Victim Blaming is a constant element of the failure of systems and individuals to appropriately and effectively address violence and safety. We find victim blaming as a common element no matter where we train in the world, no matter what cultural context we encounter. Why is this so? How does victim blaming impact victims and survivors in their willingness to work with systems, how do systems engage in their own forms of fear based 'coercive control' to try and coerce victims into safety to the detriment of well-being, nurturance and parent child bonding? David Mandel and Ruth Stearns Mandel look at this issue from both a personal and professional lens and break down the different streams of victim blaming and offer concrete advice for how to Partner with Survivors rather than blame them.
Note: Some of the topics discussed in the episodes are deeply personal and sensitive, which may be difficult for some people. We occasionally use mature language. We often use gender pronouns like “he” when discussing perpetrators and “she” for victims. While both and men and women can be abusive and controlling, and domestic abuse happens in straight and same-sex relationships, the most common situation, when it comes to coercive control, is a male perpetrator and a female victim. Men's abuse toward women is more closely associated with physical injury, fear and control. Similarly, very different expectations of men and women as parents and the focus of Safe & Together on children in the context of domestic abuse makes it impossible to make generic references to gender when it comes to parenting. The Model, through its behavioral focus on patterns of behavior, is useful in identifying and responding to abuse in all situations including same-sex couples and women's use of violence. We think our listeners are sophisticated enough to understand these distinctions.
Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real
Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."
Victim Blaming is a constant element of the failure of systems and individuals to appropriately and effectively address violence and safety. We find victim blaming as a common element no matter where we train in the world, no matter what cultural context we encounter. Why is this so? How does victim blaming impact victims and survivors in their willingness to work with systems, how do systems engage in their own forms of fear based 'coercive control' to try and coerce victims into safety to the detriment of well-being, nurturance and parent child bonding? David Mandel and Ruth Stearns Mandel look at this issue from both a personal and professional lens and break down the different streams of victim blaming and offer concrete advice for how to Partner with Survivors rather than blame them.
Note: Some of the topics discussed in the episodes are deeply personal and sensitive, which may be difficult for some people. We occasionally use mature language. We often use gender pronouns like “he” when discussing perpetrators and “she” for victims. While both and men and women can be abusive and controlling, and domestic abuse happens in straight and same-sex relationships, the most common situation, when it comes to coercive control, is a male perpetrator and a female victim. Men's abuse toward women is more closely associated with physical injury, fear and control. Similarly, very different expectations of men and women as parents and the focus of Safe & Together on children in the context of domestic abuse makes it impossible to make generic references to gender when it comes to parenting. The Model, through its behavioral focus on patterns of behavior, is useful in identifying and responding to abuse in all situations including same-sex couples and women's use of violence. We think our listeners are sophisticated enough to understand these distinctions.
Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real
Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."
Speaker 1: [00:00:01] We're back. [00:00:01][0.2]
Speaker 2: [00:00:03] Welcome back to our second episode of Partner with the Survivor. I'm David Mandel. [00:00:08][5.0]
Speaker 1: [00:00:08] I'm Ruth Stearns' Mandel and we are business partners and partners, and we talk a lot about all of the things [00:00:17][8.5]
Speaker 2: [00:00:17] we do and today. This is kind of like our sophomore podcast. We post our first one yesterday and this is our second one. So we were just discussing different topics and we decided to talk about victim blaming this morning. [00:00:34][16.3]
Speaker 1: [00:00:34] And yeah, we totally skipped over the the masculinity thing because it's a really big [00:00:38][4.4]
Speaker 2: [00:00:39] box and we'll come back to it. Don't worry, don't worry. And but Ruth, who is is really the creative genius behind this podcast. This was actually her idea in the first place. You know, I'm always interested in hearing what her ideas are and what she's interested in us talking about. So this morning we're discussing why victim blaming is so prevalent and why is it such a big part of the dynamic of the social response around domestic abuse? And for me, a lot of my work has been focused on how professionals particularly respond to domestic abuse. And it's so important to understand that the social response, the response of family and friends and churches and religious groups and and professional organizations like child welfare and other ones, how they respond to domestic abuse, both to perpetrators and to survivors, is such a huge part of the dynamic. These things don't happen in isolation. [00:01:47][68.1]
