Facing Forward

After reading a brief news blurb about another nameless woman being stabbed to death and the nameless man who did it, I decided to post about Johanna Orozco. The Cleveland Pee Dee (as reported by Rachell Dissell) is doing a special series with stories and multimedia features about a young girl who was abused, stalked and eventually shot in the face by her ex-boyfriend. This type of story, sadly, is not new, but it still brings the threat of tears to your face.

She survived and has undergone numerous surgeries to repair her face. He plead guilty of rape and attempted murder (to avoid a trial by jury with even more charges) and will be sentenced on September 19.

*Breathe* The tears still want to come. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or what, but stuff like this really gets to me. Like-makes-me-cry "gets to me". I can't help but feel powerless and enraged all at the same time. Why, why, why, why, WHY are women still treated as disposable objects? People go into rages over the mistreatment of dogs (rightfully so), but where is the rage for women like Johanna? She was doing everything right: going to school, planning on a career, working, participating in Drama Club and she gets shot in her own driveway by some...man. He was abusive and controlling. He raped her days before (in her own bedroom) and now he shoots her because she reported the assault.

God. I just don't get it. I don't grow tired of being angry about this. I know why: because in some cases of abuse, you can comfortably think fucked up things: "Well, she had a chance to escape, but she didn't." But Johanna followed all the steps. She broke free. She excerised legal recourse. And everyone from cops to judges dismissed every incident of threat, every call she made when he stood outside her house. And now she is disfigured, though alive.

That is what pisses me off. When the system continues to fail people. We tell women to call the police. We tell them to walk away. They do and the perpetrators always find them. They slip through cracks and no one cares until someone is dead...or in Johanna's case, almost dead.

When the fuck are we going to cut the games and take women's pleas for help seriously? When are we going to create and enforce laws that protect women from their abusers? How many more nameless stabbing victims and Johanna's do we have to have before we wake up and do something?