She Ran: The Media and the Public Response to Domestic Violence
$18.99-
Through the lens of a tragic 1975 murder and a piercing critique of media narratives, Ann Rauhala brings intimate partner violence out of the shadows.
Almost every other day, a woman in Canada is murdered by her partner. Domestic violence kills as many as 187 women each year while terrorizing or maiming untold thousands, including children and bystanders. Gender-related homicide of women and girls rose by 14 percent between 2020 and 2021, reaching its highest level since 2017. It is the most predictable category of murder, and yet too few of us know how this happens or how insidiously it affects everyone.
Part memoir, part investigative journalism, She Ran: The Media and the Public Response to Domestic Violence explores how news media have helped perpetuate or correct myths surrounding intimate partner violence (IPV). Challenging the idea that IPV is simply an “isolated incident,” author and journalist Ann Rauhala highlights its reality as a widespread crisis, making the case that the media — and the public — can and should help lead the way in prevention.
Rauhala reviews her experiences as an editor and women’s issues reporter for The Globe and Mail, her responsibilities as a journalism professor, her circumstances as a survivor of IPV, and her grief over the loss of her best friend. Dissecting media and public misconceptions, failures in legal and economic systems, and stigmas about IPV, Rauhala offers a vital perspective that calls for deeper awareness, wider accountability, and greater public commitment to confront this violence.
Available October 27, 2026. PRE-ORDER NOW!
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Ann Rauhala is a seasoned journalist and was among the first to cover the women’s issues beat at The Globe and Mail. She was also a correspondent for CBC Television and a journalism professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her scholarly research examined how issues affecting women are represented in media. She lives in Toronto, ON.
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Published: October 2026
ISBN: 9781770418240
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Pages: 344
Reviews
“Once I picked up Ann Rauhala’s She Ran, it was hard to put down. I devoured this sharp, impassioned book over two days, carving out any minutes I could to get in a few more pages. I was hooked because Rauhala is unflinching in taking us on a journey to the heart of a dark, insidious issue that pierced the tight-knit community of her youth and is still quietly gnawing at society. Even if you believe you have never experienced intimate partner violence, she will make you rethink relationships, gestures you wrote off as minor transgressions and everything in between. She will make you realize how intimate partner violence has likely wormed its way into your friend’s, neighbour’s or colleague’s home and maybe even your own. Then, she will build a fire in you, making you want to do whatever you can to spur change, to save lives.” — Tara Deschamps, journalist at the Canadian Press
“Ann Rauhala has written an exceptionally important and moving book about the impact of intimate partner violence. She Ran is both a personal story of tragedy and a deeply reported investigation into a crisis that deserves our undivided attention. It's a book that should be passed from hand to hand. ” — Elizabeth Renzetti, author of What She Said
“Equal parts forensic reckoning, love letter and survival guide, She Ran asks not just how intimate partner violence happens, but why — and does it with grief, hope and humor all at once. Ann Rauhala alarms, inspires and somehow delights, leaving no room for excuses, inaction or apathy. She Ran belongs in every home, every classroom, in this country.” — Tamara Cherry, author of The Trauma Beat
“In She Ran, seasoned journalist Ann Rauhala shares an evocative narrative that invites the reader into her own lingering trauma over a friend’s senseless murder. Almost 50 years later, she delves into the missed warning signs that could have prevented her friend from being killed by an ex-boyfriend. Rauhala uses this cautionary tale to research the disturbing realities of intimate partner violence. Drawing on more than five decades of material, she critiques society’s failures to keep every IPV victim front-page news rather than a dismissal as just a private domestic matter. A powerful read that helps raise public awareness about why IPV is an epidemic.” — Sherri Aikenhead, author of Mommy Don’t and co-author of The First Survivor
“She Ran begins in 1975 with what seemed to then-21-year-old Ann Rauhala like the inexplicable murder of one of her best friends by her partner, who then killed himself. In the decades that followed, Rauhala made it her ‘mission’ — as a reporter, an editor and a journalism instructor — to make sense not only of her friend’s murder but also of the continuing epidemic of intimate partner violence and femicide in Canada. Part memoir, part investigative journalism, She Ran is a must-read that challenges myths, calls out failures in our legal and media institutions and suggests some of what needs to be done to combat this ongoing crisis.” — Stephen Kimber, author of NOT GUILTY: The Trial of Gerald Regan