And Sometimes They Kill You: Confronting the Epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence by Pamela Cross

A Non-Fiction Review by Emily Weedon

Today, November 01, on the first day of Woman Abuse Prevention Month, the CBC reports a 270% increase in women in the Peel region seeking help from agencies committed to helping survivors of intimate partner violence.

In Peel last year, violence against women was deemed an epidemic. Pamela Cross’s jarringly titled And Sometimes They Kill You is a cleared-eyed overview of where we are and how we got here from a seasoned professional with decades of experience working on the front lines of Intimate Partner Violence which predominantly, overwhelmingly and critically impacts women.

Women’s rights and focus on women’s issues have lost ground in North America and worldwide. A friend of a friend scoffed recently “Women’s rights? What? They’re equal now. They won.” Yet on issues of pay scale, access to daycare, access to health geared to their bodies, and so many more issues, women are still not “equal”… far from it. Despite making up half the world’s population we still come second after men in so many respects, despite every human still needing a mother to exist. And most heartbreaking of all, the one place where a human hopes to be safe, in a domestic partnership, remains one of the most dangerous places for women. Pamela Cross’s title comes out swinging and reminds us of the famous Atwood aphorism: “What do men fear? Being laughed at. Women? Being killed.”

Cross’s introduction which describes her critical need and organized fight for daycare so that she could simply start her academic and working life underpins it. Having kids but no daycare: a women’s problem. A society that is not going to help individual women out when they are trying to be productive members is not surprisingly the same one that seems to value the literal lives of girls and women less in that the astonishing statistics of violence against women goes on. And on. And on.

Cross’s passionate voice and compassionate soul burn her words into the page. Her sense of justice likewise rings out in each word. She outlines issues at play in underfunded agencies which create a patchwork of help for women seeking assistance through the legal system. It is a necessary read for any woman embarking on a separation who needs to understand that what is true for Criminal Law does not apply to Family Law and that frequently women find themselves the vulnerable, disempowered pawns within a system which is not geared to their needs. She highlights the many ways that servicing the real and present problems of women in crisis due to violence must nevertheless continue parenting with abusers and collaborating with perpetrators of violence because we live in a society that believes women are “already equal” and that all “good” parents will naturally put their “quarrels” aside to look after the needs of the children first instead of gaslighting, or using the legal system itself as a tool of coercive control.

This is a procedural book, sometimes dryly technical, a blow-by-blow by someone who has swum in these waters a long time and understands how slowly change comes. Cross calls for accountability. Given how widely known violence against women is, through time and culture - it just feels maddening that, as with issues like mental health in society - there is a consensus something must be done and yet no meaningful action happens.

Cross explains the grave funding difficulties faced by organizations that help women affected by violence and the fact that funding models rarely extend beyond year-long efforts which can only provide band-aid help on an individual basis rather than meeting the problems as they are - pervasive, entrenched - across sexual violence and partner based violence. Board turnover, short-term funding and other structural issues plague efforts to provide ongoing help that could make lasting change. “Largely because of the funding challenges we have allowed ourselves to become a sector instead of a movement.”

The author points out several times that older women are not comfortable in the environment of shelters. I would add that I’m not sure which person is. Family have personalities and individual rhythms. Expecting families to live comfortably in a temporary, congregate setting asks a lot of a woman and her young children with their needs. Add in mental health issues for the woman or her children, disabilities or illness. Living with strangers can feel more intimidating than living with “the devil you know” which leads back to the age-old conundrum: why do women remain with abusive partners? It is frankly because there is nowhere else appealing to turn. Not for nothing did Virginia Woolfe talk about “a room of one’s own”

Cross discusses as well the problem of declining numbers of leadership in the movement based partly on a failure to bring in new leadership and the compounding fact that the work is hard, pays poorly and makes outsized demands on the people doing it.

In Chapter 4 “The Law” a ‘lofty’ title by Cross’s own assessment because “it reflects the status and power given to the law by people who don’t live inside it the way [she] does, especially people who turn to it when they are at their most vulnerable. To them, it is a mighty, impenetrable force, scary, unknowable, with the power to wreak havoc on their already troubled lived.”

