Remember Her Name
- Ashley Peterson, LPC
- Apr 20
- 4 min read
We Don’t Have an Awareness Problem. We Have an Accountability Problem.
Every time another headline comes out—
another woman killed,
another mother murdered,
another family destroyed—
we do the same thing.
We pause.
We post.
We pray.
We grieve.
And then we move on.
Not because we don’t care—
but because we’ve been conditioned to believe that this is as far as it goes.
But I’m not sad right now.
I’m angry.
And I think more of us should be.
This is not new. And that’s the problem.
Violence against women is not rare.
It’s not shocking.
It’s not unpredictable.
It is patterned.
It is repeated.
And it is often explained away.
We see it in headlines.
We see it in courtrooms.
We see it in our offices as clinicians.
We see it in our own lives.
And we’ve seen it so often that somewhere along the way,
it stopped feeling urgent.
We have normalized what should never be normal.
We’ve watched it in movies.
We’ve watched it in TV shows.
We’ve watched men yell, posture, intimidate, and escalate—
And somehow the conversation always finds its way back to:
“Well, what did she do?”
We analyze tone.
We analyze behavior.
We analyze her response.
But if the belief is that violence is wrong—
then violence is wrong.
Not conditional.
Not situational.
Not debatable.
And yet—accountability is inconsistent at best.
Some men are held accountable.
Most are not.
And when they are,
it often comes after damage has already been done—
after pressure, attention, or public outcry.
We are not lacking information.
We are not lacking awareness.
We are lacking consistent, proactive accountability.
The system does not protect women the way it claims to.
Policies exist.
Laws exist.
And still—women are not safe.
In Virginia, you have to be separated for a year before divorcing your abuser.
A year.
A year of navigating fear, control, and risk.
A year of being legally tied to the person who harmed you.
Even something as simple as changing your name requires processes that can re-expose you to that person.
This is not protection.
This is prolonged vulnerability.
This is a system that often re-traumatizes women
after they’ve already been harmed.
As clinicians, we feel this too.
This work is not neutral.
We sit with survivors.
We hold stories of violence, fear, control.
And many of us have had our own experiences—
in internships, in clinical work, in our personal lives—
where harm was minimized or explained away:
“He has a mental illness.”
“He didn’t mean it like that.”
“He’s struggling.”
And suddenly the focus shifts.
From harm…
to understanding the person who caused it.
Leaving women—and even clinicians—feeling unprotected.
And then we are expected to help others feel safe
in systems that we know are not always safe.
Let me be clear about something:
Encouraging someone to leave an abusive relationship
can be the most dangerous thing that happens.
So when people say,
“Why doesn’t she just leave?”
What they’re really revealing is a lack of understanding
about how dangerous that moment can be.
So where does that leave us?
Because we cannot rely solely on systems.
We have already seen their limitations.
Real change requires something else.
Men have to hold men accountable.
This cannot be a one-sided conversation.
Women have been speaking.
Women have been advocating.
Women have been surviving.
And still—this continues.
Because the people who hold the most power in this dynamic
are often not the ones being challenged.
If men are not equally as outraged,
equally as disgusted,
equally as unwilling to tolerate this behavior from other men—
then nothing changes.
Silence is not neutral.
Minimizing is not neutral.
Looking the other way is not neutral.
To women:
If you are in a situation where you are being harmed—
physically, emotionally, psychologically—
This is not your fault.
You are not overreacting.
You are not “too sensitive.”
You are not responsible for managing someone else’s violence.
And if you cannot leave right now,
that does not mean you are weak.
It means you are navigating something complex and dangerous.
Support matters.
Safety matters.
You matter.
To parents:
If your children are witnessing abuse—
they are learning something.
Even if nothing is said.
Even if you think they don’t understand.
They are learning what relationships look like.
They are learning what is tolerated.
They are learning what love feels like.
And without intervention,
they will carry that into their own relationships.
That is not a possibility.
That is a pattern.
We are beyond awareness.
We know this is happening.
We see it.
We talk about it.
We post about it.
Awareness is not the issue.
Accountability is.
Prevention is.
Protection is.
And I’m not interested in just praying for people anymore.
Because thoughts and prayers have never stopped violence.
People do.
Accountability does.
Intervention does.
Community responsibility does.
We don’t have an awareness problem.
We have an accountability problem.
And until that changes,
these headlines will keep coming.
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