This week, we heard from a battered woman we had written about two years ago. She’s still hurting. She said she recently couldn’t afford to get the MRI her brain-injured son needed after her ex-husband had hit him. She still doesn’t have a functional kitchen after he ripped out appliances in a rage. And she still feels isolated.

Several times a month, we report on domestic violence in our blotters column. When we told this woman’s story two years ago, we editorialized on how many battered women are in our midst — and how we are as good at not seeing them as they are at pretending not to be hurt.

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44. Orders of protection are easy to get but hard to enforce.

The MeToo movement has started a national conversation about the frequency of sexual assault and harassment of women. And the rising tide of outraged women telling their stories at last may bring about a welcome cultural shift. Women should be able to feel safe and respected in their homes and in the places where they work.

We would like to think the days are behind us in this country when a man beating his wife is just his own business. Stopping it is a responsibility that belongs to all of us.

The traditional way — and a principle our country was founded on — is through the due process of law. This month we covered the trial of a man who was convicted of raping a University of Albany student as she slept in her dormitory bed. Our reporter, Elizabeth Floyd Mair, was the only reporter in the courtroom.

We believe it is a story worth telling. The young woman was subjected in court to the defense displaying her underwear for the jury, referencing the tiny pieces.

The stalwart prosecutor said, yes, she wore a thong. That doesn’t mean she was asking to be raped. The defense also frequently referenced the “drunk bus” that the young woman had ridden back to campus that night after attending a party. Rape trials too often put the victim on trial.

Again, the prosecutor responded ably, stating it was a good thing that college students rode the bus rather than driving after drinking.

As we asked in this space in October: In what other crime does a victim have to be protected from cross-examination? We were editorializing then because Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had issued new guidelines canceling the Obama-era requirement that universities use a lower standard of proof when judging whether an accused student is guilty of sexual assault.

In the end, the jury for the UAlbany rape case saw through those tactics and found Franklin Casatelli guilty. The next day, the victim’s mother sent us a graphic that showed the daunting odds her daughter had faced.

Row after row after row of rapes were depicted as tan stick figures; just a small fraction were reported, depicted in a darker tan; an even smaller portion went to trial, shown in brown; and a tiny fraction ended with jail sentences — in red. The chart was based on statistics from the Justice Department, National Crime Victimization Survey: 2006-2010 and FBI reports, showing rapes are reported at a rate of 10 percent or fewer.

We commend the young woman who suffered rape and had the courage and perseverance to first of all report the crime, then see the charge through trial. We urge others to take heart in her success and pursue justice despite obstacles that at times seem insurmountable.

But more, we urge those who are part of the criminal justice system — from the cop who is first investigating, through the district attorney deciding whether or not to prosecute, to the judge overseeing the trial — to be sensitive to the women who are hurting. To listen with an intent to understand their viewpoint, and act accordingly.

On Oct. 3, just days before The New York Times broke the story accusing Harvey Weinstein of decades of sexually harassing actresses, spawning the MeToo movement, we spoke with a Syrian feminist, Nawal Yazeji, who is representing women’s rights for the first time ever in peace negotiations among world powers.

“Syrian society is not the worst with discrimination,” she told a gathering at the University at Albany. “Any society can improve, including the United States,” she said as some of the onlookers voiced agreement, citing wage disparity.

Later that month, it became clear to those who hadn’t realized it before — the disparities in the United States between treatment of men and women are far deeper than a wage differential.

In trying to make changes in her country, Yazeji told us, “When you hurt in your soul, you can only go in a direction different than tradition.”

Right now, our soul is hurting. We see and feel the pain caused by the abuse of women — not just from the battered woman’s recent phone call, not just from this month’s coverage of the rape trial, but even in an obituary we’re writing about a man we admire who is dying. He carried for his whole life the hurt he felt on seeing his father abuse his mother.

The pain is not just in Hollywood or with high-profile politicians; it is right here in our midst.

“When you see injustice, oppression all around you,” Yazeji said, “and you have this free thinking, then you decide to end this injustice.”

We have to, like Yazeji, “resist the usual” — to be a rebel, fighting for change and equality.

We have an advantage in the United States because our country is a democracy. “In democracy,” said Yazeji, “you can be free to at least fight for your rights.”

Men and women, we need to join arms to ensure that each of us is treated with respect.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer