‘How much would you endure before you lose your mind?’: Why we need to talk about women who fight back

We don’t like complexity when we talk about violence against women. We prefer it when victims are vulnerable and passive, the crimes against them brazen and straightforward. In a society that is structurally and socially designed to make us blame victims (especially when they’re women), presenting them in these terms elicits empathy and, crucially, credibility. It’s enormously important and helpful, both at a societal and legislative level.

But where does this leave victims who were less passive? Women who, in the face of violence, not only defended themselves but actually fought back. What are we to make of those other kinds of women?

These are the questions posed by Emmy Award-winning journalist and author Elizabeth Flock in her new book, The Furies: Three Women and Their Violent Fight for Justice. In it, she dives into the stories of three real-life women who used violence in the face of violence.

There’s Brittany Smith, a young mother from Stevenson, Alabama, who killed the man she said raped her; Angoori Dahariya, the leader of a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, who is committed to avenging victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo, who is in charge of a thousands-strong all-female militia that fought Isis in Syria. “I spent a long time being