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

by Rachel Louise Snyder

Gilligan agrees with Websdale’s assessment of changing gender roles. “Any time any major social change occurs—as happened with the civil rights movement when legal segregation ended—that produced a huge backlash, and I would say the changing sexual mores and gender roles is also producing a huge backlash. [We hear] some of the most bigoted, sexist, homophobic attitudes, even while the public in general is becoming more tolerant.” Gilligan believes violence should be approached as a public health problem, which in its most radical form means that he believes it is preventable. “We talk as if once people are grown up they should be able to deal with whatever happens,” he said, “but the fact is that human beings are so much more vulnerable and fragile than we recognize. Then we’re surprised when we see how vulnerable and fragile they are that they break.”