“Gender-based violence” comment from Senator Dhingra somewhat contradicts this recommendation
Washington State’s Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) has released a report that recommends paying more attention to violence against Indigenous men and boys. This is entirely appropriate, given that the report’s data indicate sex/gender are insignificant characteristics for predicting one’s likelihood of victimization. This fact undermines the narrative that this problem only affects — or even disproportionately affects — women and girls.
Here is the report’s breakdown of the 135 missing Indigenous persons in Washington as of July 18, 2022:
| Female | 70 | 52% |
| Male | 65 | 48% |
| Total | 135 | 100% |
That is consistent with a 2019 Washington State Patrol report which found a 53% female / 47% male split among missing Native Americans and a 43% female / 57% male split among missing persons overall.
Regarding the second “M” in MMIWP, the report provides no data on Indigenous victims of murder. However, given that males in the United States are four times more likely than females to be the victim of homicide, it is likely that more Indigenous men and boys in Washington are murdered than Indigenous women and girls.
These realities should push our state in the direction that other states and the federal government have already gone, which is to refer to these efforts as addressing the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous persons (MMIP) rather than missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). We have previously published three articles about the neglect of male suffering and victimization in MMIW efforts:
- National legislation erases the suffering of American Indian men [April 2021]
- Attorney General’s Task Force for “Indigenous Women and People” Sends Bizarre, Sexist Message [July 2021]
- KING 5 News takes new gender-inclusive approach to coverage of victimized Indigenous people [August 2021]
This recommendation represents progress
The Seattle Times was one of numerous media outlets that covered Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s release of the task force’s report.
The second of ten recommendations in the 56-page report says “The Task Force recommends that the data and research team expand the scope of their work to understand how American Indian and Alaska Native people experience violence across the gender spectrum, including by women and girls, men and boys, and the LGBTQ2S community.”
The report goes on to offer this noteworthy admission:
“…much of the media coverage and public messaging still focuses on the violence experienced by American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls. The Task Force commits to understanding and addressing violence experienced by all American Indian and Alaska Native people, and recognizes that there is not clear and reliable data on how American Indian and Alaska Native men and boys and the LGBTQ2S community experience violence.”
This is progress compared to earlier blatant exclusions of male victims from consideration. Two examples are below. These are bills the state legislature passed in recent years:
Senator Dhingra makes ill-placed “gender-based violence” comment
Senator Manka Dhingra (45th LD, Redmond) is a member of the MMIWP task force. At the press conference announcing the new report on August 2nd, she inappropriately made this a gender issue, saying:
“Gender-based violence continues to plague our nation, and our state is no different.”
We wish to ask the senator what she means specifically by “gender-based violence” and how that term is applicable to the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous people. (See our article “Why We Need to Reject the Term Gender-Based Violence“)
None of the Indigenous people who spoke at the press conference used the term “gender-based violence,” nor is that term present in any of the three reports issued by the Seattle-based Urban Indian Health Institute that played a large role in bringing about the MMIWP Task Force. It appears most Native American people do not apply the label “gender-based violence” to this problem. This looks like an instance of Senator Dhingra inserting a personal agenda.
For Senator Dhingra to make this a “gender-based violence” issue violates the spirit of the task force’s aforementioned recommendation to “understand how American Indian and Alaska Native people experience violence across the gender spectrum, including by women and girls, men and boys, and the LGBTQ2S community”. It also stands in contrast to the following comments from Abigail Echo-Hawk at the same August 2nd press conference:
“One of the things we have to recognize while we talk about MMIW — Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls — that [terminology] comes from a cultural perspective of looking at our life-bearers and recognizing that they hold such an important part within our communities. But we also have to talk about that we have many of our other folks, particularly our men, our LGBTQ+, two-spirited communities who are also going missing and murdered at very high numbers. And I don’t want to lose them in the conversation related to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.”
See related piece: White House Gender Policy Council Will Neglect Boys’ and Men’s Issues