An article that came out Friday brought news of a “lovely” new tactic being used by police against the protestors of Occupy Wall Street.

Arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new. I’m not aware of any reports of police intentionally grabbing women’s breasts before March 17, but on March 17 there were numerous reported cases, and in later nightly evictions from Union Square, the practice became so systematic that at least one woman told me her breasts were grabbed by five different police officers on a single night (in one case, while another one was blowing kisses.) The tactic appeared so abruptly, is so obviously a violation of any sort of police protocol or standard of legality, that it is hard to imagine it is anything but an intentional policy.

For obvious reasons, most of the women who have been victims of such assaults have been hesitant to come forward. Suing the city is a miserable and time-consuming task and if a woman brings any charge involving sexual misconduct, they can expect to have their own history and reputations—no matter how obviously irrelevant—raked over the coals, usually causing immense damage to their personal and professional life. The threat of doing so operates as a very effective form of intimidation. One exception is Cecily McMillan, who was not only groped but suffered a broken rib and seizures during her arrest on March 17, and held incommunicado, denied constant requests to see her lawyer, for over 24 hours thereafter. Shortly after release from the hospital she appeared on Democracy Now! And showed part of a handprint, replete with scratch-marks, that police had left directly over her right breast. (She is currently pursuing civil charges against the police department).

I’d like to emphasize this because when I first mention this, the usual reaction, from reporters or even some ordinary citizens, is incredulity. ‘Surely this must be a matter of a few rogue officers!’ It is difficult to conceive of an American police commander directly telling officers to grope women’s breasts—even through indirect code words.

It shouldn’t be difficult. Police departments around the country have demonstrated that they view Occupy protestors as criminals to be treated in any way that makes them stop (not that it does), and those views have been seen up and down both departmental and political/administrative chains of command. The protestors are a threat. Do whatever it takes to make them go away.

In this case, that may mean targeting female protestors because they are viewed as uniquely vulnerable. It may, as the author of the article suggests, mean targeting female protestors because the outrage pushes other protestors to confront the cops–“justifying” any level of violence with which the cops may choose to response.

In either case, this means targeting female protestors in a way that male protestors are not targeted. Female protestors face an additional burden when they choose to participate. This raises the question: Why would they protest? The answers may seem obvious, but I don’t think they are.

The standard answer is that the Occupy protests are dealing with “universal” economic concerns, so we should all be prepared to put ourselves on the line for them. There is even a certain amount of truth in that argument. The corporatization/corruption of our government, lack of effective regulation of capital, inefficient privatization, de facto regressive taxation–all of those things do affect all of us.

However, the degree to which any of those issues affect the economic fairness of your life depends on things like how white and male and traditionally gender performing you are. If you are black in the U.S., the construction of criminality and and the prison industrial system may well be your major hurdles to basic economic fairness. If you are a Latino/a or an Arab Muslim immigrant, xenophobia may take precedence.

As Katha Pollit points out in a recent article, the “universal” preoccupations of the Occupy movement do not necessarily represent the most pressing economic issues for women either.

You know the slogan “Women’s rights are human rights”? Well, women’s rights are economic rights, too. Sometimes it’s obvious: when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signs a bill reducing access to the courts for women claiming wage discrimination, that’s clearly an attack on women’s paychecks. When Mitt Romney can’t say whether or not he would have supported the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act—which, let’s not forget, simply restored women’s right to sue for pay discrimination to where it was before the Supreme Court limited it—and then names four judges who voted against Lilly Ledbetter as models for his future appointments, he is saying businesses should have broad leeway to pay women less for doing the same work as men.

But when it comes to reproductive issues, apparently, the connection needs to be spelled out. So here it is: limiting women’s access to birth control and abortion is not “culture war” theater, and it is not just a “social issue” either. It’s an economic issue.

Read the rest of what she has to say. She makes a strong case, and she does it without ever getting into the question of child care or family leave, both issues considered women’s issues but central to economic fairness. We spend plenty of time looking at how much we’re paid. We don’t pay nearly enough attention to the issue of how much of our lives we are pushed to dedicate to our employers, both in terms of hours and in terms of behaving like good little employees on our own time.

Now, you can look at all of those concerns and dismiss them as “identity politics”. You can call who insist that these concerns are also of primary importance “divisive”. Or you can sit back and think for a moment about how someone sounds when they claim their white guy interests are speaking for everyone.

Right. You don’t want to do that.

You not only don’t want to do that because you would be laughably wrong. You also don’t want to do that because the people who see other issues as primary are fighting for your rights as well. The for-profit prison industry manufactures goods at noncompetitive wages and creates a class of people who all too often must accept bad working conditions out of desperation. Xenophobia is used as a dividing tactic when labor would organize.

Lower pay for women becomes part of average pays used to set individual rates, in a cycle that can drive wages down. Designating time off for family as a “women’s issue” makes it more acceptable to deny it to men. Lower wages for women mean that men in a two-income family have, as a practical matter, fewer choices in going back to school or starting a small business. Men also take a financial penalty for taking jobs that are traditionally “female”.

In other words, “minority” economic concerns are “universal” economic concerns, just as much as any “mainstream” concerns.

So, if you’re looking for participation in the Occupy movement from a particular group, be it women or anyone else, perhaps it behooves you to take some interest in their primary economic issues. If you don’t, I’m going to have a tough time understanding why those groups–who will be seen as particularly vulnerable by the powers that be and treated accordingly–should have anything to do with you.