Friday, November 6, 2009

Women, bureaucratic heartburn & your local DMV


For women in particular, the passage of the Real ID law, which created standardized, federal identification standards in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has made the process of documenting who they are far more complicated, frustrating and unreasonable.

Take the case of Carol Parsons' 89-year-old mother, who moved to Virginia from Florida three years ago and had a valid Florida driver's license when she came.

"She needed to show the progression of her name change, from her birth certificate to her first husband, then the divorce papers, and only then the marriage certificate to her second husband," Parsons said, of the process to get a Virginia license.

Where married women feel like collateral damage

by Petula Devorak, Metro Columnist for the Washington Post

In our security-obsessed, post-Sept. 11 world, married women are highly suspicious, especially if they are elderly.

They have been doubted, rejected and brought to tears at an alarming rate in our region's motor vehicle departments.

After I recounted the harrowing tale of Jean Earley -- 90-year-old pastel artist, minister's wife and Virginia newcomer -- and her attempts to get a state identification card, scores of others wrote to me to recount their own bureaucratic horror shows that left them red-faced.

Now, I know the DMV is low-hanging fruit. When I told my editor about the outpouring, she noted that "life's certainties are death, taxes and getting mistreated at the DMV." Only she used saltier language.

And many of the people who wrote in, including men, had deplorable stories about the way they were treated.

But I think the old rap against the DMV of long lines, unsmiling clerks and bad metal chairs has taken on a new edge.

It took Earley four visits to the Fairfax/Westfields DMV office to get an ID card. All because her birth certificate didn't have her current name on it and that, according to new state and federal laws, means it doesn't prove that she is a U.S. citizen.

For women in particular, the passage of the Real ID law, which created standardized, federal identification standards in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has made the process of documenting who they are far more complicated, frustrating and unreasonable.

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