Key Facts:
- A pattern exists where women's responses to harm are scrutinised more than the harmful behaviour itself
- Common questions like Why didn't she leave? shift accountability away from perpetrators and onto victims
- This framing is prevalent in private conversations, media reporting, and court narratives
- Through her platform She Writes Life, Rodriguez explores how responsibility is redirected onto women in situations beyond their control
- Rodriguez advocates for examining how post-incident questions shape understanding of domestic violence and accountability
Latoya Rodriguez is drawing attention to a pattern that continues to shape how women's experiences are discussed after harm occurs, and how quickly accountability shifts away from the behaviour itself.
In the aftermath of domestic violence, coercion, or breaches of consent, the same line of questioning tends to follow. Why did she stay? Why didn't she leave sooner? Why didn't she recognise the signs?
These questions are often framed as concern, but they carry an assumption that the explanation lies within the woman's response. Her decisions are analysed, her timeline is examined, and her behaviour is scrutinised in detail, while the original actions are not often given the same level of interrogation.
Rodriguez says this pattern is so familiar it often goes unnoticed.
"We move very quickly to understanding her choices," she says. "We are much slower to ask why someone felt entitled to behave that way, or why they felt safe enough to do it."
This framing extends beyond private conversations. It appears in media reporting, in court narratives, and in the way stories are discussed publicly. Coverage will often detail what a woman did, where she went, or how she responded, while offering less examination of repeated behaviour or the conditions that allowed it.
Recent reporting has brought this into sharper focus. A CNN investigation in March exposed online networks where men were sharing advice on how to drug and sexually assault their partners, treating abuse as something that could be learned, refined and concealed.
Rodriguez says stories like this are confronting, but not surprising.
"The behaviour is extreme, but the thinking behind it isn't unfamiliar," she says. "When something like this comes out, we react to the scale of it. We don't always look at the everyday attitudes that sit underneath it."
The result is a consistent shift in where accountability sits.
Through her platform and podcast She Writes Life, Rodriguez writes and speaks about the patterns women recognise but often struggle to articulate. Her work explores how responsibility is frequently redirected back onto women, even in situations where they were not the ones in control.
What changes is not whether accountability exists, but where it is directed.
"When the first instinct is to analyse her response instead of his behaviour, you can see where the weight is being carried," Latoya says.
Rodriguez's perspective is shaped by her own lived experience, including domestic violence, self-harm and the long process of rebuilding self-trust. Rather than treating those experiences as isolated, her work connects them to broader cultural patterns that influence how women interpret what they have lived through.
As May marks Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month, Rodriguez believes the conversation needs to extend beyond awareness of harm and into how that harm is understood.
"The questions we ask after something happens are not neutral," she says. "They shape how the situation is understood, and who is expected to carry it."
She is currently writing a book that expands on these themes, exploring modern relationship dynamics, emotional labour and the expectations placed on women to manage both their own responses and the behaviour of others. The project is in development, with publishing discussions underway.
Rodriguez believes that paying closer attention to those questions is where the shift begins, not by offering solutions, but by recognising where accountability is being directed in the first place.
About us:
About: Latoya Rodriguez is a writer and the voice behind She Writes Life, a platform known for its candid writing on relationships, identity and social patterns. Her work and podcast explores emotional labour, relationship conditioning and the expectations placed on women, grounded in lived experience.