Speaker 1: [00:01:48] Well, it's interesting to me because I remember the first time that I watched one of your videos when you were training and you were giving a keynote for safe and together. And though this is not official safe and together, we obviously cross over into those lines. You know, we want this to be a much more sort of intimate and personal look at the issues behind safe and together. But I remember the first time I watched one of your videos and it did had to do with partnering with survivors and speaking to them about their strengths. And you were talking about mother blaming and having grown up in a unique situation where my mother was both a victim and she was occluder and she was a perpetrator. I had so many complex feelings inside of me. I literally took the phone and I threw it. I don't think I ever told you that. [00:02:50][61.7]
Speaker 2: [00:02:50] No, you didn't tell her that. You didn't tell me that this is the first time I'm hearing [00:02:55][4.8]
Speaker 1: [00:02:56] because I just didn't know I. I didn't know how to respond to all the the layers of of of realness that I was experiencing in what you were saying about partnering with women. And I don't. And not just women, male victims as well, but I don't. I think maybe if I were to encapsulate the feeling that I was having it was this deep grief and frustration and anger that nobody had given my mom a chance to leave, to help her, to tell her that, you know, she was really strong because in so many ways, my mother was really strong. And, you know, she did do things that were really impossible in the context of the cult and the commune to get the cult leader who was one of the most severe abusers across the board. There were other people who were, you know, very abusive, sexually and physically. But he was he was the coercive control, or he was the one, you know, to get him out of of the community that we lived in. And that was a really big feat of hers. You know, so you know, I just I had this grief that I had. I had wished that there had been somebody there to to partner with her because I had no doubts that had somebody done that for her and with her that maybe her children would have been safe with her. You know, so this this topic hits me very deeply because I have my own victim blaming strain being the child of a person who grew up in severe child and complex child abuse. And then I also have been victim blame, so I have lived. Both sides of the aisle. [00:05:00][124.6]
Speaker 2: [00:05:01] Right. And I think that this is such a huge topic, and I think when we talk about victim blaming, you raised the idea of mother blaming. I mean, it's just it's so much the air we breathe, the water we swim in, you know, whatever metaphor you want to use for it because I think it's just people just want to make it OK. I mean, I think this is one of the factors and people want to make it OK and want to make it better, want to be supportive. And they they can move easily into a position of like where you just need to leave or you need to get out. And mistake that for partnering, you know, which is a much more complicated but real process. And I think it's it's, you know, we always talk about when I talk about partnering with survivors, with professionals, there's there's often a place where they feel helpless because I believe they're actually really stepping into true partnering because they're actually moving closer to her experience and they're experiencing more of the the barriers she's facing and the and the the unfair trade offs and and and they get scared. And I think that's a much more complicated but open and vulnerable and real position to be in versus being in the sort of you can do it, you can get out, you're a strong person, just make better choices. I think so. I think that people find that latter one more more simplistic and more appealing because really partnering itself can be really hard. [00:06:44][103.3]
Speaker 1: [00:06:45] Well, I think that probably one of the most common things that I experienced was either a very large sense of denial that the person that was abusing me could be abusive. Oh, but he's so charming. He's so funny. He's so, you know, so engaged with everybody else. And so this sense of denial was one of the first ones. And then there was a sense of, You're such a smart woman. What's wrong with you, right? Why are you with him? You know, what are you doing right? Why don't you leave already? Why don't you get it? You know, and and caught between these two worlds, because I grew up in this very conservative alt right expression of of Christianity and Catholicism. And you know, I imagine all the women all over the world who are caught in these very strict social structures and they don't even have to be religious. They can just be cultural. That the notion of leaving is is is really the notion of dying, that you're going to lose everything if you leave, your whole worldview is going to be shattered. This is the way that life is. This is the way that things are done. You don't leave, right? You know? And so you know, there's there's there's that no one and, you know, addressing that in society and and making that not the norm in societies that are fairly traditional, fairly conservative is a really big, tall order. And we see the resistance with the change in the domestic violence laws in Russia. And the the pushback on the U.N. in a lot of eastern European countries were those closed societies are saying that the definition of domestic violence or the protection of women and children is in direct dichotomy to their traditional values. Right? OK. So there's that, there's a very deep layer right there. And so women who are caught in those cultures cannot easily leave. And that needs to really be taken into account. And though we may think that the United States is an open society with a tremendous amount of freedom and you have a social worker who's dealing with a woman in a very different societal or cultural situation than than that social worker is, you really have to drill down to what are the barriers that she's facing. And this may be a fundamental barrier she's facing, [00:09:25][160.4]
