If you’re in the United States of America, heck even if you’re not you’re probably familiar with how much we Americans care about our freedoms. Choosing how we want to live our life, what faith we want to practice, how to raise our children, and what happens to our own bodies. Choice is everything for most people and of course we all have our red lines when it comes to choice. But, what happens when choice is used as a way to ignore violence? More importantly, how have we used our deep desire for choice to violate others under the guise of “choice”?

I know what you’re thinking. What more could Jess possibly have to say about this topic? You’d be surprised. After all, statistically, males dominate the category of perpetrators of violence, while females dominate the category of victims of violence. So unfortunately for all the boys and men in the world, they have to be the prime target when it comes to talking about prevention, and understanding why violence happens.

I recall prior to our marriage we, my husband and I, sat down and we made a list of expectations we had for one another. Admittedly, our list looked a lot like the culture I’m trying to change. He would be the bread winner, while I would be in charge of the cooking & cleaning - now mind you at the time, I was working full time in another profession. Once I stopped working, it made sense to me the pick up the slack in the house since I had more time on my hands.

We ebbed and flowed through our expectations of duties for the first couple of years before I became increasingly resentful…

There are typically only a few ways the conversation goes when one tells a friend/family member they’ve experienced a sexual assault, regardless of time between the sharing and the assault. Person says, “I think I was just assaulted” and the other person responds in one of three ways…

It is because of these news articles/shows- in my opinion- that we have such a difficult time as a community even recognizing the pervasive nature of gendered based violence in our society. Not only this, but because of how pervasive violence is in our society, our own unresolved trauma significantly impacts the way we view violence outside of ourselves. We may be more likely to ignore verbal assaults, or sexual harassment if we’ve grown up in a home running rampant with these issues. . .

Calls to “defund the police” by activists and advocates alike to deal with racial tensions between the police force and black and indigenous people of color (BIPOC) have been increasing. Is this a good idea though? Wouldn’t this further hurt victims of sexual and domestic violence?