No. Covid-19 is different from influ-
enza because it is new. And any new
stress on the health-care infrastruc-
ture is a potential national emergency.
You see, developed societies such as
the United States have a certain num-
ber of doctors and nurses staffing a
certain number of hospitals and clin-
ics. These resources (whether allocat-
ed by a centralized government health
service or by the wisdom of the mar-
ketplace) reflect expectations about
the number and type of illnesses and
injuries the society w ill face at a ny o ne
time.
You don’t have to trust me on this.
Just look around your own neighbor-
hood. You won’t see many empty
hospitals full of doctors and nurses
and medical supplies, just waiting forsome new virus to emerge.
Actually, should you visit a hospital
or clinic at this time of year, you will
likely find the staff already quite busy
treating — among other maladies —
influenza. According to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention,
flu season places a large burden on the
U.S. health-care infrastructure: more
than 10 million visits to health-care
providers in an average year and
hundreds of thousands of hospitaliza-
tions. Flu season is to the health-care
industry what Mardi Gras is to the
cheap plastic bead business.
With this in mind, imagine that
you are a public health official and
someone tells you there’s another flu
in town. You’re maxed out treating
the flu cases you already have. You
will want to do everything in your
power to make the outbreak as small
as possible.
This unexpected strain on resourc-
es — not media hype — is what
inspired China to take extraordinary
measures against covid-19, even at a
steep cost to the national economy. In
Hubei province, the new virus
swamped the existing health-care sys-
tem. Te ns of thousands of hospital cots
have been crammed into repurposed
convention centers. Entire hospitals
have been built overnight. Armies of
doctors and nurses have been import-
ed to fight the disease, while move-
ment in or out of the province has
otherwise been forbidden.
The same thing is happening in
Italy. “In an effort to cope” with covid-
19, “Italy is graduating nurses early
and calling medical workers out of
retirement,” reporter Loveday Morris
wrote in The Post. “Hospitals in the
hardest-hit regions are delaying non-
essential surgeries and scrambling to
add 50 percent more intensive-carebeds. ‘This is the worst scenario I’ve
seen,’ said Angelo Pan, the head of the
infectious-disease unit at the hospital
in Cremona.” On Monday, that scenar-
io moved the Italian government to
take the astonishing step of shutting
down the entire country.
Think about that for a moment.
According to the World Health Orga-
nization, Italy had three confirmed
covid-19 cases three weeks ago. Yes,
three — as in the number of contes-
tants on “Jeopardy!” Now the entire
nation of some 60 million people is
essentially quarantined, at an untold
cost to the economy of a highly devel-
oped nation.
That k ind of decision i s not made in
response to overheated media.
As Pan’s remark suggests, a disease
does not have to be the worst ever
seen to produce a scenario that is the
worst ever seen. It only needs to pose
additional burdens on health-care
resources beyond the capacity of
those resources. Suppose a city’s hos-
pitals have a total of 10 ventilators
and suppose seven of them are in use,
keeping victims of familiar flu and
pneumonia alive. The eruption of a
new disease that causes a mere four
people to need a ventilator poses a
crisis for that city. And the crisis
becomes unsustainable if similar out-
breaks are happening in surrounding
cities as well.
Unless Americans — young and old,
healthy and vulnerable — take covid-
19 very seriously, it can spread here
just as it has spread in China and in
Italy and elsewhere. And if the presi-
dent doesn’t like today’s news, he is
really going to hate those headlines.
The reporters who are trying to awak-
en the public are — in this case — the
best friends he’s got.
[email protected]david von drehleThe president can’t
‘fake news’ this virus away
leah Millis/reuters
President Trump participates in a coronavirus briefing with health insurers at the White House on Tuesday.realizing it? We now know that the
incubation period of coronavirus,
which can be as much as two weeks,
means people can be infected and
contagious without being symptomatic.
And, without adequate tests, we h ave no
way of knowing how many people are
infected. The latest number reported
Tuesday — more than 750 cases in the
United States — is surely far below the
actual number.