Cross makes an argument for criminalizing coercive control, which has been shown to be a predator of homicide. She argues it would give a new tool to police and crown attorneys in the management of intimate partner violence. It would make the issue of coercive control which includes financial abuse and social isolation, more visible to society and make a statement that it is not acceptable behaviour. I wonder though, in a world where murder and sex assault and intimate partner assault are already indefensible acts, yet happen with distressing frequency, would adding more criminal laws really change anything for the numbers of women who are victimized by intimate partners?

Cross makes counterarguments, the most salient of them that incarceration, which is an additional cost society would have to bear, has little evidence to show that it is helpful as well as the fact that, given that coercive control is difficult to define, it will - boots on the ground - be difficult for police to lay charges which stick. “How” she asks “is fear proven?” Worse still, an argument that will ring true to those of us who have been called bitches when we were assertive: “Women who are abrasive and argumentative, who are aggressive towards their abuser for any reason (including self-defence), or otherwise fail to conform to traditional female gender roles are imperfect victims.” In other words, victims whose reality does not paint a picture that prosecutors can readily use to swing courts to a reasonable doubt finding.

Cross writes: “As a woman said to me, after she called 911 because she wanted police to calm her husband down after he had assaulted her: “I didn’t want him charged. Now what am I supposed to do? When they took him away he had the car keys and the bank card in his pocket. It’s Friday. Nothing is going to happen until Monday and I’ve got no money and no way to take the kids to their activities.” This example perfectly captures for me the way the system can harm while trying to help.

In criminal law, prosecution is conducted on behalf of all of us, not the individual woman. This is a bitter pill to swallow when one has been a victim, as I have personally experienced. The sense of unreality that you are only a witness for the state about a crime against the state makes for a Kafkaesque experience. But it is also the underpinning of law in Western society, lest we resort to an eye for an eye, that enshrining of retribution. Justice is blind, and in many ways bureaucratic, bland and leaves all parties involved in a crime feeling as though they were not served. Society is served. What the Crown deems worthy to pursue or prosecute, or plea bargain or drop is their call, and not the call of the victim. This can make a victim feel poignantly re-victimized. The least powerful person in a dynamic that results in violence looks to the society for justice and finds that they are still the least powerful person.

Sometimes They Kill You points out that the Culleton, Kuzyk & Warmerdam Inquest called for a review of the mandatory charging framework. It’s so important to be able to look at these kinds of issues, not least because while mandatory charging can be of use in some cases, it can be an impediment in others. Sometimes pressing the button on releasing charges against an intimate partner can lead to worse situations, and ones that happen outside the courtroom. Cross argues that we critically, imminently need change to mandatory charging.

Cross’s densely informative book demystifies law, and inquests to talk about the struggle for a more just and violence-free society for women from her position ensconced within the law. She delves into the Gordian knot made up of law, society, and overlapping societal ills and issues that add to the complex, thorny, and tragically so often deadly arena of women’s safety. Facing a deeply compounded issue, one proactive step that Cross suggests we can take is to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic. It is a start that those who have lost their lives deserve be taken. Necessary reading.

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About the Author

Pamela Cross is a feminist lawyer who works in the gender-based violence movement. Pamela brings an intersectional feminist analysis to her work as a researcher, writer, and educator, which is focused on the intersections between gender-based violence, and particularly intimate partner violence, and Canadian legal systems. She has worked with a wide range of women’s equality and gender-based violence organizations across Canada, sits on Ontario’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, and is a frequent media commentator on these issues. Pamela has a long history as a political activist, for which she boasts a healthy criminal record. She lives in Kingston, Ontario with her partner and their cat.

About the Reviewer

Emily Weedon is a CSA award-winning screenwriter and author of the dystopian debut Autokrator, with Cormorant Books. Her forthcoming novel Hemo Sapiens will be published in September 2025, with Dundurn Press.

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Between the Lines (Nov. 26 2024)

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1771136618

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1771136617