The Risk of Gender-Neutrality in Assessing Domestic Violence

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Gender equality serves women in most places: the office, the home, and, generally, under the law. However, as Netflix’s new three-part docuseries, “American Murder: Gabby Petito,” underscores, where domestic violence is concerned, it can cost a woman her life.

The series opens with home movies of a young girl who could be any of our daughters. Quickly, it progresses to reveal signs of a troubling relationship between Gabby Petito, 22, and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, 23, through text messages narrated by Petito’s artificial intelligence-replicated voice and accounts from those who knew the couple.

Tensions eventually come to a head during a traffic stop intended to investigate a 911 call from an eyewitness who saw Laundrie slapping Petito on a Moab, Utah, sidewalk. But instead of sounding an alarm for these officers that they were dealing with man-on-woman domestic violence, and despite 85 percent of intimate partner violence victims being women, their attempts to stay gender-neutral sounded a death knell for Petito.

The Potential Impact of Gender-Neutral Approaches in Domestic Violence

The officers on the scene questioned Laundrie and determined that the physical evidence on his body—multiple scratches on his arm, neck, and face—resulted from Petito, striking him. Though Petito’s body language at the time indicated she was experiencing some sort of emotional and physical response to the scene described by the eyewitness—she was hyperventilating and crying uncontrollably when the officers arrived—police determined she, not Laundrie, was the aggressor in the situation.

Once they made this determination, much of the conversation between the officers and Laundrie revolved around whether or not the officers would charge Petito with a crime. Holding the power the responding officers gave him, Laundrie said he wasn’t interested in pressing charges.

Throughout the bodycam video, Laundrie remained relatively calm. Once he pulled over (he didn’t initially do so), he cooperated with the police. He said he locked Petito out of their van to create space between them, agitating her further. He explained away Petito’s behavior to the police, saying she was “crazy.” One of the primary voices on the call, Officer Robbins, said he understood—he had a wife at home.

A Flawed Response to Domestic Violence

Then, the most critical part of the call—the part that could have changed the outcome: Reiterating to Petito that Laundrie had scratches on him, that she admitted to causing them, and that the injuries were consistent with him trying to get away from her, at minute 35 and 53 seconds of the call, Officer Pratt said, “[w]e have to treat both fair even if he’s a bigger male and you’re a smaller female.”

He then drove the point home with the following summation: “The law doesn’t say, ‘Hey, Officer Pratt and Officer Robbins, you can treat people different based on gender.’ You can’t even if it makes no sense. You probably could not physically destroy this man—”

Later, after clarifying that Petito didn’t appear to intend to cause Laundrie harm (49:12), the intent needed to charge her with a crime, the responding officers decided to separate the two for the night. Laundrie would be sent to a hotel intended to accommodate victims of domestic violence, while Petito would get the van. Separate, but not certainly not equal.

The Dangers of Ignoring Gender Dynamics in Law Enforcement

The problem is domestic violence is not an equal-opportunity crime. Although women can and do perpetrate violence against men, the overall statistics still show that women are more frequently the victims of it.

In 2023, Huecker et al. reported that, each year, 500,000 women experience physical assault or rape from an intimate partner. In contrast, 100,000 men report similar experiences. Women are also far more likely to be killed by their partners.

Changing the Conversation: Why We Need a Shift in Domestic Violence Protocols

It goes against my grain to say women are the weaker sex. It’s not how I was raised or how I raised my male and female children. But there are gender differences. The most obvious of these are, in many cases, physical strength, putting women in the position of defending themselves physically.

Then there’s the verbal gymnastics that put women on the defensive, just like Petito was as she explained her obsessive-compulsive disorder to the police and how she spent too much time editing her videos, angering Laundrie. It’s all behavior born from a culture that has, for eons, taught women to subjugate their wants and needs to the men they’re with and has taught men they should expect this behavior from women.

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Feminism continues to challenge these notions. It is why I believe Officer Pratt thought he was doing right by trying to avoid making assumptions based on gender. The problem is domestic violence against women isn’t a stereotype but a reality that continues to pervade homes and thinking, making the officer’s attempts at achieving neutrality in this highly representative situation both myopic and misplaced. Another young woman is now dead because of it.

Final Thoughts

Yes, the “Gabby Petito Act,” a 2024 Florida law mandating that police officers administer a questionnaire of 12 yes-or-no questions to assess the danger to suspected domestic violence victims, which has inspired the adoption of similar lethality protocols in more than 30 states to date, is a start. But until we as a society can accept that domestic violence is one area where women are and will always remain disproportionately vulnerable, there will be more Gabbys—Gabbys who are left to wonder why no one’s hearing their cries or, worse, left for dead.

An excerpt of this article appeared in the NY Daily News on March 11, 2025.