SURVIVOR INJUSTICE

A comprehensive analysis of how American systems deny survivors of gender-based violence justice, comfort, and power.

According to Jezebel staff writer Cheung, a survivor of sexual assault, domestic violence has long been considered a “private” and “apolitical” matter created and perpetuated by violent individuals. However, the author argues convincingly that the opposite is true. In reality, every aspect of America’s political system—from the Senate, which grants disproportionate power to states with the highest rates of domestic abuse, to direct and indirect suppression of survivors’ attempts to vote and the rampant criminalization and subsequent incarceration of survivors—imbues abusers with power and denies survivors the ability to participate in the most basic aspects of democracy. The silencing of these critical voices has serious consequences for the safety of all survivors. Cheung documents how survivors are forced to co-parent with their rapists or lose custody of their children to their abuser, enforced in the courts of judges often appointed by presidents with their own histories as abusers. She also discusses how economic insecurity often keeps survivors in abusive relationships, a pattern reinforced by gendered wage gaps that particularly affect women of color. “Domestic violence, in fact, is not just political,” writes the author, “but quite literally a feature and consequence of greater systems of state violence: State and interpersonal violence are inseparable from each other, feeding each other in an endless cycle. Capitalist policies allow domestic abuse to thrive. Denied living wages and universal health care, many women are entrapped in abusive relationships because their abuser provides them health insurance, shelter, or money in general, and the state does not.” Cheung’s potent analysis, deep research, and compulsively readable prose coalesce into a refreshingly new, significant approach to ending domestic abuse. She is incredibly adept at blending anecdotal and statistical evidence into a clear global picture of a shockingly disturbing reality.

An astonishingly original, powerfully honest vision for true survivor justice.