Mixed Metaphors

Trigger Warning: This essay contains graphic stories and content about rape, domestic abuse, and violence against women. 

“Over a third of all women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence (not including sexual harassment) at some point in their lives. One hundred and thirty-seven women across the world are killed by a member of their own family every day.” ― Laura Bates, Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All

It is my opinion ― and lived experience ― during the past ten years, women, vulnerable children, people who identify outside of the binary construct, BIPOC and other marginalized communities have increasingly lost rights, equity, and bodily autonomy and protection. We’ve been ‘othered’, targets of hate speech, and victims of violence. Conservative religious beliefs, misogyny, racism, proliferation of gun violence, and the weaponization of politics for personal power and gain are the root causes.

In this essay, I attempt to first understand why true crime captures our attention and how the graphic depiction and proliferation of visual and auditory content of real-life stories desensitizes us and normalizes violence. Next, what is my responsibility to enact change.

NOTE: I rely heavily on AI for this essay and will note it. For this essay I’ve used AI tools to research articles, define terms, select images, view videos and other content, spell check names, fact check sources, and additional use as noted.  All other written content is my own words, including stories based on lived experience.

Entertainment Culture

Entertainment content has desensitized violence. True crime series, video games, podcasts, films, and pornography have sensationalized harm. Full disclosure: As a person who watches lots of content, I too watch network shows like Dateline, 20/20, and 48 Hours which feature true crime stories, often with women as victims. I stream similar content on Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max. True crime podcasts have gained popularity and helped solve crimes, yet an unintended consequence is the desensitization of violence most often toward women and girls.

I often question why am I drawn to these stories? What am I trying to affirm or understand?

Following are true crime series, documentaries, films, podcasts, books and essays.

Source: AI

Top True Crime Series & Documentaries

• Monster (Netflix) – Dramatized accounts of notorious serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers.
• Mindhunter (Netflix) – A acclaimed scripted series following early FBI behavioral science agents interviewing imprisoned serial killers.
• The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (Max) – A groundbreaking docuseries investigating billionaire Robert Durst and his connection to multiple murders.
• Tiger King (Netflix) – A chaotic, wildly popular saga about eccentric zookeeper Joe Exotic and a murder for-hire plot.
• Forensic Files – A classic investigative staple diving into real-life cases solved using forensic science.
• Unbelievable (Netflix) – A tense dramatized mini-series based on the true story of a young woman charged with lying about rape and the detectives who uncovered the truth.
• Love & Death (Max) – A dramatized miniseries starring Elizabeth Olsen as Texas housewife Candy Montgomery during a 1980 murder trial.
• Making a Murderer (Netflix) – The intense, long-running examination of Steven Avery’s controversial conviction in Wisconsin.

Source: AI

The top-rated and most essential true crime podcasts offer a mix of deep investigative journalism, narrative storytelling, and psychological profiles:

• Serial: Hosted by Sarah Koenig, the iconic series that launched the modern true crime podcast craze, famously examining the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee and the conviction of Adnan Syed.
• In the Dark: Led by Madeleine Baran, this Peabody Award-winning investigative show pivots away from simple retellings to “investigate the investigation” of systemic failures in high-profile cases like the Jacob Wetterling abduction and Curtis Flowers trials.
• Criminal: Hosted by Phoebe Judge, this critically acclaimed show explores human-centric stories of people who have done wrong, been wronged, or found themselves somewhere in the middle.
• Casefile True Crime: An anonymous Australian host delivers deeply researched, chronological accounts of historical and contemporary criminal cases from around the globe with a matter-of-fact tone.
• Crime Junkie: A weekly, conversational podcast hosted by Ashley Flowers that covers high-profile and lesser-known murder mysteries, missing persons cases, and cold cases.
• Your Own Backyard: Chris Lambert’s independent deep-dive investigation into the 1996 disappearance of Kristin Smart, which generated massive public interest and real-world legal developments.
• Hunting Warhead: A harrowing, critically praised investigative series tracing the takedown of a massive online child exploitation network (listener discretion strongly advised).
• Rotten Mango: A popular choice for deep-dive international crime stories, psychological breakdowns, and lesser-known global cases.

