The System Isn’t Broken. It’s Working as Designed.
There is a particular kind of comfort in calling something a tragedy.
A tragedy happens.
A tragedy is terrible.
A tragedy is something we mourn.
And then, eventually, a tragedy is something we move on from.
Domestic violence is often spoken about this way.
A woman was abused.
A family was destroyed.
Someone should have noticed.
Someone should have helped.
Why didn’t she leave?
The questions arrive quickly.
But too many of them point in the wrong direction.
Intimate partner violence is not confined to what happens between two people behind a closed door. It also includes what happens when a survivor reaches for help and encounters the rest of society.
A courtroom.
A shelter.
A bank.
A workplace.
A doctor’s office.
A police station.
A housing office.
A childcare provider.
A door marked help.
The CDC defines intimate partner violence broadly, including physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression. More than one in three women in the United States have experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetimes. (CDC)
That is not a handful of isolated tragedies.
It is a pattern.
And patterns deserve more than sympathy.
They deserve examination.
“Domestic” can make violence sound smaller than it is.
The word suggests household.
Private.
Personal.
Something that happens over there, between them.
But violence does not become less consequential because the person causing it shares a last name with the person experiencing it.
Its effects travel.
Children carry them.
Employers encounter them.
Hospitals encounter them.
Courts encounter them.
Shelters encounter them.
Communities absorb the cost.
Survivors pay the highest price.
Sometimes through lost income.
Sometimes through housing instability.
Sometimes through damaged health.
Sometimes through years spent rebuilding a life around choices they should never have been forced to make.
So when we ask why someone didn’t leave, we are often asking about the final moment of a much larger story.
What resources were available?
Could she afford another home?
Did she control any money?
Was there somewhere safe to go?
Would leaving increase the danger?
Were children involved?
Did she fear retaliation?
Would anyone believe her?
Would the legal system protect her?
Would her employer understand?
Would her family help?
These are not excuses.
They are conditions.
And conditions shape what becomes possible.
Naming the system does not erase individual responsibility.
The person who chooses violence is responsible for that violence.
Period.
Understanding the systems surrounding abuse does not change that. It refuses to pretend accountability begins and ends with one person.
A healthy society asks two questions at once:
Who caused the harm?
And:
What allowed the harm to continue?
Both matter.
If we ask only the first, we may punish an individual while leaving institutional failures untouched.
If we ask only the second, we risk turning perpetrators into abstractions.
Neither approach is enough.
Love does not require us to look away.
Not sentimental love.
Not the kind that asks women to endure quietly because someone might be embarrassed.
Not the kind that confuses forgiveness with access.
Not the kind that calls silence peace.
Love that matters pays attention.
It notices who is afraid.
Who has no money.
Who stopped seeing friends.
Who needs permission to spend.
Who apologizes for someone else’s behavior.
Who keeps saying, “It’s not that bad,” because saying what it really is might make the truth impossible to survive.
Naming the harm is not cynicism.
It is clarity.
And clarity is where accountability begins.
Resource: National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). For immediate danger, contact emergency services.
