Tag: domestic violence

Community Accountability in the Wake of Gender-Based Violence

Leave a comment

By Max Sheffield-Baird

CW: discussion of domestic abuse, sexual assault, incest, victim blaming

Trauma is both a personal journey and a community reckoning. Survivors understand better than most that the abusers lurk amongst the illustrious, the trusted, and those who are seen as leaders in their community circles. This bears out in headline after headline, but even deeper and closer to home for so many of us.

Dr. Judith Herman’s book  Truth and Repair gives us a roadmap for truth, accountability, and healing as a community that does more than pay lip service to survivors. How many of us have been made to feel that it was our speaking our truth that was the problem instead of those who would use and abuse their authority against us? I wanted to know how survivors can navigate the personal and political, and Dr. Herman brings a lifetime of insights and experiences to this work.

Continue reading →

Can We Not Publish a Coloring Book Romanticizing Domestic Abuse?

1 Comment

By Emily Park

UPDATE: Colleen Hoover canceled the coloring book and deleted her announcement hours after this went live. Catcall still stands by this editorial. For further explanation, read the afterword below the original story.

I’ve long been on the fence about how I feel about Colleen Hoover (CoHo). The best-selling author has sold over 20 million books, and in 2022 she sold more copies than the Bible…2.4 million more copies. Normally, I’d worship a woman who’s taking the book industry by storm, but CoHo is not someone I can celebrate. 

The last straw for me? The January 10 announcement of a coloring book for It Ends With Us, a novel about domestic violence. But before I get to the hopefully obvious issues with that, let me backtrack.

I’ve read four CoHo novels: Ugly Love, It Ends With Us, All Your Perfects, and November 9. For my personal reading choices, November 9 ended any intrigue I had regarding the rest of her books. I’m not trying to gatekeep anyone from reading the books they enjoy, so if you think you’ll read November 9 and don’t want a (smallish) spoiler, skip the next paragraph. 

Continue reading →

Domestic Violence: More Prevalent Than You Think

Leave a comment

By Kelcie McKenney

One-in-three women have been victims of domestic violence.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), one-third of women have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime. For men, it is one-in-four. Those types of statistics paint a vivid picture for the reality of unhealthy relationships: they’re far more common than you’d think.

“In an unhealthy relationship there almost always tends to be a power dynamic in place and the person who’s being abusive, whether it’s emotionally or psychologically or physically, makes it pretty much impossible for that other partner to be able to win any kind of argument,” said Becky Redetzke Field, the University of Minnesota Aurora Center Legal Advocacy Coordinator.

Photo by Lorna Scubelek

Continue reading →

If you have to tell yourself something isn’t “that bad,” then it really is worse than you think

1 Comment

By Catcall Contributor

I couldn’t help it; I fell in love.

And when I fell in love, there was a part of me that became him. I didn’t think of it as a bad thing, after all if I’m spending all my time with someone and talking to them every day, it would be hard not to mesh into a single being, to some extent. He was older, successful, and absolutely beautiful. He always said he hated being the center of attention, but I think he knew that’s where he thrived. He was a natural born leader and made everyone look up to him with the highest regards. He truly seemed like a great man.

But things aren’t always what they seem. I got to know him better and he told me about his troubled past full of being adopted, bullied, anger management classes, manipulative relationships, and lies. He told me that he would never do anything to hurt me because he knew what it was like to be hurt—but then the lies started.

Photo by Luis Galvez

Continue reading →