Popular films have always depicted rape and violence against women. A short list of films that impacted me: The Color Purple, Sleeping with the Enemy, What’s Love Got to Do with It, Adolescence, The Accused, The Burning Bed, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, A Clockwork Orange, and Straw Dogs (1971 version).

Books and essays by famous literary figures that hold misogynistic beliefs at the core of their writing:

Source: AI

Famous Literary and Public Figures

• Ernest Hemingway (1943): Wrote that sick women turn crazy and leaving a woman might require shooting her.
• Norman Mailer (1972): Claimed that “a little rape is good for a man’s soul”.
• V.S. Naipaul (2011): Dismissed women’s writing as “feminine tosh” and unequal to his own intellect.
• Saul Bellow (2011): Stated that “women are the rails on which men run”.
• Charles Bukowski (1971): Characterized females as being uniquely skilled at betrayal.

Rape Culture

As a second wave feminist, beginning in the early 1970s, my awareness of the second-class status of women became politicized. I was a young married woman, active in social justice causes including civil rights, workers rights, the anti-war movement, and soon feminist consciousness-raising. I suddenly realized all my mail came addressed to Mrs. and I couldn’t apply for a credit card. I was virtually by law an appendage or property of my husband. Gratefully, my former husband and I shared similar progressive values. I became active in NOW (National Organization for Women), rallied and marched for the Equal Rights Amendment, and began facilitating Feminist-Consciousness-Raising Groups and training facilitators locally, statewide, and nationally for NOW.

The rally cry was the personal is political, and for the past 10 years, I believe that the political is personal, actions have removed or restricted rights and protections of women and marginalized communities, normalized attitudes and behaviors, and in the end harmed more than helped victims of rape, partner violence, by prohibiting bodily autonomy, reproductive care, durable restraining orders, removal of guns from homes by abusers, and lastly, inequitable enforcement of laws.  

For centuries, rape, a crime that predominantly targets, women, children, and vulnerable populations has traditionally been characterized as a sexual act, when in fact it is crime of power, contempt, and misogyny. As a second-wave feminist, when I read Germaine Greer’s groundbreaking book, The Female Eunuch in the early 1970’s she detailed examples, including during the Viet Nam War American when American soldiers raped N. Vietnamese women, and placed their 83^rd Airborne patch on the genitals of their victims as evidence of their conquest.

Source: AI

In The Female Eunuch (1970), Germaine Greer describes rape not as an expression of uncontrollable sexual desire, but as an act of “murderous aggression, spawned in self-loathing and enacted upon the hated other.”

Key Themes on Rape in the Book

• Aggression over Desire: Greer argues that sexual violence is fundamentally about power, contempt, and misogyny rather than a biological or overwhelming urge for sex.
• Systemic Hatred (“Simply Hate”): The discussion of rape appears within the broader context of patriarchal hostility toward women, where societal structures and internalized misogyny turn women into objects of disgust and fear.
• Loss of Autonomy: Greer links the reality and threat of sexual violence to the broader “castration” or devitalization of women in nuclear and consumerist societies, which strips them of control over their own bodies and agency.

The recent Cornell 7 Rape Case has refocused attention on rape on college campuses, often involving fraternities, excessive alcohol, sometimes underage drinking and spiked with drugs to disable the victim’s ability to consent. Complicating the issue, university security rather city or county police investigate the allegations and often protect the university and perpetrators, sometimes athletes or sons of donor alumni, rather than victims. See the documentary in the Hunting Ground in the Additional Content and Resources section at the end of the essay.

 

There are documented cases of victims being coerced by police, who provide false evidence, to coerce them to admit to false accusations. Some women have been prosecuted, served prison sentences, and later exonerated after their cases were fully investigated. See Victim/Suspect in the Additional Content and Resources section at the end of the essay.

Source: AI

Rape prosecutions involve distinct legal procedures, high rates of case attrition, and specific evidentiary challenges across the criminal justice system.

