No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

I was pulled toward hidden corners of the world, to disenfranchised people, because I knew in some small measure what it felt like to be an unseen, unheard person, what it felt like to grieve beyond what you thought your body could absorb.

Another way to think about it might be this: the wealthiest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, who is estimated to be worth $150 billion, could fund VAWA’s current budget for three hundred years and still have millions upon which to carve out a meager subsistence.16

Christian, and Catholic religions all traditionally believed it was within a husband’s purview to discipline his wife in more or less the same manner as he might discipline and control any other of his properties, including servants, slaves, and animals; of course, the holy texts—Koran, Bible, and Talmud—from which such beliefs stem were simply interpretations by (of course) men of the time.17 Some of these interpretations even gave instruction on the manner of wife beating, such as avoiding direct blows to the face, or making sure not to cause lasting injury. In the ninth century, the Gaon of Sura believed assault by one’s husband was less traumatic than a stranger’s assault since a wife was, according to the law, subject to her husband’s authority.

so difficult to evaluate in the moment, but crystal-clear in hindsight—which is to say that this is precisely what domestic violence looks like. Paul is hardly alone in his failure to register the portent of it. But imagine it’s not Rocky at Paul’s front door, beating at it, kicking it, screaming for a woman inside. Imagine it’s a stranger. Who wouldn’t call the police? Who wouldn’t try to intervene to stop the violence? And yet when it comes to people we know, people we see in other contexts—as fathers, brothers, sons, cousins, mothers, whatever—we have trouble registering the violence.

“The point is the view that the man owns it,” he told me. The patriarchy sets the rules. Paul shakes his head. “The more you think about it, the more it’ll piss you off,”

Her response was autonomic: fight or flight? What do you do if a bear is coming at you? Do you rear up and scream to make yourself big or do you play dead? You certainly don’t sit and consider the wildlife protection services that might

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be available to you if the bear would only give you a little time to gather yourself together. And then there’s this: the bear isn’t just coming at you. It’s coming at your children, too. What do you do? Would the district attorney be there, in her house, when Rocky was released? Ready to protect her? Would a police officer be there, gun drawn, convincing Rocky that Michelle and the children hadn’t meant to piss him off? Would her family members be there? Would anyone, anywhere, in any system be there to stop whatever he might do? To stop the rattlesnake from slithering into her bed at three a.m.?

Why victims stay isn’t the question we need to be asking. Rather, I think a better question is: how do we protect this person? No qualifiers. No musing about why she stayed or what she might appear to be doing or not doing. Just one simple question: how do we protect her?

Good

and resources” are states where both men and women, though especially men, are less likely to be killed by their partners. Yes, men. The gender distinction is where they find

Instead what Michelle saw was what so many other women before her had seen: that an abuser appears more powerful than the system.

The police acted as if the victims—Sally and Melanie—were overdramatizing the entire event. Some guy taking his own kid. It’s his kid after all. The gendered messages are crucial: men are strong; women are weak. Men have the power; women are powerless. Men are rational; women are hysterical. Whether you are a violent abuser or a law-abiding officer, the men on both sides of the Monson equation sent a message to the women.

When Rocky bailed himself out it was an even more crucial message to Michelle. This time, it’s Not only am I stronger than you, but the system prioritizes my freedom over your safety.

Look at Michelle Monson Mosure. Look at any intimate partner homicide anywhere in any given year and it will be the same: she tried every which way she could. She tried and tried, but the equation, or rather, the question, isn’t a matter of leaving or staying. It’s a matter of living or dying. They stay because they choose to live. And they die anyway. Michelle Mosure stayed for her kids and for herself. She stayed for pride and she stayed for love and she stayed for fear and she stayed for cultural and social forces far beyond her control. And her staying, to anyone trained enough to see the context, looked a lot less like staying and a lot more like someone tiptoeing her way toward freedom.