John Wall is the current starting point guard for the Washington Wizards.

Anti-rape and Battered Women Movements:

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The Battered Women’s Movement is a feminist movement that seeks to bring visibility to the systemic issue of domestic terrorism within the United States, as well as bringing about an end to domestic violence on a societal level. Prior to the carceral feminist movement, issues of domestic abuse were not seen as a topic to be brought in front of the public sphere. Domestic terrorism was viewed as a private concern that should not be handled on a public platform, leaving legislators and law enforcement out of the picture until the second wave feminism movement pushed for de jure policies to be passed (see VAWA). A lack of such legislation led to domestic abuse victims struggling to bring their cases to court, leaving many women condemned to unjust sentences in prison. Cases of domestic violence were also typically mishandled, with no formal police training on the matter as part of policing curriculum. Through 1988, a husband could legally rape his wife in more than half of all states. The legal education system treated instances of abuse as “novelty cases”, with no effort made to devote attention to the plight of battered women.

The United States first recognized that women are battered in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where the court deemed that “battering can often involve a substantial amount of sexual abuse including marital rape and sexual mutilation”. In 1994, Congress officially stated that “existing bias and discrimination in the criminal justice system often deprives victims of crimes of violence motivated by gender of equal protection of the laws and the redress of the laws to which they are entitled.” These findings come on the heels of relentless lobbying by feminist groups giving voice to the concern that battered women are unjustly incarcerated by a biased law enforcement system that penalizes them for acts of self-defense against their abuser.

Third-Wave Feminism:

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Critics of carceral feminism argue that the movement is based in Second Wave Feminism principles that tend to overlook the concerns of women of color and other such intersectional groups. Such critics argue that carceral feminist pieces of legislation, like the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), tend to benefit white women more than any other intersectional group. Controversy over this matter ushered in Third Wave Feminism, which focuses on providing marginalized groups of women within the feminist cause with a platform to voice their concerns. Third Wave Feminism recognizes that intersectionality plays a major role in influencing the experiences and oppression that various groups of women encounter within the United States, and expresses that race, socioeconomic status, and sexuality all shape how a women is treated by societal institutions. Third Wave Feminist commentary on the carceral feminist movement seeks to promote a more inclusive view when constructing feminist legislature, specifically regarding the criminalization of prostitution and victims of sexual abuse. Third Wave feminists claim that both fields should be observed with an intersectional scope, one that will reveal how socioeconomic status and race must be taken into account to avoid the marginalization of certain groups of women.