Women and Gun Violence
Three women a day are killed in the U.S., most often by men who they once thought loved them, and who might argue that they still do. Three-quarters of American women over the age of 12 will become a crime victim. One-third of these will be violently assaulted, raped or robbed.
Uncovering the Stories Behind the Statistics
Caitlin Kelly also discusses covering violence and death on mediabistro.com. For more, see Where Does it Hurt?
Three women a day are killed in the U.S., most often by men who they once thought loved them, and who might argue that they still do. Three-quarters of American women over the age of 12 will become a crime victim. One-third of these will be violently assaulted, raped or robbed.
The statistics are striking, but the personal stories behind the numbers reveal the depth of the tragedy.
I hadn’t anticipated delving into this darkness when I began researching my new, first book, Blown Away: American Women and Guns. I intended to produce a work of sociology, a neutral examination of the many ways, past and present, that women and guns intersect in the U.S.: cultural, recreational, professional, political and criminal.
I was, of course, foolish not to fully appreciate how much violence this would involve: suicide, homicide, domestic abuse, gun accidents. By the time I had immersed myself in interviews and in the literature of gun violence — reading When Women Kill on a flight from Dallas to New Orleans might have slightly unnerved my seatmate — it was too late to erase from my head and heart the many grim stories I had heard.
I interviewed Stephanie Cress, an artist living in California, who was forced by a criminal to lie down in her own driveway beside her husband. He demanded all their money. Furious that they only had $8 on them, he shot and killed her husband and shot her as well.
Susan Gonzalez was shot point-blank in her Florida home with a 9mm by an intruder she managed to shoot, and kill, with her own 9mm. Her body criss-crossed with the scars of her life-saving surgery, she still lives in daily physical and emotional pain.
Anita Rodger, (a pseudonym), lives in a small Midwestern town; she shot and killed her abusive ex-husband three times, and served 4.5 months in prison. She had previously never even touched a gun.
I spoke to women old and young, wealthy and poor, white and black and Asian and Hispanic from 27 states. Black women, even if they have not shot or been fired upon, suffer disproportionately from gun violence. Thanks to some extraordinary research by Cleveland Plain-Dealer reporter Elizabeth Marchak, I discovered the place a black woman was most likely to die from gun violence — Youngstown, Ohio.
Like many career journalists, I assumed I would be able to shrug off the emotional corrosiveness of these stories as easily as I changed notebooks and locales, shifting from a chapter specifically focussed on violence to those on hunting, pop culture, history or politics. I hadn’t planned to absorb the pain, grief, fear and confusion I was reporting. I first heard the phrase “secondary trauma” — shorthand for the nightmares and insomnia that overtook me for a while — only after I completed the book.
As a woman, it became overwhelming to hear other women detail their experiences of violence. They are not people you could easily pick out of a crowd, shriveled and cowering. Many of them had left the violence, typically suffered at the hands of an abusive former husband, far behind them. Their nonchalance, even when recounting the most appalling details, most chilled me. I knew intellectually that flat affect often denotes trauma, but I didn’t expect it to seep into my soul as well.
Abused women and crime victims, I discovered, are everywhere. Their stories — and their statistically justifiable fear of male violence — are essential to understanding why 8.5 million of the country’s 17 million female gun owners have bought guns for self-defense. While thousands of women arguing for gun control will join the Million Mom March May 9 in D.C., many other women will chant just as loudly, arguing that women need, and deserve, the legal right to protect themselves.
Two journalists interviewing me casually referred to their victimization. One stranger started telling me her story in a Texas library bathroom after I mentioned my research. A successful businesswoman asked me to speak up — she had lost some of her hearing from an ex-husband’s beatings.
We often don’t want to hear their stories, nor do our readers or listeners. But, just as we routinely relay images of death and devastation, torture and maiming from countries many time zones away, so too must we witness the violence deeply embedded in our own culture.
We owe women this.
