Women Veterans: The Federal Government Wants You To Knit!

Are you a veteran? Have a vagina? Live in the Asheville and Boncombe County in North Carolina? You're in luck! The Federal Government has funded a completely useless program just for you and your womanly veteranly needs!

Yay!

I'm sure the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry meant well. And to be fair, the male veterans are offered job training, so this program isn't completely useless. The female veterans? Well...

For all that spare time you're going to have what with being unemployed and all.
Maybe you can knit yourself a house.

According to Thinkprogress.org the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a sex discrimination complaint against the Ashevill Buncombe Cummunity Christian Ministry (ABCCM), for excluding female veterans from job training programs offered to men.

The programs offered to male veterans? Truck driving, culinary arts, and training for "green" jobs.

The programs that are offered to women veterans? Knitting, art therapy, yoga, meditation, how to de-clutter your room, self estreem, and Bible study. 

I can only assume that other programs include "Indigent Decorating: How Any Cardboard Box or Shopping Cart Can Be Transformed Into A Broken Dreams Home With Just Some String And Bottle Caps" and "How To Dumpster Dive Like A Lady.". 

I'm sure the ABCCM meant well, but they may want to update their information. Female veterans are four times more likely to be homeless than male veterans, and a big part of the problem is that there are less resources for them than male veterans. As more women joined the armed forces, the programs for them just couldn't or wouldn't catch up with modern times. 


Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against knitting. I also have no issues with art therapy or de-cluttering. I may be an atheist, but if someone finds comfort in Bible study, then I will defend your right to seek such programs even if I don't understand why a Christian Ministry is receiving federal funding. Yoga and meditation? In my house that's called "Homicide Prevention" and I am all for it.


But this I do take issue with: 

'The Law Center also noted that while “male veterans are provided 24 different job training programs at their Veterans Restoration Quarters, while female veterans are offered 16 different “personal skill-building” programs at the Steadfast House, the organization’s housing facility for women.”'

Is "personal skill building" code for "We are completely oblivious to the issue at hand"?

Female veterans are still veterans. The needs of female veterans are the needs of veterans. Maybe the issue isn't completely ABCCM's fault. Perhaps they don't have the resources to fully meet these needs. Segregating them from job training programs offered to men sure as hell ain't helping though.