At The Soaring Center, we advocate for narratives that uplift survivors, deepen public understanding of gender-based violence, and center prevention through community accountability and empowerment. That’s why the Netflix series Adolescence, while haunting and timely in its exploration of toxic masculinity, left us troubled by what it fails to say, and who it fails to see.
The show, based on the murder of a girl by a 13-year-old classmate, positions itself as a social commentary. It traces the roots of male aggression and probes the cultural forces that enable it. But like so many entries in the true crime genre, Adolescence falls into a familiar trap: making the perpetrator the protagonist, while the victim’s story remains largely untold.
This omission is more than an artistic choice; it is a reflection of a broader societal pattern. As Ann Muno powerfully notes in her recent piece for the Chicago Tribune, we have an insatiable appetite for examining male violence and little interest in listening to the girls and women who experience its aftermath. The murdered girl in Adolescence is neither named nor given a backstory. Her friends grieve her death, but their grief is used to further the development of the boy who killed her. The silence around her life speaks volumes.
At The Soaring Center, we know that this narrative framing is not just incomplete, but it is harmful. When we neglect the victim’s perspective, we lose the opportunity to ask crucial questions: What were the warning signs? How could adults or peers have intervened? What systems failed her? Most importantly, what would it take to prevent this from happening again?
As professionals who work with survivors of gender-based violence, we understand that prevention is not about surveillance or restriction. It is about teaching young people to trust their instincts, to support each other, and to speak up when something feels wrong. It’s about communities that create space for girls to be believed and protected, not scrutinized or blamed.
Ann Muno’s voice is a vital counterbalance to the series’ narrow focus. Her personal story, losing her sister Kim to femicide, is the kind of testimony that shifts paradigms. Muno emphasizes that girls had noticed something off about Kim’s killer. They had sensed danger. But like so many girls, they were taught to silence their instincts for the sake of being polite.
This is what prevention work looks like: not just teaching boys to do better, but empowering girls to listen to themselves and each other. It looks like teaching consent, equity, and emotional intelligence in schools. It looks like funding girl-centered leadership programs and ensuring that LGBTQIA+ youth and girls of color have culturally specific supports.
If Adolescence had included the voice of the girl who was killed, or the many organizations across the globe that work to keep girls safe, it could have become something more than a grim portrait of a broken boy. It could have been a call to action. It could have been a story of transformation, not just destruction.
As we reflect on the continued commodification of female pain in media, let us call for better. Let us amplify the survivors, the advocates, and the educators who are doing the hard work of prevention every day. And let us demand that when stories like Adolescence are told, they reflect the full truth, and not just the half that centers the boy who killed.
Kim deserved that. All girls do.
In solidarity,
Micha Star Liberty