While it feels like the cover of a cesspool has been blasted off, and the whistles have blared again and again, the shift, seismic and all, is just commencing. While hashtags against workplace assault and abuse seem presently pervasive, the assault and abuse within intimate-partner contexts remains quietly proliferant. Even at aerial echelons, the zeitgeist does not reflect a zero-tolerance stance towards assault and abuse. Swirling reports of the White House’s apathy regarding allegations of abuse in its hiring have manifested. Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains understatedly a universal issue. According to United Nations Women, 35% of women worldwide, have experienced intimate partner violence, and of those countries with available data, only 40% seek help, a statistic so abysmal it makes a MeToo-like movement, unfathomable. 60% of stories never fully surface, 60% of stories skulk in the shadows. And even as dispiriting as these statistics may be, these statistics slyly sanitize the reality. Statistics reflect numbers, but they do not describe the depths of dehumanization, terror, despair. They do not depict the black-eyed and bust-up faces with hearts disemboweled from their chests. As one who has helplessly observed those I love, endure horrors at the hands of those they loved, there is no pen on the planet adept enough to transcribe their tales of terror.
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