Speaker 2: [00:09:28] right, in terms of culture or in terms of attitudes and I [00:09:31][3.6]
Speaker 1: [00:09:32] and it creates a huge amount of fear. [00:09:33][1.2]
Speaker 2: [00:09:34] I yeah, and I think it's it's there's a there's part of it. And I we touched on this yesterday, I think with the with the other podcast about so really recognizing that there's this sort of emotional safety, but there's a there's issues of realizing personal dreams and wishes and drives and and and I think oftentimes we look at survivors like. Was one dimensionally and say, oh, you know, she must prioritize X safety or doing this over everything else, and in that simplifying, we often do a huge disservice and get in the way of partnering with her and versus what you're saying is is that recognized people's religion, culture, their background, their family, the neighborhood they live in, the street they live on, where they grew up on, you know, all those are really important to them and that we need to value those things. [00:10:31][57.5]
Speaker 1: [00:10:33] Yeah, I think about I think about the response of child protective services and other social services to more indigenous populations. Mm hmm. And sort of this strict paradigm of leaving as being the measure of protection and the simplistic notion of, you know, once you leave, you'll be healed. And so this is the first step in unless I can coerce you into making it, whether it can force you into making it by threatening to take your children. If you don't get it or, you know, are telling you how stupid you are for being with this man, which is just all of the above. By the way, are just another form of abuse. So the victim is just experiencing abuse and coercive control from every side of that. [00:11:18][44.6]
Speaker 2: [00:11:18] And it's important that they understand that. And we're talking about professionals, but could be family or friends that that many times that that the people saying those things, some versions of them, that they have genuine caring for that person. That's that's it. That's another thing that's always important for me is is that they have they have genuine caring for that person. They want them to be safe. They want them to be in a better circumstance. And and it's important for us to be able to reflect if, if or for people who are in that position of helping somebody or caring about somebody, right? You know, which is to say, is the statement I'm saying, making reflecting that caring? Or is it going to come across as blaming or criticizing? And and I think I would often work with people and say, How do you think she perceived you saying that? And they say, I don't know. I said, What is your intent? I wanted her to be safe. And I said, Do you think that she heard that wish of safety in that statement or criticism? And oftentimes people go, I think she probably heard criticism. I go, Yes, so what's how do we go and clean that up? And how do we go and fix that? Right? [00:12:32][74.0]
Speaker 1: [00:12:33] Well, so where I was going was I was going to say, I think about social services response to indigenous populations, right? The family and and family members and elders have so much more of an influence, and this is true in a lot of, you know, really well rooted black communities as well. And and honoring that aspect because we can have this, we have this tendency that we've created where in making the perpetrator invisible men, men have become invisible in their behaviors, right? And and the way forward for them to be nurturing and loving fathers and partners, right? Because we're not really addressing that in society, we're just saying, don't batter your wife or your partner or your child. Really, don't be a drug addict. Have a job. Support your kids basic, you know, so we're where we're operating at this real sort of caveman place still. I mean, it really is [00:13:38][65.6]
Speaker 2: [00:13:38] hopefully a little better for that. But but OK, [00:13:40][2.0]
Speaker 1: [00:13:41] it's still pretty caveman. A lot of you know, a lot of ways. And so in that place, it's really difficult for for people to understand the importance of family and the family and the father and the extended family and the elders and connection to them, even while those people are causing pain, right? Is perceived as a failing on the part of the victim, rather than being put placed into the bigger and wider cultural context of how the victim experiences support and nurturance. And that, that is, it's such a damaging elements. [00:14:21][39.6]
