Throughout the 2012 legislative session Congress—most often the Republican-dominated House members—have put women through the wringer when it came to federal bills. Routine anti-poverty measures that routinely assist women have been gutted, so called "entitlements" that disproportionately affect women have been threatened, and federal abortion rights restrictions have been repeatedly proposed in order to offer mostly theatrical endeavors that provide red meat to the anti-choice activists filling the lawmakers' coffers.

Now, as the curtain closes on the lame duck session, House Republicans have dropped all pretense that this was about anything other than an agenda to punish women simply for being women. After eight years, the Violence Against Women Act is no longer in effect, because Republicans are concerned that it could help too many of the "wrong" kind of women.