My Bestie Was Unalived in 1990.

In 1990, my best friend was unalived by a 25-year-old man. She was barely 20. He beat her so savagely with a baseball bat that blood and brain matter touched the ceiling of her 18 foot loft. That’s the image I still carry.

At first, we all blamed her fiancé. He was abusive, angry, and controlling. So of course we thought it was him. We alienated him. Shut him out. He lost his fiancée and all his friends in one horrifying moment. But it wasn’t him. It was her neighbor. Just a weak man that was obsessed with her. And yeah… if you don’t want to be accused of unaliving someone, maybe don’t beat your partner

Here’s what still makes my blood boil. The man child who did it begged the judge for leniency. Because he “had his whole life ahead of him.” Fricking narcissists! You know what the judge said? He said it was one of the most brutal cases he had ever seen. Then he gave him the maximum sentence allowed by law at the time: 15 years. That was it. That’s what her life was worth. Meanwhile, that guy is currently out. He got out when he was 40, and he brutalized the family by appealing every chance he got, and forcing them to relive the horror.

And now here’s the part that connects the dots:

90% of people who commit gRape or redrum like this are men. And in 1990, only about 6% of Congress were women. So let’s do the math. Men make the laws. Men enforce the laws. And men were giving other men a slap on the wrist for brutalizing women. Fifteen years??? That’s IT!

This is why women’s rights still matter. This is why representation matters. This is why we fight. Because someone has to. Not every man is the problem. But the ones who are? They count on the rest of you staying quiet.