Speaker 2: [00:14:22] Well, I remember working with a situation where it was actually out of Australia, and we're discussing a situation where the woman was coming from an immigrant background and was struggling and with domestic abuse being a victim and then the worker who was working with her struggling as well. And they were frustrated because they they couldn't get her leave. And we were discussing strategies around how to partner with her. And I said to the worker, You know, you need to have a conversation with her about how she would like to. To be safe, what it looks like to be safe and connected to her culture and community, that she shouldn't be forced in this position to choose between the two, that she has the right. And I think this is part of going back again to the first podcast about really understanding the rights of domestic abuse survivors, the rights of people with the right, you know, people have the right to remain connected to their culture, remain connected to their community. And I think oftentimes we forget that in our fears about safety and our desire to to have somebody be physically, emotionally safe and we we need to slow down. And when I did a large piece of work, you know, overseeing a group of domestic violence consultants in one state in the U.S., I used to say the part of your job is to slow the train down, you know, because when it comes to bureaucracies or comes to highly pressured work environments, they have to do with safety of kids and safety of adults that the people often are moving very fast and not given the time to reflect and to say really important things or do really important things like it's totally OK for you to want to be connected to your culture and to stay in your community. In fact, that's your right. And it's unfair that to be safe, you might have to leave. And let's really talk about that as we plan for yourself and your kids. I think it's it's it's it's not coddling somebody. It's not being quote unquote nice. It's about really this this deep engagement with with other people valuing the fact that they're they're people who have wishes and dreams and connections and hopes and fears that that they don't, that they shouldn't have to have taken away from them or lose because somebody else is choosing to be abuse or a violent. [00:16:58][155.9]
Speaker 1: [00:16:59] Yeah. And I think one of the things that's not mentioned a lot actually is that kids want to have contact with their parent. Your kids, kids are super clear. Little reporters, in my opinion. I know people doubt them and don't believe them all the time. But you know, having been a child who grew up in child abuse, had somebody asked me very plainly, clearly [00:17:22][23.8]
Speaker 2: [00:17:23] you would have told them so. Right, exactly. Yeah. [00:17:26][2.9]
Speaker 1: [00:17:26] You know, though, I would have said, no. Yeah, no. Stay away from him. He's going to hurt you, you know, right? But you know, I know that when one of the pieces for me is, is, is that respecting the rights of victims to be able to self-determine in a sense is very frightening for for people who are charged with their safety when there is a dangerous element. But particularly with children, you know, I wanted my family to be better, right? I wanted to be able to to my family. And I wanted my family to be better. You know, if only somebody had come in and and helped the situation in the sense of, you know, we're going to create more safety and we're going to want to teach you how to be more nurturing as a human being right now. Whether or not the the players involved would have gone for that is a different story altogether because maybe they would not have and most likely they would not have. But the reality is, is that that attempt at recognizing that that children want to have contact with their parent, that a lot of times in my experience of how systems move, there's a bit of bipolar energy going on, actually. And that is is that at once that we're really focusing on the the victim and saying, you need to get out, you need to do this, you need to parent, you need to do this or mandating to the non offending person the person who's not choosing to be abusive. And we're ignoring the perpetrator that on the other side of that, we're also we're also in family courts. We're giving custody to abusers, you know, so there's there's this really bipolar way that we're we're we're not actually cohesively right in a reasonable way addressing perpetrators and perpetrator remediation and what that looks like and the behaviors of that and how that feels in a family and how that feels to a child. My God, as a child, if I could have, if I could have gotten my family back right? Wow. What? What a benefit to society that would have been for me, at least, you know, right? [00:19:49][142.6]
Speaker 2: [00:19:49] And I will say, I think this is a really critical area and I watch people react when somebody says. Well, she says she still loves him. She says she still loves him and and can be tremendous eye rolls and exacerbations. And, you know, I can't believe that after everything that he's done to her, that she'll say that. And and and I I came to start saying to people that her loving her partner, whatever he's done to her isn't a problem. And we shouldn't. We shouldn't make it a problem, and we shouldn't focus on that as some sort of indictment of her character or not or her. Doctor herself, her kids, because that's not a conversation [00:20:39][49.8]
Speaker 1: [00:20:40] drama bonding [00:20:40][0.4]