Key Statistics and Attrition

• Low Conviction and Arrest Rates: Research tracked by organizations like UMass Lowell indicates that out of every 100 reported rapes, only about 18 lead to an arrest, under 7% result in a conviction, and less than 1% are resolved via a jury trial.
• Federal Sentencing Guidelines: According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the average sentence for offenders convicted of rape under federal jurisdiction is 192 months (roughly 16 years), rising to an average of 353 months when a mandatory minimum penalty applies.

Common Challenges in Prosecution

• Consensual Sex Defense: The defense that the sexual activity was consensual is the most frequently used and hardest to overcome in trial, often depending heavily on victim and defendant credibility.
• Evidentiary Gaps: Because sexual assaults frequently happen in private without independent witnesses or immediate physical injury, physical or DNA evidence is often missing or scrubbed (such as when perpetrators use condoms or force victims to bathe).
• Intoxication Loopholes: Legal frameworks in various jurisdictions draw distinctions between voluntary and involuntary intoxication, creating legal hurdles when a victim consumed substances prior to the assault.
• Juror Bias and Skepticism: Studies and practitioner reports compiled by groups like the University of Virginia School of Law note that outdated juror perceptions regarding victim behavior, alcohol use, and delay in reporting frequently complicate trials.

Pathways and Legal Options

• Criminal Prosecution: Initiated via a police report where law enforcement investigates and the prosecuting agency (such as a District Attorney or the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK) decides whether to formally file charges.
• Civil Lawsuits: Victims can pursue private civil action for monetary damages (compensatory and punitive) using a lower standard of proof (“preponderance of the evidence”) than the criminal “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.
• Civil Protection Orders: Courts can issue temporary or permanent restraining orders to prohibit contact and keep the perpetrator away.
• Institutional and Military Systems: Separate disciplinary frameworks exist for educational institutions (governed by federal guidelines) and military tribunals, which operate under distinct Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Source: AI

The Pyramid of Rape Culture (also known as the Pyramid of Sexual Violence or Hate) is a conceptual model that illustrates how every day, seemingly normalized attitudes and beliefs escalate into severe forms of sexual violence.

Structure of the Pyramid

The pyramid is typically divided into tiered levels moving from the broad cultural foundation at the base to extreme, acute acts of violence at the apex:

• The Base (Normalization & Foundation):
  • Consists of widespread, systemic attitudes and everyday behaviors often dismissed as “harmless” or normal.
  • Examples: Rape jokes, rigid gender roles, sexual objectification, victim-blaming, catcalling, whistling, unwanted non-sexual touching, and trivializing or doubting survivors.]
• The Middle Tier (Degradation & Violation):
  • Involves targeted harassment, loss of bodily autonomy, and non-consensual exposure.
  • Examples: Groping, flashing/exposing, revenge porn, online harassment, distribution of unsolicited intimate images, stalking, and coercion.
• The Apex (Assault & Severe Violence):
  • Represents explicit, severe criminal acts of sexual and physical violence.
  • Examples: Rape, gang rape, sexual assault, drugging, molestation, and homicide.

Core Concepts

• Interconnectedness: Behaviors at the top of the pyramid do not happen in isolation. They are supported, enabled, and normalized by the cultural attitudes sitting unchallenged at the bottom.
• Root Causes: The foundation relies on systemic inequalities, patriarchy, entitlement, and the dehumanization of specific groups.
• Prevention and Intervention: Dismantling the pyramid requires shifting cultural norms by actively challenging everyday disrespect, practicing and modeling consent, interrupting victim-blaming, and supporting survivors.

Pedophilia, Trafficking, and Incest

I am a reluctant member of the 1 in 4 girls that was molested as a child, first by a step grandfather, and later a friend of my parents. During the recent #MeToo movement, I wrote about my childhood molestation and assaults, and later sexual harassment as an adult.

See my lived experience story, Me Too — DAMMIT! in the Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! section at the end of the essay. When children are violated sexually, the outcome can be shame, stigma, low self-esteem, sexually-acting out, alcohol and substance use, eating disorders, and cutting as coping mechanisms until the intervention of mental health services and support.

Source: AI

Child sexual abuse involves any nonconsensual, developmentally inappropriate, or exploitative sexual activity involving a minor.