Self-quarantine is the state of nature
for an at-home writer in residence. It
comes with the job. And there may be to
some a certain appeal to the notion.
Imagine the quiet, the calm, t he serenity
if everyone stayed indoors for a few
weeks. Or, alternatively, the domestic
disputes, disorder and dysfunction
when cabin fever peaks.
Many of my former Georgetown
neighbors in Washington are being
asked to self-quarantine after discover-
ing that the rector of Christ Church was
unknowingly infected as he shook hun-
dreds of parishioners’ hands over the
past couple of weeks. Some of those
congregants are well within the desig-
nated demographic — we’ll call them
older — that covid-19 can hit hard.
The latest entry in the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s a dvice
column is that people over 60 should
“stock up,” i n case they’re forced to stay
home for a long period, and to avoid
crowds. But stocking up means what,
exactly? And how much is enough?
Naturally, I’ve made my list. For some
reason, I thought ramen noodles shouldE
xcept for wrapping duct tape
around my head, I’m trying not
to get hysterical over the corona-
virus.
I know, it’s n ot f unny. If you’re elderly,
it’s potentially serious. Maybe. Some-
times but not always. We don’t actually
know. Yet, to follow news reporting on
the elaborately named coronavirus dis-
ease 2019, or covid-19, is to conclude
that WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE. To
avoid dying, we’re told, we should wash
our hands, s teer clear of sick people and
stay away from cruises. No problem
whatsoever.
If you’re over 60, which u ntil now was
the new 40, you should consider “social
distancing.”
For something so potentially lethal,
at least more than the usual flu but not
as much as SARS or MERS, two other
coronaviruses, hand-washing seems
bland advice considering that people
really ought to wash their hands fre-
quently under any circumstances. An
aunt of mine gave her nieces, nephews
and cousins an early jump on obsessive-
compulsive disorder with her greeting
whenever we entered the house: “Go
wash your hands,” she’d sweetly com-
mand. As such things go, I’ve become
my aunt.
Social distancing, meanwhile, is my
specialty, so I think I’m all set for the
duration. I tend to avoid crowds as a
personal policy and otherwise have
never minded solitude.
On the other hand, what if I’ve been
surrounded by sick people withoutbe on it, though I’ve never bought them
before. Other items not usually in my
cart — a gallon jug of Clorox, popsicles
and saltines. One might think I was
planning to get sick.
But do I do the shopping myself or
order online? Am I being ridiculously
paranoid or sensibly cautious? The
constant media coverage, for which we
are alternately grateful and resentful,
begins to feel like an invitation to
hysteria. Given that hand sanitizers and
masks are out of stock everywhere, I’m
buying 190-proof alcohol and glycerin
to make my own sanitizer and avoid the
busy checkout lines. Down South, of
course, pollen coats everything, which
is making lots of people cough and
sneeze without having the bug.
The order of the day, then: Wash
those hands, per usual. Check on your
elderly neighbors, as we should anyway.
Be prepared, but don’t panic. But even
that message kindles paranoia. Or
worse: some eye-rolling. In South Caro-
lina, where I’m holed up at an undis-
closed location, I’ve heard several peo-
ple call the virus scare a nuisance to be
ignored. With President Trump, nor-
mally a germaphobe, still shaking
hands and promising that everything is
just fine, it’s little wonder that some are
skeptical.
My view is different: hope for the
best, prepare for the worst.
And, no matter what, keep plenty of
duct tape on hand. It’s more comfort-
able than you might think.
[email protected]kathleen ParkerBe prepared. Don’t panic.
2
020 is not 2016. That is very good
news for Joe Biden, sad news for
Bernie Sanders and deeply dis-
turbing news for President Trump.
The differences between the two elec-
tions are why the former vice president
won resounding victories in Tuesday’s
primaries in Michigan, Mississippi and
Missouri, and why he is now in a nearly
impregnable position in the Democratic
presidential contest.
