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When women and girls are harmed, why does so much of the conversation become about what the man stands to lose?
Have you ever noticed how quickly people can find compassion for a man once he starts facing consequences?
A woman reports sexual harassment at work. Suddenly, everybody is worried about his career.
A girl reports that a popular athlete sexually assaulted her. People start talking about his scholarship, his promising future, and how hard he’s worked.
A woman leaves an abusive husband. Relatives begin worrying about how lonely he must be.
A father murders his wife and children. News reports tell us he had recently lost his job, was struggling financially, or was having trouble with his marriage.
And there it is again.
Somehow, we find ourselves discussing what happened to him.
Meanwhile, women and girls are left carrying what happened because of him.
I call this disproportionate sympathy.
It is what happens when concern for the person who caused harm, or is accused of causing harm, becomes so consuming that the people harmed are pushed to the edges of the story.
And once you begin recognizing it, you may notice it almost everywhere.
His Future Becomes the Emergency
Imagine a teenage girl reporting sexual assault by a boy who is considered a star athlete.
She may be frightened. She may have trouble sleeping. She may dread returning to school.
But the adults around her begin talking about the boy’s future.
What if he loses his scholarship?
What if he cannot play football?
What if colleges find out?
What if this follows him for the rest of his life?
Those are questions people may have about the consequences of an allegation. Fair investigations are essential, and accusations alone do not establish guilt.
But where is the same concern for the girl’s future?
What if she cannot concentrate in class?
What if she stops participating in activities she once loved?
What if classmates harass her for reporting?
What if she transfers schools because she no longer feels safe?
Why is his possible loss of opportunity treated as a tragedy while her actual loss of safety struggles to receive the same attention?
A girl’s education is not less valuable than a boy’s athletic career.
Her future deserves consideration, too.
Why Disproportionate Sympathy Is So Dangerous
It changes what communities consider urgent.
Instead of asking how to protect a girl who reported abuse, people worry about protecting a boy’s reputation.
Instead of asking whether a woman can safely leave her marriage, relatives worry about her husband’s loneliness.
Instead of asking how a workplace failed to protect an employee, leadership worries about losing a valuable executive.
And instead of examining the choices of a man who murdered his family, public discussion can become absorbed in the disappointments he experienced beforehand.
These responses can discourage reporting, increase isolation, and teach women and girls that other people’s reputations and feelings will be given priority over their safety.
That is a terrible lesson for a child to learn.
And it is an exhausting lesson for a Survivor to keep encountering.
We Can Care About Fairness Without Abandoning Women and Girls
Let me be clear about something.
People accused of wrongdoing deserve fair procedures. Evidence matters. False allegations can cause serious harm. Investigations should be impartial.
But none of those principles requires treating the person who reports abuse as an aggressor.
A woman asking for protection is not automatically attacking somebody.
A girl disclosing sexual assault is not responsible for protecting the accused boy’s future.
A Survivor refusing contact is not required to make the person who harmed her feel better about the consequences.
And when violence has been established, accountability is not cruelty simply because the person responsible finds it painful.
Fairness does not require us to distribute sympathy according to who has the most impressive reputation, the most powerful friends, or the loudest supporters.
It requires us to examine what happened and respond proportionately.
Five Questions That Bring the Victims Back Into Focus
The next time you hear a story about abuse, sexual violence, or serious boundary violations, pay attention to where the sympathy goes.
Ask yourself:
- Whose suffering is being described in the greatest detail?
- Are we discussing the harm done to the woman or girl, or mainly what the accused person stands to lose?
- Who had the power to threaten, control, punish, or escape?
- Are someone’s hardships being used to explain their conduct or excuse it?
- Would we describe the situation differently if we centered the person who was harmed?
These questions do not replace evidence or investigation.
They help us recognize when our attention has been pulled away from the people most affected.
And sometimes, simply asking them changes the entire conversation.
To the Survivor Who Was Asked to Feel Sorry for the Person Who Hurt Her
I want to leave you with something.
You may have been told about his difficult childhood.
His stress.
His loneliness.
His fears.
His career.
His family.
His potential.
Perhaps you understood all of it. Perhaps you spent years trying to understand him.
But somewhere in all that understanding, I hope somebody remembered to ask about you.
What did you lose?
What did you need?
What frightened you?
What would have helped you feel safe?
What might your life have looked like if somebody had intervened sooner?
Those questions deserve room, too.
You can understand another person’s hardships without accepting responsibility for their harmful choices.
You can recognize their humanity without sacrificing your own.
And you can refuse to make your suffering smaller so that other people can feel more comfortable discussing theirs.
Compassion is not supposed to disappear when it reaches the woman or girl who was harmed.
We have spent enough time worrying about whether accountability will ruin the lives of people who cause harm.
It is time to give serious attention to the lives that abuse and violence have already disrupted, diminished, or ended.
Because sympathy without proportion can become another way of looking away.
And women and girls deserve better than that.
Further Reading and Resources
- National Domestic Violence Hotline — Support, safety planning, and education about domestic abuse.
- RAINN — Sexual assault education and confidential Survivor support.
- National Sexual Violence Resource Center — Research, prevention resources, and education about sexual violence.
- CDC: Intimate Partner Violence Prevention — Public health information on intimate partner violence and prevention.