Definition and Types

According to the CDC and RAINN, offenses fall into two primary categories:

• Touching abuse: Fondling, digital or physical penetration (vaginal, anal, or oral), or forcing a child to touch someone else’s genitals.
• Non-touching abuse: Showing pornography, exposing genitals, voyeurism, child sex trafficking, and creating, sharing, or possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Prevalence and Statistics

• U.S. Prevalence: Roughly 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 to 1 in 20 boys experience child sexual abuse in the United States.
• Global Scale: An estimated 1 billion children globally have experienced sexual violence.
• Perpetrators: About 76% to 90% of victims are abused by someone they know and trust, such as a family member, parent, caregiver, teacher, coach, or acquaintance.

Health and Long-Term Consequences

• Mental health: Survivors face a significantly higher risk of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and suicidal ideation.
• Physical health: Long-term trauma is linked to chronic health conditions later in life, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other somatic illnesses.

Law Enforcement and Reporting

• Federal Jurisdiction: In the U.S., the FBI investigates child sexual exploitation, abductions, and transnational crimes through task forces like the Violent Crimes Against Children International Task Force.
• How to Report: Suspected abuse can be reported to local law enforcement, state Child Protective Services (CPS), or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline.
• Support Resources: Organizations like RAINN provide confidential crisis support via the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673).

Intimate Partner Violence

I’m grateful I never experienced firsthand intimate partner violence, however one of my sisters did. I wrote about it in a reminiscence and essay, Protect & Serve, in the Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! section at the end of the essay.

Source: AI

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States experience physical violence, sexual violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

U.S. Prevalence and Scope

• Annual Impact: Roughly 10 million people in the U.S. experience physical abuse by an intimate partner each year, averaging out to nearly 20 people per minute.
• Lifetime Rates: Over 43.5 million women and 20.7 million men experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetimes.
• Demographics: Young adults and women aged 18 to 24 face the highest risk of intimate partner violence.
• Reporting Rates: Only about half of all intimate partner physical violence incidents are ever reported to law enforcement.

Crimes and Law Enforcement Data

• FBI Reporting: According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), law enforcement agencies tracked more than 1.1 million victims of domestic violence and over 11,000 domestic violence murder victims over a five-year reporting window, with nearly 75% of those victims being female.
• Proportion of Crime: Domestic violence accounts for approximately 15% to 24% of all violent crime in the United States, depending on the reporting metric and agency data.
• Homicides: Roughly 1 in 3 female homicide victims are murdered by a current or former intimate partner.

Global Statistics

• The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that globally, about 1 in 3 women (31.6%, or roughly 840 million women and girls) have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

If you need support or a safe resource, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788. Are you looking for statistics on a specific region, demographic group, or type of abuse?

Incels, Manosphere, and Gender-Based Violence

This is a topic, in my opinion, has gained dangerous traction, fueled by the internet, video games, Tik Tok, influencers, the isolation of young men, oppressive gender roles, and the misogyny of men in power, leading up to the current President of the United States and the pervasive and toxic masculinity in our dominant culture. True crime content and pornography has desensitized a segment of young men. As a person of a certain age, I see this trend as dangerous to younger generations and the future of emotionally healthy relationships and gender equality.

Key Books on the Manosphere

• Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates (2021) – Explores extreme online misogyny, pickup artists, and how the manosphere and incel networks influence young men through digital conduits like YouTube
• The Male Complaint: The Manosphere and Misogyny Online by Simon James Copland (2025) – Examines figures like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, analyzing how the manosphere is embedded in mainstream neoliberal structures and appeals to alienated men.
• Lost Boys by James Bloodworth (2025) – An investigative look tracing the manosphere’s evolution from 2000s pickup artistry to anger-driven red-pill subcultures and financial grifters.
• The Rational Male by Rollo Tomassi (2013) – Often considered a foundational/keystone text of the modern red-pill manosphere.
• The Game by Neil Strauss (2005) – A classic memoir of the underground pickup artist community that laid early cultural groundwork for many subsequent manosphere spaces.
• Black Pill by Elle Reeve – Investigates online extremist subcultures and the pipeline from internet forums to radicalized real-world behavior.

