Lori Day Author

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The Link Between Domestic Violence and Climate Change

What do we do when our only home is dying? When that death is not peaceful or natural, but deliberate, protracted and violent? When those committing the murder will not look in a mirror, but instead, look for excuses and scapegoats?

We can put our fingers in dikes. We can look sideways instead of up, fighting each other over crumbs, allowing dwindling resources to go to the highest bidder or the most brutal thug. We can put inconvenient truths on an ice floe and shove them out to sea. Or, we can recognize the climate emergency as a level of threat requiring us all to heed the better angels of our nature, if they can be located. Read more…

I Am Relieved That I Will Never Be A Grandmother

I am the mother of a 26-year-old daughter, my only child. As one of the early IVF pioneers of the late 80’s and early 90’s, I went through many years of infertility treatment to bring her into the world. Lightning only struck once. When she was four years old, I finally stepped off the infertility treadmill to have a hysterectomy and close that chapter forever. I chose this surgery voluntarily and willingly, knowing I would become a better mother to my daughter once I was released from chronic pain and the compulsion to try for Baby #2 “just one more time.” Read more…

This Woman’s Tragic Murder Catalyzed A Solution To National Epidemic Of Domestic Violence Homicide

If necessity is the mother of invention, this is the woman whose shocking death led to a new approach to ending domestic violence homicide. Her name was Dorothy.

In 2002, Dorothy became a client of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center after fleeing a shelter in Maine to one near her home in Massachusetts. Prior to seeking our services, she had endured almost two decades of severe abuse by her estranged husband that began very early in their relationship and continued during her two pregnancies and throughout her daughters’ childhoods. Read more…

Domestic Violence Homicide Is An Epidemic. Is A Hashtag Required To Capture The Media’s Attention And Our Nation’s Outrage?

American women are in the midst of an unprecedented societal “moment.” #MeToo and #TimesUp shine a light on what women have endured from men throughout history. So why is domestic violence still flying below the radar of our media and our national conscience when one in four women experiences severe physical violence by an intimate partner in her lifetime? When over half of American female homicide victims are murdered by intimate partners? Read more…

Hey Sam Rockwell… Sexual Harassment Is So Much More Than “Bullying”

In an opinion piece for NBC News, Sady Doyle writes, “Sam Rockwell, one of the few men pressed to talk about #MeToo on the red carpet who stars in a movie about the aftermath of a brutal rape in a small town, stammered out a vague answer about the movement that said nothing about sexism: ‘I don’t really know the answer to that. But I suppose the issue is bullying.’ The issue, as a matter of fact, is men — male power, male predators and the men who cover for the predators in their midst or turn a blind eye to the damage they cause.” Read more…

Stop glamourizing the pain of high heels

This is not a photo of my dead grandmother’s feet, but it matches the image I have of hers in my mind. She was a practicing podiatrist in Georgia in the 1940s — one of a handful of female physicians of any sort in that state, a feminist success story in her own way. At just under 4’11”, she wore heels every day of her adult life while treating the disfigured feet of her female patients who did the same. The irony did not escape her, as she self-castigated on this particular topic routinely within earshot. Read more…

How much more could women achieve if they rejected expensive & time-consuming beauty routines?

Riding in the car with my mother the other day, she remarked that I am judgmental of women who care a lot about their appearance. She told me that she wears makeup every day not because she feels she has to, but because it is fun. She explained that Botox and plastic surgery are things that can help women feel good about themselves. “Your graying hair is making you look older,” she said. Yeah, I know… Read more…

Peach

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It has been a while since I wrote my first memorial for Autumn Care & Crossings. In March of 2015, we became one of Dr. Schoenberg’s first clients, needing her assistance to help our 15-year- old cat, Fog, cross the rainbow bridge. She was one of a pair—sisters from a litter of feral kittens born in March of 2000. Read more…

What About the Children? Interrupting the Cycle of Animal Cruelty and Domestic Violence

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When I was a child, I saw a stage production of Oliver Twist. To this day, what sticks with me the most from that early theater experience is one of Dickens’ most vicious characters, Bill Sikes. I remember the scene where Sikes kicked and swore at his cowering dog until the poor creature bit his boot, resulting in Sikes grabbing for a nearby fireplace poker with one hand, and flipping open his pocketknife with the other. Only Fagin’s well-timed entrance allowed the dog to escape. Sikes’ girlfriend Nancy, however, was not so lucky. Sikes later beat her to death for turning on him to protect Oliver. Read more…

The Death Of Tilikum At SeaWorld And Our Own Moral Decay

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How unbearable. Tilikum of Blackfish fame has died at SeaWorld, and I am angry—again—and I am raging on social media—again. So, too, are many others.

The collective outpouring of grief on behalf of a killer whale may strike some as questionable. People wonder: Why do we react with fury and indignation at the suffering of animals when human beings are suffering every day? Read more…

Philanthropy Isn’t Always Sexy: Why Domestic Violence Organizations Deserve Your Support Anyway

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October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and we need to discuss some numbers.

From September 11, 2001, to June 6, 2012, more American women were killed by intimate partners than all of the victims of 9/11 plus all of the American military fatalities due to the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined. The numbers aren’t even close. According to the FBI, 11,766 women lost their lives to domestic violence during the years that 6,614 citizens and troops were killed in terror attacks and war. Read more…

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