Important issue gets the attention it deserves

This month's edition of Cosmopolitan gave a well-deserved 10-page spread to Ralph Blumenthal to attack the issue of domestic violence.

The first page alone was enough to grab attention for the people that just flip through, and it was also imaginative on the layout perspective. Since I can't take the page off the article (or maybe I can. Who knows, I'm horrible with technology), I will try to recreate what they did a different way:

STOP

CALLING IT

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

IT'S

INTIMATE 

TERRORISM

The title of the article is a statement and an attention-grabbing sentence. In addition to that, the layout makes it so if you are reading quickly you read, "Stop Intimate Terrorism". I find that ingenious because not only is it a statement, but it is something that not many people will label domestic violence as. If this article were just titled "domestic violence", I don't know if people would stop to read it. I know I would hesitate, where as the "intimate terrorism" stopped me in my tracks. 

Well now if we can get pass the first two pages, we can start to focus on the actual article. Blumenthal set it up in a way that was attention-grabbing like his first page. He starts off with the heartbreaking story of Ashleigh Marie Lindsey. Starting off with her story allows the reader to be brought in with a relatable story as compared to just throwing statistics in the their face. 

Blumenthal also has an interesting way of handeling the people in the story to appeal to the readers more. For the victim and anyone attached to them, Blumenthal uses their first names when referring to them after the first mention. As for the attacker and anyone attached to them, the last names are the only thing used after the first mention. In the first story, Ashleigh stays Ashleigh throughout while her ex-boyfriend is only Mahaffey. This allows the reader to see the victim and friends as people and the abusers as only a name, nothing more. 

To keep the readers in the long feature, Blumenthal put other stories in with the statistics and Ashleigh's story in the form of box inserts. In the middle of the columns he placed other people's stories (as told to Liz Welch) to get the reader to see domestic violence can be found anywhere. With examples of a hotel in Las Vegas, an Orlando salon and a spa in Wisconsin, Blumenthal points out that domestic violence can happen at anywhere at anytime. 

The last part, and perhaps one of the most important, is a  piece from Liz Welch put in at the end about what to do when violence does come into the workplace. She gives perspectives for the target, the boss and the coworker, along with advice on how to handle the situation.

An article like this is needed to show the nation what to do and how certain situation can hurt and kill people. Domestic violence may be something you think you will never have to deal with, but it is a problem that can show up in your life in a moment.