Major Content & Media

• Documentaries & Series:
  • Inside the Manosphere (presented by Louis Theroux) – Examines high-profile red-pill content creators and the gap between public branding and extreme behind-the-scenes ideology.
  • Adolescence (Netflix drama written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham) – A four-part drama exploring the online radicalization of teenage boys, looksmaxxing, and sexual market value (SMV) theory.
• Key Figures & Influencers:
  • Referenced widely across platforms include Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, Rollo Tomassi, Myron Gaines, and Hamza Ahmed, alongside broader lifestyle/podcast commentators like Chris Williamson.
• Common Themes in Content:
  • Self-Improvement & Grinding: Gym culture, financial optimization, and baseline discipline (which draw many young men in).
  • Red Pill / Black Pill Ideology: Beliefs that dating and social structures are biologically or hyper-capitalistically rigged against men, often leading to deep resentment or hostility toward women.
  • Algorithm Amplification: Studies (such as reports from charity and watchdog groups) note that social media algorithms frequently push sensationalized, angry, or hyper-masculine content toward teenage boys.

Source: AI

Overview of Incels and Gender-Based Violence

The incel (involuntary celibate) subculture is part of the broader online manosphere, a network of digital communities centered on male victimhood, grievance, and misogyny. Research increasingly frames incel-inspired aggression as a form of ideological and gender-based extremism.

Core Ideological Pillars

• Aggrieved Entitlement: Incel ideology asserts that men are owed feminine-coded services—such as attention, affection, and sexual access—and frames a lack of romantic or sexual relationships as an injustice.
• Hierarchy and Pilling Language: Communities utilize internal taxonomies (such as “Chads” and “Stacies”) to categorize social and sexual desirability, often adopting fatalistic “black pill” worldviews where members believe they are permanently locked out of relationships.
• Dehumanization of Women: Women are frequently blamed for being shallow, cruel, or manipulative, which normalizes hostility and retaliation. 

Connection to Gender-Based Violence

• Online-to-Offline Radicalization: Digital forums provide echo chambers that validate violent fantasies, share misogynistic rhetoric, and occasionally coordinate or encourage physical attacks.
• Mass Casualty Incidents: Prominent violent extremists and mass shooters have explicitly cited incel ideology or idolized figures like Elliot Rodger, prompting counter-terrorism analysts to treat the movement as an emerging domestic security threat.

• Intersectional Extremism: Incel beliefs frequently overlap with white supremacist, far-right, and anti-feminist movements, amplifying broader threats against women and public safety.

Misogyny & Political Weaponization of Violence Against Women

One of the shameful legacies during Trump’s two terms as President is the proliferation of misogyny and weaponization of violence against women aided by the Republican Congress, his cabinet, including DOJ and HHS, appointments and rulings by the Supreme Court, all funded by PACs, corporations, and tech bros, including the damage to agencies and programs by Musk and DOGE. Trump has set the misogynist standard of what is acceptable under his leadership.

Following is a short list in addition to the content previously outlined in this essay:

• Epstein Files: Continued victimization and politization of victims of trafficking, coercion, and rape. Lack of justice on behalf of the victims for crimes perpetrated by powerful men including, allegedly, the President of the United States.
• Jean Carroll: From Wikipedia, “Carroll accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s. In 2019 and 2022 Carroll filed two related civil lawsuits against Trump which resulted in a total of $88.3 million in damages awarded to Carroll; he appealed both cases. The United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Trump to dismiss the first of these lawsuits in June 2026. In July 2026, he paid Carroll $5.6 million in damages.”
• “Grab ‘em by the pussy”: From Wikipedia, “On October 7, 2016, one month before the United States presidential election that year, The Washington Post published a video and article about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and television host Billy Bush having a lewd conversation about women in September 2005. Trump and Bush were on a bus on their way to film an episode of Access Hollywood, a show owned by NBCUniversal. In the video, Trump described his attempt to seduce a married woman and indicated he might start kissing a woman that he and Bush were about to meet. He added, “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Trump’s misogynist language and demeaning treatment of women journalists is well documented since it occurs on camera. Like true crime content it becomes normalized and his supporters mimic this toxic behavior.

