We frequently see headlines about women killing their abusers, taking justice into their own hands, and being criminalized for it. But how often do we ask ourselves why this happens?
Journalist Elizabeth Flock asks the question – and searches for answers – in The Furies: Women, Vengeance and Justice (HarperCollins, 2024), which explores women’s “stories that live in the shadows” and “that people don’t often hear,” as Flock puts it.
The book centers specifically around three compelling and complicated women. They are: Brittany Smith, residing in Alabama, who killed the man who raped her; Angoori, the vigilante founder of a gang who sees to bring justice to victims of abuse; and Cicek, a woman of Kurdish descent fighting for the YPJ, which is an all-female militia involved in the Syrian civil war.
The book’s title references the ancient Greek Furies – Alecto, Megaera and Tisphone – who were goddesses of vengeance and retribution. Flock explains that there are “elements of all three women in all three furies”, but at the same time, each one aligns more closely to a specific fury.
Cicek, who is relentlessly fighting even after her retirement, reminds her of Alecto, known for her unceasing anger: “She will always in her mind be fighting this battle for women, for the Kurds. She is someone who never stops.” Angoori emulates Megaera, known as the Grudging, for her jealous rage: “She is kind of begrudging all of the men in her community.”
And though Flock holds firm that Brittany Smith’s actions were self-defense, if she were to pick a parallel to Tisiphone, who is known for wreaking vengeful destruction, it would be Smith. Flock’s account of Smith’s story explores the lifetime of abuse she suffered. “I think that’s something the criminal justice system often fails to do,” says Flock. Instead, it looks methodically for proof to evaluate whether a victim’s actions meet the criteria for self-defense.
Flock sees Smith’s story as an example of how self-defense is not always so simple. Flock has delivered lectures to New Jersey judges about it, urging them to “consider not just a single point in time but a whole history.” This approach has complications, as it requires “a lot more time and energy”, but it is crucial for victims of domestic and sexual violence.
In her book, Flock cites the work of Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie, who coined the term “ideal victim”. The ideal victim is one who is “weak, doing something respectable, in a place they couldn’t be blamed for being, and hurt by a big and bad, unknown offender”. Flock’s three “furies”, of course, do not meet the standard of ideal victim. Flock conducted her interviews and research over years, which helped her appreciate just how pervasive the un-ideal complications of these women were. “Whether it’s Greek mythology or anywhere else in the world, these stories are not about gentle women”, she explains. As one example, Ovid’s Medusa, known in ancient stories for her hair made of venomous snakes and her gaze that turned onlookers to stone, was given these attributes as punishment for being raped – a part of her story which is conveniently excluded from the core narrative. “I think it’s interesting,” notes Flock, “that women who fought back have always been portrayed as super-complicated – unapologetically so –and taking matters into their own hands, no matter what that looks like.”
Flock initially started her career doing “quick hit and fast blog posts” with a “quick turnaround.” Realizing this was not her calling, she shifted to the opposite extreme: immersion journalism. Content with that decision, she affirms that “it’s essential to spend the time, especially in a world where we are scrolling and clicking and scanning and not really able to sit with things for a while.” She credits this approach for the success of the book. Since her subjects were complicated, she could not possibly have done justice to their stories if she had spent only a short time interviewing them. Instead, the result would be a “two-dimensional version of their story” which is distant from the truth. For example, Cicek’s story could have been glamourized: “Look at these sexy women, holding kalashnikovs and killing these terrorists,” says Flock with exaggerated emphasis. Immersion journalism enabled her to “get into the complications of all three women, the cultures they were brought up in, and what they are dealing with.”
Immersion journalism also helped Flock to demystify the stories and personas around the three women. She had started the project with “rose colored glasses” but was able to see past Cicek’s tales of bravado to understand them as a veiled response to severe trauma from losing close friends and her commander Sosin. And instead of cherry-picking the tales of bravery, Flock presents the full account, which allows the reader to come to their conclusion in the same way Flock did: “I tried to mimic for the reader that experience I had – which was that you are kind of buying into her bravado”. This gradual untangling of the stories is further complicated when we learn that Cicek was essentially recruited as a child soldier: “The story of the Kurds and the YPJ is complicated, because there is a lot of propaganda coming from Öcalan,” Flock notes.
Needless to say, writing The Furies was no easy feat. While Flock has not personally experienced the level of violence experienced by the subjects of the book, there is “secondary trauma, and that’s very real.” For anyone who engages in this line of work – doctors, social workers or journalists – the stress inevitably compounds. For Flock, this manifested as fatigue and chronic pain. “I used to be a workaholic who spent all my time doing this kind of work”, she says, even doing research on violence right up until she went to sleep. Nowadays, Flock is much more protective of her boundaries: “I do a much better job of getting out in nature with my baby and being present to the world and the beauty in it, in addition to all of the darker things I write about.”
Flock is already at work on her next book. Similar to The Furies, its focus is women fighting – though these women are fighting for the environment. Flock’s inspiration is simple: “So many people are fighting back for the environment, around the world, and so many of them are women.” And being a new mother has heightened her awareness of “the importance of protecting our world” and women “also creating life ourselves.”
Flock is appearing with author Sarah Weinman in a panel discussion at the MOTIVE Crime & Mystery Festival at Harbourfront Centre on June 8. One of the genres featured at MOTIVE is true crime, about which Flock notes drily, “So much of true crime ends up with women being dead.” In this panel, however, Flock and Weinman will examine the other side of the story: “the women who survived, women with agency. It’s important to understand true crime from that perspective, as well!”
The panel, Resilience Rewritten: Women’s Stories of Justice and Survival, will be held at MOTIVE, on June 8, from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm. Visit festivalofauthors.ca to reserve passes.
© Pritha Tiffany Patwary, SesayArts Magazine, 2024
