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| | Being Heard is a Privilege |
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< | My recent reflections on freedom and responsibility came into sharper focus as I read the New York Times article “Who Gets to Kill in Self-Defense?” The author ponders how many of the 12,000 women incarcerated in the U.S. committed murder to protect themselves against years of fear and abuse. While the law is designed to recognize immediate danger, it struggles to account for the slow, cumulative violence of coercion and control in the private sphere. These cases reveal a systemic legal failure to address lived experiences that do not fit neatly within formalistic structures. It is in these passing moments of clarity that I feel most defeated. |
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> | My recent reflections on freedom and responsibility came into sharper focus as I read the New York Times article “Who Gets to Kill in Self-Defense?” The author ponders how many of the 12,000 women incarcerated in the U.S. committed murder to protect themselves against years of fear and abuse. While the law is designed to recognize immediate danger, it struggles to account for the slow, cumulative violence of coercion and control in the private sphere. These cases reveal a systemic legal failure to address lived experiences that do not fit neatly within formalistic structures. It is in such passing moments of clarity that I feel most defeated. |
| | Reimagining Freedom |
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< | As I revisit these words after my conversation with Eben, I am less afraid. My previous reflection on where I stood in this messy process of unlearning and discovering what lawyering meant to me was premature. |
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> | As I revisit these words after my conversation with Eben, I am less afraid. My previous reflection on where I stood in this messy process of unlearning and discovering what lawyering meant was premature. |
| | My academic journey began with a misplaced idea of liberation. I clung to the East’s scripted success and tied knots—stubbornly, but with great care—to show myself I still had a hand in shaping something. I didn’t realize that by working with Sanctuary for Families, applying to a prosecution externship, and questioning how provocation defenses fail to reflect gendered realities of violence, I was already unknotting what once felt like defiance. My true fear lay in taking the first step toward an exit sign; one that is there but not yet touched by light. |
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< | I resisted freedom because its vastness felt both nebulous and crushing. I did not want to confront the unknown. For years, I internalized and moved through my struggles alone. Yet, the resistance was always structured—mimicking power and following paths trodden by men. It is easy to forget that, at a place like Columbia Law, where buzz animates the high-gloss gateway to corporate success, imagining an alternative future requires proactivity—but the action may be as simple as reaching out for guidance. |
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> | I resisted freedom because its vastness felt both nebulous and crushing. I did not want to confront the unknown. For years, I internalized and moved through my struggles alone. Yet, the resistance was always structured—mimicking power and following paths trodden by men. It is easy to forget, at a place like Columbia Law, where buzz animates the high-gloss gateway to corporate success, imagining an alternative future requires proactivity—but this may be as simple as reaching out for guidance. |
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< | I have come to understand that freedom is not always a grand rupture. It can be piecemeal and shared. Eben was the first person to point me in the right direction. My research on faculty, course offerings, guest speakers, non-profit organizations, jury consultants, and trauma-informed counselors have lifted parts of the invisible burden I weighed on myself. Sending emails makes me hopeful. Hopeful that through conversations with people who forged their own paths, I too can carve out a meaningful space within the legal field to best address domestic violence and lived trauma. In the remaining two years, may the exit sign steadily grow brighter and lead me toward courage. |
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> | I've come to understand that freedom is not always a grand rupture. It can be piecemeal and shared. Eben was the first person to point me in the right direction. My research on faculty, course offerings, guest speakers, non-profit organizations, jury consultants, and trauma-informed counselors has lifted parts of the invisible burden I placed on myself. Sending emails makes me hopeful. Hopeful that through conversations with people who forged their own paths, I too can carve out a meaningful space within the legal field to best address domestic violence and lived trauma. In the remaining two years, I trust the exit sign will grow brighter and help me find the courage to choose it. |
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< | Now, I will sign off as Eben had each class—with music. My pick is Billy Joel's "Vienna." |
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> | I am now signing off as Eben had each class—with music. My pick is Billy Joel's "Vienna." |
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The draft is clear and effective, sometimes moving. I think Anita Ford is either given one sentence too few or didn't need to be there at all, and there are one or two other places where a little editorial hard-heartedness should be exercised. But I think the most important route to improvement is to head back into the center of the mystery: Why is freedom a foreign concept when it is also the one you have been seeking all the way along? To resent the world's shaping of the female role for you, to occupy yourself with forms of physical training and discipline designed to make escape possible, to prepare your mind for the need for freedom, to be receptive to the signals in the environment indicating the direction, and then also to be fearful, or—in the usual spasm of high-school exstentialism—sure that people mostly are unsuccessful in resisting the burden of it: how very human, don't you think? |