Source: AI

President Donald Trump has a documented history of using gendered insults, appearance-based attacks, and hostile language when questioned by female journalists.

Key Patterns and Insults

• Gendered and Appearance-Based Attacks: Trump frequently targets female reporters—particularly young journalists and women of color—with personal insults regarding their appearance, intelligence, or demeanor rather than addressing their actual questions. He has used terms like “quiet piggy,” “stupid,” “ugly,” “nasty,” and “insubordinate”.
• Dismissive Language in the Press Room: When challenged on difficult topics (such as the Epstein files, administrative policies, or controversial political ads), he has frequently told female correspondents to “be quiet,” called them a “terrible person” or “terrible reporter,” and accused them of asking questions with “anger and meanness”.
• Escalation by Administration Staff: White House communications and rapid-response channels have occasionally amplified these attacks on social media, targeting individual reporters directly (such as CNN’s Kristen Holmes or ABC’s Rachel Scott).

Notable Interactions

• Monica Alba (NBC News): Trump barked “quiet!” at NBC reporter Monica Alba, called her “fresh,” and labeled her a “horrible little reporter” after she pressed him regarding political ads and sensitive allegations.
• Kristen Holmes (CNN): Trump berated CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes during an Oval Office event, leading to subsequent social media attacks from official White House accounts.
• Mary Bruce (ABC News): When asked about the release of Epstein-related files during an Oval Office meeting, Trump told ABC chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce that she was a “terrible person and a terrible reporter”.
• Kaitlan Collins (CNN): Trump has repeatedly disparaged CNN’s Kaitlan Collins as a “Third Rate ‘Reporter'” and criticized her appearance and demeanor.
• Rachel Scott (ABC News): During press conferences and public forums, Trump labeled ABC’s Rachel Scott as “the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place” after she pressed him on difficult line-of-questioning.

Perspective of Press Freedom and Analysts

• Media Watchdogs: Organizations like the Coalition for Women in Journalism and the International Women’s Media Foundation have stated that these gendered attacks are a calculated strategy to intimidate, discredit, and silence accountability journalism.
• Administration Defense: White House spokespeople (such as Karoline Leavitt) have defended the president’s behavior as a form of “frankness” and honesty against what the administration categorizes as “fake news”.

Lastly, as I outlined the premise of this opinion piece in the introduction, “… during the past ten years, women, vulnerable children, people who identify outside of the binary construct, BIPOC and other marginalized communities have increasingly lost rights, equity, and bodily autonomy and protection. We’ve been ‘othered’, targets of hate speech, and victims of violence. Conservative religious beliefs, misogyny, racism, proliferation of gun violence, and the weaponization of politics for personal power and gain are the root causes.”

When gender violence is normalized, femicide is the deadly outcome. 

Source: AI

Femicide (also called feminicide) is the intentional killing of women or girls with a gender-related motivation. Unlike general homicide, it is driven by discrimination, misogyny, unequal power relations, and harmful gender roles.

Core Definition and Key Facts

• Meaning: The term describes murders where women and girls are targeted specifically because they are women, or where violence against women is systemic and disproportionate.
• Origin: The term was coined in 1976 by Diana Russell to distinguish gender-based killings from gender-neutral homicides.
• The Home Risk: A large portion of femicides are committed by current or former intimate partners or family members, making the home one of the most dangerous places for women and girls.

Main Categories of Femicide

• Intimate Femicide: The killing of a woman by a current or former romantic partner, often representing the lethal end of chronic domestic abuse or coercive control.
• Non-Intimate Femicide: The killing of women by perpetrators with whom they had no intimate relationship. This includes:
  • So-called “honor” killings
  • Killings linked to armed conflict or used as a weapon of war
  • Hate-based killings targeting transgender women, indigenous women, or women based on sexual orientation or race
  • Killings connected to human trafficking, dowry disputes, or harmful traditional practices

Underlying Causes

• Power and Control: Perpetrators often act out of a sense of male entitlement, jealousy, or a desire to dominate and punish women who exercise independence or agency.
• Systemic Gaps: Weak institutional responses, failure to enforce protective orders, and cultural norms that minimize gender-based violence allow abuse to escalate into lethal outcomes.

