On December 6, the day Canadians set aside to mark the death of the 14 women in Montreal who were gunned down because they were women, I don’t want people to just pin a rose or white ribbon to their chests. I want people to get angry. I want people to be so outraged, so disturbed by the recent trend of domestic assaults and murders that they just have to start talking about how horrible violence against women is and declare that they can’t live in denial anymore — whether in mainstream society or in our little progressive cliques.

I’ve been angry for days. It seems that every morning I open the paper, there’s one more story about violence against women, domestic abuse, kidnapping or rape. And then there’s another police reassurance or Ontario Liberal government promise. Another day and another death, whether it’s a stabbing/shooting/double fist-pounding or the story of one more woman who cannot move out of an abusive situation because she can’t afford to cover her rent alone. Little do these women know that their bruises appear like ghosts under my skin. They haunt me. I wish they did know.

I’m at my wit’s end. I cried so hard today I thought I would never stop. Will it ever stop?

Toronto has become a war zone for women. On November 31, Natalie Bobeika was stabbed to death by her ex-husband. On November 26, Pauline Mattis was shot by her husband. On November 16, Amanda Stamp was kidnapped by her boyfriend and god-only-knows the hell she went through before finally escaping. She was quoted in The Toronto Star as saying she felt totally alone. So do I, in a way.

I have been a victim of male violence within the activist community. When I told my friends, they were either shocked, outraged or in complete denial. Some laughed off the incident with a beer and a pat on the back: “C’mon, Krystal, you could take anyone on.” Others just went really quiet and punched the wall. Either way, I credit my fellow male and female activists for trying their best to help me figure out how I could have been violated within my own sacred community. I thank them for listening, even if it meant that I shattered the “all-is-good” activist myth we cling to. What I wanted, needed, was for them to get angry, so I could know for sure that what had happened to me was wrong and that it wasn’t my fault.

What happened to me crushed me in a similar way a combat boot can crush an origami flower. I’m still mourning the loss of that innocence.

All I can do is carefully tell this secret. The “all-is-good” in society/activism myth is a lie. It hits me smack in the face each morning I open the paper. I can’t keep pretending, sucking back my coffee and rushing off to work as if it’s some other girl’s problem. And I know I canâe(TM)t do it alone. I need help. Male or Female. Straight or Queer. Working class or Classics Prof. I want to arm myself with as many allies and ammunition as possible.

Because of the nature of the threat to women everywhere — sisters and grandmothers, girlfriends and fellow band mates — this isn’t a go to a demo / go home issue. I want everyone to be as angry as I am all the time. I want everyone to refuse to go in to work until women can feel safe in their neighbourhoods, their homes. I want to finally feel safe somewhere.

Many of my friends are male and I rely heavily on them as allies for protection (escorts when I’m too drunk, security in dark alleys as we search out new places to lay graffiti) and yet I find the topic of violence against women almost too hard to talk about. Maybe because I don’t want to admit that I’m equally vulnerable.

I vacillate from trusting my friends completely to believing that every man could be a potential rapist. There are nights I would rather risk trying to make it home at four a.m. than risk crashing at someone’s place in case they want to have sex and I don’t — but they don’t want to listen. Or just the every-day fear of needing to constantly look over my shoulder, keys clenched between my fisted fingers, when walking home at night.

This is what women face every day and yes, it matters to us because we have to care. Women donâe(TM)t have the luxury of writing off the problem to the behaviour of only jealous boyfriends or drunken husbands. Or what they read that soldiers do to young girls in other countries. The threat also lurks much closer to home, with bruises hidden under long-sleeved sweaters and gifts and apologies offered up to prove just how sorry some men can be.

No more denial, no more biting back our anger and then going about our daily routine. Enough with the personal or societal cop-outs of “I’m sorry” or “It won’t happen again.” It can’t be allowed to happen again. I can’t handle reading one more inky memorial splashed across the morning news. It has to stop.

Krystalline Kraus

krystalline kraus is an intrepid explorer and reporter from Toronto, Canada. A veteran activist and journalist for rabble.ca, she needs no aviator goggles, gas mask or red cape but proceeds fearlessly...