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In Plain Sight: How the Epistemology of Ignorance Normalizes Gender-Based Violence
In Plain Sight is an unflinching examination of how gender-based violence persists through cultural, legal, and institutional forms of willful ignorance. Drawing on philosopher Charles W. Mills’s framework of the epistemology of ignorance, this book exposes the mechanisms by which society turns away from the realities of violence against women and girls, rendering their experiences dismissed, denied, and erased.
Blending philosophical analysis, poetry, and narrative, Mary Simmerling interrogates the narratives that distort women’s accounts of harm and the structural forces that sustain them. Across essays and poems, she demonstrates how language, omission, and strategic ignorance normalize predatory behaviours, protect perpetrators, and silence victims. Through this critical lens, she makes visible the everyday forms of violence that have long remained hidden in plain sight.
Both an analytic inquiry and a call for recognition grounded in lived experience, In Plain Sight offers an alternative to the cultural and institutional frameworks that obscure the truth. It asks what becomes possible when we refuse to look away and insists on a language adequate to the harms women have endured.
Blending philosophical analysis, poetry, and narrative, Mary Simmerling interrogates the narratives that distort women’s accounts of harm and the structural forces that sustain them. Across essays and poems, she demonstrates how language, omission, and strategic ignorance normalize predatory behaviours, protect perpetrators, and silence victims. Through this critical lens, she makes visible the everyday forms of violence that have long remained hidden in plain sight.
Both an analytic inquiry and a call for recognition grounded in lived experience, In Plain Sight offers an alternative to the cultural and institutional frameworks that obscure the truth. It asks what becomes possible when we refuse to look away and insists on a language adequate to the harms women have endured.
96 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 7, 2025
About the author
Mary Simmerling
8 books8 followersI am a poet, scholar, and activist dedicated to advancing social justice, ending violence, and healing trauma. I lead writing workshops with survivors of gender-based and sexual violence and trauma, as well as caregivers and people with lived experiences of grief. I am committed to listening to, nurturing, and freeing silenced voices and amplifying voices of rebellion, reclamation, and resistance.
My interests include applied ethics, social justice, psychology, trauma recovery, and harnessing the healing powers of the creative self through creative writing and art. I have a diverse yet complementary background in fine art, philosophy, social justice, psychology, and applied ethics. I hold a PhD in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I specialized in applied ethics and social justice. I also hold an MA in psychology from Adler University, where I studied Adlerian theory, focusing on the effects of trauma and the roles of creativity and community in trauma recovery and healing.
I currently serve as the Senior Research Advisor & National Leadership Council member at RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network). I am a Member of the League of Canadian Poets and an Affiliate and Vice Chair of the Board of Amherst Writers & Artists.
I believe that poetry and art can be powerful tools for healing, transformation, and social change. My poem “What I Was Wearing” challenges harmful questions and responses to disclosures of sexual assault that inappropriately blame victims rather than perpetrators, thereby retraumatizing victims and perpetuating false narratives about sexual violence. “What I was wearing” is the inspiration for thousands of global grassroots art exhibits “What Were You Wearing?,” that invite survivors to contribute their own stories and representations of the clothing they were wearing when they were assaulted. Like the poem, the exhibitions seek to upend victim-blaming myths and raise awareness of the far-reaching and long-lasting impacts of sexual violence and the healing powers of empowering survivors to reclaim our own stories. In 2019, a group of high school students in the UK got together and created an original music composition based on my poem, which won the BBC's 2020 Young Composer's Award. You can listen to Edward Atkins's award-winning composition "What Were You Wearing?" here.
In 2024, I edited a first of its kind anthology of writing from workshops I led with survivors of sexual violence. We’ve Been Put Through Fire & Come Out Divine: Stories of Hope & Survival (Amherst Writers & Artists Press) not only gives voice to survivors, but seeks to upend false narratives about sexual violence. For example, the thinly veiled accusation that lies behind the question so many survivors are often asked: "What were you wearing?" This innovative work represents a new pathway for survivors and those who interact with us to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of sexual violence on us as individuals and communities.
My interests include applied ethics, social justice, psychology, trauma recovery, and harnessing the healing powers of the creative self through creative writing and art. I have a diverse yet complementary background in fine art, philosophy, social justice, psychology, and applied ethics. I hold a PhD in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I specialized in applied ethics and social justice. I also hold an MA in psychology from Adler University, where I studied Adlerian theory, focusing on the effects of trauma and the roles of creativity and community in trauma recovery and healing.
I currently serve as the Senior Research Advisor & National Leadership Council member at RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network). I am a Member of the League of Canadian Poets and an Affiliate and Vice Chair of the Board of Amherst Writers & Artists.
I believe that poetry and art can be powerful tools for healing, transformation, and social change. My poem “What I Was Wearing” challenges harmful questions and responses to disclosures of sexual assault that inappropriately blame victims rather than perpetrators, thereby retraumatizing victims and perpetuating false narratives about sexual violence. “What I was wearing” is the inspiration for thousands of global grassroots art exhibits “What Were You Wearing?,” that invite survivors to contribute their own stories and representations of the clothing they were wearing when they were assaulted. Like the poem, the exhibitions seek to upend victim-blaming myths and raise awareness of the far-reaching and long-lasting impacts of sexual violence and the healing powers of empowering survivors to reclaim our own stories. In 2019, a group of high school students in the UK got together and created an original music composition based on my poem, which won the BBC's 2020 Young Composer's Award. You can listen to Edward Atkins's award-winning composition "What Were You Wearing?" here.
In 2024, I edited a first of its kind anthology of writing from workshops I led with survivors of sexual violence. We’ve Been Put Through Fire & Come Out Divine: Stories of Hope & Survival (Amherst Writers & Artists Press) not only gives voice to survivors, but seeks to upend false narratives about sexual violence. For example, the thinly veiled accusation that lies behind the question so many survivors are often asked: "What were you wearing?" This innovative work represents a new pathway for survivors and those who interact with us to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of sexual violence on us as individuals and communities.
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