Biden is showing strengths at this
stage of the campaign that Hillary Clin-
ton, the party’s 2016 nominee, did not.
And he is pushing Sanders, the indepen-
dent senator from Vermont, back into his
core vote among the young and the left
end of the Democratic electorate. Far
from expanding, the Sanders electorate
is shrinking.
What should alarm supporters of
Trump is Biden’s success in rural and
small-town counties in Michigan that
Clinton lost to Sanders in 2016. Trump,
whose 2016 victory margin over Clinton
in Michigan was just over 10,000 votes,
cannot afford any deterioration of his
support in these areas that formed his
base.
Just as disturbing for Republican
strategists is a shift away from Sanders
and toward Biden among Michigan’s
white voters, upscale and blue collar
alike. In 2016, Sanders carried white
college graduates by a decent margin and
whites without college degrees by even
more. On Tuesday, both groups swung to
Biden.
And if Trump’s b acking among his core
groups is in jeopardy, Democrats are
energized in their opposition to him not
simply from discontent but from out-
right anger. For example, among the
voters in Michigan, better than 6 in 10
told the Edison Media Research exit poll
that the Trump administration made
them angry. Almost all of the rest said
they were dissatisfied.Thus, in primary after primary, Demo-
cratic voters have made clear that ridding
the nation of Trump matters more to
them than any particular issue. This was
true again in Michigan, Missouri and
Mississippi, and the voters who prioritize
finding someone who can oust Trump
flocked to Biden.
Whatever his shortcomings, Biden
does not appear to arouse the same
passionate opposition that Clinton did.
That at least some of the hostility to her
was rooted in sexism is inarguable. A
long campaign by Republicans to under-
mine her certainly took its toll.
The upshot is that when Clinton nar-
rowly lost the Michigan primary to Sand-
ers four years ago, 40 percent of those
surveyed by exit pollsters answered “no”
when asked if she was “honest and
trustworthy.” Only 11 percent offered this
negative verdict on Sanders, and that was
one key to his upset victory.
But without Clinton to run against,
Sanders’s candidacy is much weaker. It’s
now clear from the primaries so far that
many of Sanders’s 2016 ballots came
from voters who did not necessarily
agree with his progressive-populist polit-
ical views but were motivated by hostility
to Clinton.
It should be said that Biden’s backers
were not of the ecstatic sort — just 3 in 10
among Michigan’s v oters said they would
be enthusiastic if Biden won the nomina-
tion. But another 4 in 10 said they would
be satisfied if he were the nominee — and
just 1 in 10 said this would upset them.
The vast outpouring for Biden over the
past two weeks is thus an affair of the
head at least as much as of the heart. It
reflects a quiet judgment that Biden is a
safe choice who will not alienate voters
Democrats need against Trump.
“Tonight, we are a step closer to restor-
ing decency, dignity and honor to the
White House,” Biden said in Philadel-
phia, where he was speaking after cancel-
ing a rally in response to the rising
coronavirus threat. He spoke not boast-
fully but calmly and deliberately. In so
doing, he underscored what he hopes to
portray in the coming weeks as his
strengths in contrast to Trump’s flailing
in the face of a global health emergency.
Tuesday’s outcomes present Sanders
with several quandaries. There are still
plenty of delegates to fight for, and
Sanders hopes that his own strength (or
Biden’s weaknesses) in this Sunday’s de-
bate will offer a chance to turn the race
around. But the upcoming primaries are
not promising terrain for Sanders.
He may thus soon have to decide if his
candidacy is now more about advancing
his issues than winning the nomination.
And he will also have to make a judgment
as to whether he should campaign hard
against Biden, or begin to turn to the task
of pulling the party together for the
coming battle against Trump. It now
seems clear that a majority of Democrats
wants him to choose the second path.
Twitter: @EJDionnee.J. dionne Jr.What should
alarm Trump
about Biden’s
success
The outpouring for Biden
over the past two weeks is
thus an affair of the head at
least as much as of the heart.