I ask because I am a survivor of violence. I am a survivor of rape. I am a survivor of domestic abuse. I am a survivor of strangulation. I have spent much of my life listening to conversations about violence against women that seem disconnected from the reality many women like me live.
We talk about murder as if it appears out of nowhere. It rarely does.
The murder is often the last thing that happens. Before that comes the stalking. The threats. The coercion. The assault. The rape. The choking. The fear. The police reports. The restraining orders. The friends who say leave. The family members who say give him another chance. The professionals who miss the warning signs. The judges who see another case file. The community that assumes someone else will step in.
Then a woman dies.
Afterward everyone asks how it happened.
Women often know exactly how it happened. We watched it happen.
One of the strangest realities of being a woman in America is how much responsibility we are expected to carry for preventing our own victimization.
Watch your drink. Watch your surroundings. Don't walk alone. Don't park there. Don't wear that. Carry this. Download that. Text when you get home. Share your location. Take self-defense. Buy cameras. Buy alarms. Buy pepper spray.
Women spend enormous amounts of time learning how to survive men who should have been stopped long before they encountered us.
That does not mean all men are dangerous. It means dangerous men are often allowed too many opportunities.
I find myself wondering whether we need a different framework entirely.
We track gang violence. We track terrorism. We track hate crimes. Why are we not better at tracking femicide? Why do we still struggle to identify patterns in violence against women when the patterns are often obvious?
A man who murders his wife rarely begins as a murderer. A man who rapes rarely begins with rape. A man who strangles rarely begins with strangulation. Violence escalates. That should matter more than it currently does.
As a child, I learned something many girls learn far too young. The world often expects women to adapt to danger instead of demanding that danger adapt to us. I survived incest. I survived sexual violence. I survived men who believed their wants mattered more than my humanity. Like many women, I learned to scan rooms, calculate risks, memorize exits, and prepare for outcomes before they happened. Survival became a skill set.
But survival should not be the standard.
Safety should be the standard.
I believe this is one of the rare issues that should unite Americans across political lines. Conservatives talk about law and order, public safety, and protecting families. Liberals talk about gender violence, survivor support, and prevention. Both sides should be able to agree that repeat violent offenders should not receive endless opportunities to create new victims. Both sides should be able to agree that women deserve to come home alive. Both sides should be able to agree that strangulation, stalking, serial domestic violence, and repeated sexual violence are major warning signs that deserve serious intervention.
I am not interested in a war between men and women. I am interested in reducing the number of women who are raped, beaten, stalked, and murdered. That seems like a goal any civilized society should share.
I have spent my life surviving violence. I would rather spend the second half of it helping prevent violence.
The question is not whether we know enough to do better. The question is whether we are willing to act on what we already know.
Women should not have to become experts in survival to earn the right to live ordinary lives.
That should be the baseline.
Not the aspiration.
