Violence Against Women Is the New Pop Culture.

Where Empathy Dies and the Algorithm Eats the Body

We don’t just scroll past women’s pain anymore; we consume it. We dissect it, debate it, meme it, and monetise it. Abuse isn’t hidden in the shadows; it’s algorithm-approved. In an age where everything’s content, violence against women has become viral and disturbingly normalised.

On TikTok, you’ll find think pieces on why Megan deserved it. On livestreams, women like Halle Bailey are mocked in real-time for choosing peace over toxic relationships. Despite picture and video evidence, bruised faces, and months of silence finally broken, Cassie Fine’s trauma is still up for public vote, as if the courtroom of social media trumps the courtroom of law.

This isn’t just public scrutiny; it’s public sport, their pain being an automatic initiation of discourse and debate like a moth drawn to a scorching flame. And somehow, the abuser often walks away with a loyal, devoted, spineless fan base, while the survivor gets fed to the wolves.

Empathy is scarce.

Alarmingly scarce.

Instead, it’s replaced with individuals who gauge numerous cases and decide they want to be ‘unbiased’ about the situation.

“Oh, but we haven’t seen both sides of the story.”

“She could be lying.”

“She‘s trying to get a cheque off him.”

It’s like all of a sudden, when a woman decides to come out about her story, everyone wants to be rational.

I didn’t know so many people were pining for a judicial degree.

The gag is, they’re not.

They just can’t fathom that their fav pop culture icon, streamer or any person of social relevancy would dare to lay their hands on a woman, right?

Wrong! Because you could quite literally tattoo the facts on their forehead, and they’d still call it a conspiracy.

Because loyalty to men always seems to outweigh empathy for women.

The algorithm doesn’t give a damn about justice; if anything, it recoils at the sight of it. It cares about clicks, comments, and chaos. Every time a woman speaks, it’s not her story that goes viral; it’s the heaps of scrutiny underneath it. The quote-tweets, the mockery, the stitched videos dissecting her trauma for entertainment. Survivors are forced to relive their abuse in 4K just so the timeline can decide if it was ‘valid’ enough.

For every high-profile abuse case, be it Cassie, Halle, Megan, and the multiple other women who have suffered through this, there’s a girl sitting in her bedroom who knows exactly what it’s like to be hurt by someone and then be doubted into silence. When the world mocks these women, debates their worthiness, or nitpicks their stories for plot holes, it doesn’t just invalidate them. It gaslights everyone watching who’s ever been through the same thing.

What people forget is that the internet is never just watching; it’s teaching. And right now, it’s teaching girls that if you speak up, you’ll be put on trial, an internet cross-examination you didn’t ask for, only to be ripped to shreds by makeshift lawyers. You’ll be called crazy. Gold digger. Clout chaser. That maybe you should’ve just kept quiet, because no one’s going to believe you anyway.

And then there’s the crowd that hides behind “let’s wait for the facts”. The fake fair ones. The judicial degree LARPers. On the surface, it sounds like a rational thing to say. But in practice? It’s a tool of dismissal. A soft ‘no’ dressed up in logic. Because what they really mean is, “I don’t want to believe this, so give me more time to justify ignoring it.”

The demand for “more evidence” is rarely ever about facts. It’s about comfort. People don’t want to confront the possibility that someone they like, or someone like them, is capable of violence. So they stall. Delay. Pretend to be neutral. But neutrality in the face of abuse isn’t moral high ground; it’s complicity in disguise.

Let’s talk about Megan Thee Stallion specifically because her case is the perfect mirror held up to this delusional culture of selective protection and fast-tracked male redemption.

She got shot. Said she got shot. Medical records said she got shot. Police reports said she got shot. Tory was convicted. In a literal court of law. But here we are, years later, and the internet is still playing detective, still throwing doubt on her name like it’s a trending sound.

Now that Kelsey’s ex-bodyguard has said something allegedly implicating her, it’s like Megan’s trauma has been thrown into the ring all over again, as if her testimony, blood loss, and emotional breakdown on the stand suddenly became void. These people were never waiting for facts. They were waiting for any excuse to call her a liar. To invalidate her pain. To let Tory back into their playlists guilt-free.

Not that there was any guilt to begin with.

Why do people treat this unverified story as gospel but ignore actual medical reports, texts, and court testimony? Because the truth is boring when it doesn’t match the narrative people want to believe. A conviction in a courtroom, doctors’ records confirming a gunshot wound, and Tory’s own apology texts don’t hit as hard on the media’s new “plot twist”.

And in all honesty, it’s not just men. Women are in the comments, too. Sharing the same conspiracy theories, questioning the same victims, and defending the same abusers. They’ve been fed the same media, marinated in the same culture that teaches them to doubt other women before they even blink. Internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug, and a lot of people are addicted.

“She’s doing too much”, “She’s embarrassing herself”, or “I wouldn’t have handled it like that”, as if survival has a script. As if trauma has to be palatable to be believed. And so, these women play gatekeepers of pain. Not because they’re heartless, but because they’ve been taught that being believed is a luxury, and only the most “perfect” victims deserve it.

If you’re wondering what the ‘‘perfect’’ victim is, the myth of the “perfect victim” is everywhere. She’s quiet. She cries, but not too much. She never posts thirst traps. She doesn’t clap back. She’s gracious. Forgiving. Polite. She speaks when spoken to, never too soon, and not on Instagram Live. She is the ideal balance of tragic and tame enough pain to be pitied, but not enough rage to make anyone uncomfortable.

Subconsciously, this is the bar women are forced to meet just to be believed. And even then, it might not be enough.

It feels like betrayal, but it’s really fear. Fear of being seen as “that girl”. Fear of being vulnerable. Fear of admitting that, deep down, we’ve all been conditioned to side-eye a woman’s pain unless it’s neat, tiny, and tragic enough to pass the vibe check.

So when a woman shows up angry, loud, or imperfect, she’s suddenly “difficult to support”. Suddenly, her entire worth as a victim is on trial. Because society didn’t teach us to see survivors as human, it taught us to see them as stories with rules. And the moment they break character, we switch the channel.

That’s the sinister thing about internalised misogyny; it convinces women that they’re being critical when they’re just echoing the same dismissals that hurt them. It turns us into unwilling gatekeepers, measuring each other’s pain through standards we never agreed to but somehow still uphold.

Because if only some victims get empathy, then that empathy was never real to begin with. It was just a performance.

It’s safer to believe her.

Because the chance that she’s lying? Small.
But the chance that she could’ve died? Very real. Very possible. Very common.

We act like believing women is some irreversible sin, like it’s more dangerous to be wrong about a man’s reputation than it is to be right about a woman’s safety. But statistically, the real risk isn’t in overreacting; it’s in hesitating. It’s in waiting for "enough proof" until that proof is a body.

Why do we shame the women who speak when we’d be wearing their names on T-shirts if they hadn’t?
Dragging survivors we’d be memorialising if they never got the chance to survive?

If he can hit you, he can kill you. That’s not hyperbole; that’s the pipeline. From "he just shoved me once" to "they found her body" is a route too many women know by heart.

I will never be sorry for believing any of these women first

and continuing to do so.
That’s not bias. That’s harm reduction. That’s odds; that’s math.
And until society stops gambling with women’s lives for the sake of men’s egos, I’ll choose the side that doesn’t end in an obituary.

Because empathy might be uncomfortable.
But regret?

Regret buries people.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be wrong for believing a woman than be late to the story where she doesn’t survive it.

Because you can’t quote-tweet a coffin.
And once she’s gone, it’s too late to say, “Maybe she was telling the truth.”