TW: This story depicts intimate partner abuse and sexual violence.
Georgina Pierce is a (Diné) Navajo woman living in New Mexico. She documents her life on TikTok, sharing glimpses of life with her six children, her profile displaying her glamorous makeup looks. Her face is done up in an array of colorful eyeshadow combinations and eyelashes, highlighted by arched eyebrows. She says her makeup routine feels a little different now, after a near-fatal attack by her ex-boyfriend and abuser nearly in July 2021 left her with permanent nerve damage in her face.
“It’s hard to move my lips sometimes and then when I’m doing my makeup, I can’t feel that I’m lining my lip on my left side, you know, but I just kind of adapted to it. It just kind of became part of me,” she said.
Pierce’s abuser, a former friend for 19 years, stabbed her in the face when she tried to break off their 3-month-long relationship. As the wound healed, Pierce decided to share details of the incident on social media. Her video posted on Sept. 11, 2021 has since been viewed over 6.3 million times.
This wasn’t her first brush with intimate partner violence. She told Reckon that growing up, domestic abuse of the women around her was the norm, though it was not openly discussed. Later, she found herself in several abusive relationships.
“I was being dragged, I almost got my neck broken and I got my jaw broken. I’ve got my teeth knocked out,” she said, recounting some of her past relationships.
Since going viral, she continues to share her story and encourage other women to break through learned behaviors and cycles of abuse.
“We were taught when we were younger to not talk about it. Don’t worry about it, leave it alone,” she said. “But nowadays, why can’t we talk about it? It makes you uncomfortable? Because you know it’s true. I just want to encourage everybody to reach out and to say something.”
Her story underscores the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women.
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