At a distance, gender‑based violence can look like a series of isolated incidents. Up close, it’s a culture—one that reaches from homes and rural communities all the way into schools, workplaces, and the highest levels of politics.
In part two of this conversation, trauma therapist and social worker Kristina Fifield joins Alex to dig into the deeper cultural and systemic forces that keep violence in place: from internalized misogyny and survivors not being believed, to risk assessment tools that miss danger because they don’t account for trauma.
Drawing on years of frontline work and her role with the Mass Casualty Commission and Progress and Monitoring Committee, Kristina explains how political rhetoric, social media, and visible misogyny in public office all send a message: people can hold power, cause great harm, and face no real accountability. She connects those messages to what’s happening in classrooms, workplaces, and rural communities—where violence is increasingly normalized, and where under‑resourced systems leave both survivors and those causing harm without meaningful support.
They also unpack why some of the most important work has to happen long before a crisis: in early prevention, in how we design services, and in whether we’re willing to work with people who are using violence—not just those living with its impacts.
They discuss:
Internalized misogyny & women not believing women: How disbelief and judgment from other women can be one of the deepest harms survivors face—and why we still don’t talk about it enough.
Power, privilege, and “respectable” perpetrators: Why people in positions of authority (professionals, community leaders, those in government) are often shielded from scrutiny, even when patterns of coercion and abuse are present.
Risk assessments that miss real danger: The limits of tools like the ODARA and the Jacquelyn Campbell Danger Assessment—and why so many women killed by partners were never designated “high risk.”
The window of tolerance & trauma responses: How shutdown, dissociation, people‑pleasing, and hypervigilance can shape what survivors say (or don’t say) during assessments—and why a “low score” can’t be taken at face value.
When systems mistake survival for safety: What happens when police, hospitals, and community services don’t recognize nervous system dysregulation—and interpret minimization or confusion as a lack of risk.
Coercion hidden inside support systems: How well‑intended programs, like housing benefits or specialized services, can become coercive when survivors are forced to work with specific organizations or follow narrow pathways to qualify.
Working with people who cause harm: Why building shelters and services for survivors isn’t enough on its own, and what it looks like to hold both compassion and accountability when working with those using violence.
Prevention, schools, and standardized responses: How individual principals, teachers, and boards can block or enable gender‑based violence education—and why Kristina believes we need national standards, not just local discretion.
Trauma‑informed spaces in practice: From where someone sits in a room to whether they can step outside or get a snack, Kristina shares how small choices can restore safety, control, and dignity during deeply vulnerable moments.
Throughout the episode, Kristina returns to one core idea. If we don’t understand trauma, we will keep misreading danger. And if we keep leaving responses up to underfunded, piecemeal systems, rural communities and marginalized survivors will remain the most at risk.
The conversation closes by connecting these insights to the One Door project: a purpose‑built, trauma‑informed centre in rural Nova Scotia designed so that women, youth, elders, and gender‑diverse people don’t have to navigate a maze of disconnected services or prove their risk over and over again. Instead, they can walk through a single door and be met by coordinated, wraparound support that sees the full context of their lives.
0:00 – Power, Privilege & Hidden Abuse
1:28 – Internalized Misogyny: When Women Don’t Believe Women
3:41 – “She Deserved It?”: Family Narratives & Rural Harm
6:17 – Political Misogyny, Social Media & Permission for Violence
7:48 – Violence in Schools & Normalized Harm in Institutions
11:17 – Serial Perpetrators & Survivors Erased from the Story
14:35 – Has Anything Really Changed Since the Mass Casualty?
17:54 – High-Risk for Lethality: Why Our Tools Miss So Many Survivors
28:50 – Window of Tolerance: How Trauma Skews Risk Assessments
36:49 – Systemic Coercion, Working with People Who Cause Harm & The Promise of One Door