Emily Van Duyne wonders why Sylvia Plath’s accounts of Ted Hughes’s violence toward her have been so frequently dismissed or minimized.
domestic violence
Posted inEditor's Pick
Why Are We So Unwilling to Take Sylvia Plath at Her Word?
A critical essay raising the question of why many in the literary world cast doubt or treat lightly Sylvia Plath’s allegations of serious abuse at the hand of her husband, poet Ted Hughes — who destroyed many of his wife’s journals from the period before her suicide. Much of her ordeal came to light in […]
Posted inFirst Chapters, Nonfiction, Story, Unapologetic Women
My Parents Said I Bruised Easily
An excerpt from “Estranged: Leaving Family and Finding Home,” by Jessica Berger Gross.
Posted inFirst Chapters, Nonfiction, Unapologetic Women
My Parents Said I Bruised Easily
An excerpt from “Estranged: Leaving Family and Finding Home,” by Jessica Berger Gross.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Super Predators
Domestic abuse by police officers is underreported and less likely to lead to prosecution. It also forces victims to seek help from police departments eager to protect their own.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Am I in an Abusive Relationship? ‘I knew if I had to ask I already knew the answer.’
Katherine Laidlaw recalls an abusive relationship in which her boyfriend threatened her with a boxcutter.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Eve Ensler on Abusive Fathers and the Culture That Protects Them
In a short essay for Time, playwright and activist Eve Ensler writes about simultaneously understanding many women’s difficulty calling out abusive fathers—like her own and alleged rapist Bill Cosby—and being frustrated with a culture that protects beloved, powerful patriarchs while vilifying and portraying as liars the women who speak out against them: I think of […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and a ‘Failure of Accountability’
He sometimes barks when asked to bend his principles, the ones he learned from his late father, a U.S. senator. He gets enraged when someone, even an owner, tarnishes the integrity of the game or challenges his judgment. Many players and union leaders talk about his failure of accountability. “Right now the league office and […]