I wrote the following poem that addressed the molestation of my childhood, sexual harassment as an adult woman, and politicization as a second wave feminist and commentator on the misogyny of our current political leaders.

Women’s Bodies Must Belong to Men

I met a man.
He said he was my grandpa.
I was only 4-years-old but I knew better,
he was only the man married to my grandmother.
He made me popcorn when I visited.
When I napped, he put his fat cigar-stained finger inside me.
He whispered to never tell anyone.

I met a man.
He said he was a friend of my parents; they drank all night together in a bar.
It was my birthday. I just turned 13-years-old.
He asked if I would ride along to pick up pizzas for the family.
I did, he said, “Slide over and sit closer to me.”
He put his hand under my skirt and underwear and grabbed my genitals with force.
Told me not to tell. He said he was bigger and stronger than my father.

I met a man.
He asked for directions to my college. I told him I was on my way there.
“I’ll give you a ride.” He seemed friendly enough. Asked me my name.
He struck up a conversation. I answered his questions. “Do you live on campus?”
“No, I have a small studio apartment.” He replied, “Oh, where?”
We arrived at the school, he dropped me off.
A few days later he was on the other side of my door. My friends walked up behind him. He fled.

I met a group of men
in an elevator in Chicago at the Palmer House Hotel.
Shriners in Fez hats got on the elevator and their eyes surveyed me.
I was wearing the fashion of the time, a mini-skirt and platform shoes.
One of them asked me, “Are you a working girl? We’re looking for a little entertainment.”
The three approached closer and one of them wrapped his arm around my waist.
The elevator stopped at my floor. I broke away, running fast (I’ll never wear those shoes again).

[I met a group of women. I became a second-wave feminist, an activist, and came out as a lesbian].

I watched the news, a group of men
sat around a huge conference room table, Republican lawmakers, and cabinet members,
advisors to the President. They were meeting to draft healthcare legislation.
Not one woman was in attendance, yet they began to discuss medical coverage,
pre-existing conditions, abortion, birth control, and the day-after-pill, religious exemptions.
Later, their bills would be defeated.
They decided instead to stack the Supreme Court.

I met a man on television and online,
a candidate for the Supreme Court. His alleged victim of sexual misconduct,
(some would call it attempted rape), bravely testified before Congress in front of the cameras.
She was treated by some as a liar, attempting to ruin a man’s career. Her reputation was ruined.
His supporters, a majority of men, some citing family values and religious beliefs,
saw him as the victim. They approved his nomination and soon he was seen shaking hands
with the POTUS, a man defending his own alleged sexual harassment history.

I saw 25 white men in Alabama
pass the most restrictive abortion ban legislation
and join other states preparing to overturn Roe vs. Wade in the Supreme Court.
A law convicting women seeking abortions and the doctors who provide them.
The laws protecting women’s bodies from incest, rape, and domestic abuse, are often left languishing, rape kits untested, healthcare and birth control, denied.
I can only conclude, women’s bodies must belong to men.

LLL
05-15-2019

Call to Action

First, the most fundamental of our democratic rights and responsibility is to vote in every election at every level of government. It’s also my belief we need to elect more women to office, plus people who represent different cultures, races, ethnic backgrounds, economic statuses, religious beliefs, and gender identities to ensure that those who enact laws represent the people who elected them without unfair interference by corporate interests, lobbyists, PACs, tech bros, and foreign autocrats. The latter will require changing campaign laws and a commitment to democracy and a representative government.

Personally, I want/need to take a look at why and how I tacitly participate in this culture of misogyny and violence towards women and marginalized communities.

We have work to do as a society and it begins with each of us.  We can do better. We can be kinder. We can save lives.

Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!

Protect & Serve

Me Too— DAMMIT!

The Toilet Zone: Second Flush – Not in Service

Additional Content & Resources

True crime, where there’s nothing hotter than a cold case

Take Back the Night

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

RAINN https://rainn.org/

National Children’s Alliance

Films on Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies: Violence Against Women

Congressional candidate is raped while repairing her campaign signs

Victim/Suspect

The Hunting Ground