Many women’s stories live in their bodies.
Black women experience intimate partner violence at disproportionately high rates, according to the CDC, yet face barriers to reporting due to fear of housing loss, child welfare involvement, or criminalization of their partners. In Washington State, tens of thousands of domestic violence incidents are reported annually.
A woman in Olympia stayed longer than she should have because leaving meant homelessness. When she finally left, no headlines followed, only peace. Survival does not always look like justice. Sometimes it looks like escape.
Another form of violence is less discussed: maternal health inequity. Black women in the United States are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine document how Black women’s pain is dismissed and symptoms ignored.
A Black mother in Pierce County described labor pains that were minimized until emergency intervention was required. She survived, but the trauma lingered. These birth stories are part of women’s history.
Divorce, too, carries stigma, particularly for Black women socialized to endure. Yet many women leave not because they failed, but because they refused to disappear.
Spoken word artist Arianne True (Seattle) has spoken about healing as nonlinear and communal. Survival, she says, is not the end of the story, it is the bridge.
To Black women who survived violence, childbirth, loss, and rebuilding: your body has carried generations. You are not broken. You are enduring.