Speaker 2: [00:20:41] right or right, or label it with some sort of jargon and that sort of implies or just pathology. It's sort of it's it's we come up with new and different ways to to be victim blaming or mother blaming in that that can be what you just said can be one of them. But it's I really have have gotten kind of militant about saying the issue is, you know, is safety and having conversations with her about safety and what feels safe and unsafe and what she wants and behavior change on part of the perpetrator. And and I always bring it back to the personal, actually. I actually never know how people experience this, but I really when I was speaking to professionals a room, I'd say, I know there's people in this room who would say that they love somebody who's hurt them badly and wouldn't want to be judged for that and that you in fact, remain in contact with somebody who may have abused you as a child or abused in the past. Because it's, you know, let's say it's your father who abused you sexually as a kid, but you want to remain contact in contact with your mother and your cousin and have your kids in contact with their cousins and not miss Christmas and not miss holidays and not feel like an outsider. And in fact, you may feel like it's a sign of strength that you're staying connected to your family and and [00:21:59][78.6]
Speaker 1: [00:22:00] its liberties and choices. That's right. Of victims to to maintain contact is actually important to not see it fully as a deficit, but but also be able to give that person the skills and the and the skills, really the skills to be able to navigate those situations [00:22:19][19.2]
Speaker 2: [00:22:20] and to respect the choices, but also to understand them and not get when you hear somebody say, Well, I still love somebody. One is to understand that there's lots of forms of love and you and I would always joke and say that I can love somebody. You can love somebody not want to be around them, you know, because love is mean. So many different things to so many different people. [00:22:40][20.7]
Speaker 1: [00:22:41] I think it's hard for for people who are deeply involved in the most egregious cases of abuse and domestic violence. To hear that because wanting to protect the safety of children and the safety of victims is such a it's such a driving force. The fear, the fear that is created, I mean, both professionally and also personally, the trauma that's created in workers. When they when they rub up against these really difficult and really egregious cases that are devastating and the sense of out-of-control ness, right, that happens, which is what the victim is feeling quite often actually actually sometimes having the perpetrator, in my view, created a lot more sense of safety and control for me, to be honest with you, not not knowing what they were doing or where they were, it was more frightening to me, and sometimes they were [00:23:35][54.4]
Speaker 2: [00:23:36] like they were there. [00:23:36][0.6]
Speaker 1: [00:23:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so so you know, there's all these different layers. I just sort of in the bigger picture, the bigger umbrella. I find it really interesting that no matter where we go in the world. Mm hmm. No matter what culture we're in or what language we're dealing with, we always find victim blaming. Right? Why is that? What is that human tendency to always want to put the pressure on the victim as if we we have we have made a decision that the person that's choosing to be harmful cannot be engaged. We won't engage them, we won't address them. We won't try to talk to, you know, drill down into their behaviors and map their behaviors and really get to that place of, well, this person is a truly violent and under, you know, he cannot be remediated and he needs to be in jail. Person to this person is a is a has been a violent perpetrator, has these patterns of behavior. And we're going to try right? We're not going to just send him into anger management like they do in the United States. But we're actually going to try to do men's behavior, change your perpetrator behavior, change really well and hold that into accountability by looking at how the outcomes are for the family, for the victim. For the child, rather than just giving them the rubber stamp and moving them along. But why is it that we have this test? What is it? What is it that all over the world? Victim blaming is the thing. [00:25:12][95.6]
Speaker 2: [00:25:14] I don't have an answer. You know, I don't think there's one answer to that, and I know you're not actually asking that. I have two things rattling around in my head right now. One is, is, you know, is that we have managed in many cases to take compassion and caring and and social messages even that are given to two women. I think these are cross-cultural. I think those are a lot of because they're often coming from religions that are that are global, which is, you know, you know, just to use the kind of trite or the kind of statement, you know, turn the other cheek. You know, these statements that you hear in that that I've seen survivors I've worked with have deep compassion and caring for partners, people that they loved and may still love, that they want them to get help and they want. I want them to be healed for their own sake, for for his sake, for the sake of their kid. But that doesn't mean they want to be with them or partnered with them, or will trust them again or not. I don't understand what's happened to them, and I think people again collapse all these things. And so all they hear is she. She she she sees that he was a victim as a kid and somehow that makes her colluding with him somehow. And I think we have to have the ability sort of this very rigorous ability to separate out and validate and say, if you've got somebody who cares for the hurt somebody else has has has experienced, that's a good thing. And we can talk about safety and we can talk about whether he's really changing. Well, let's [00:26:53][98.9]
Speaker 1: [00:26:53] let's hold on. So let's we got to we got to go to the back side. We got to go to the behavior. No, seriously. Because because what we have that what we have to remember is that on the back side of that whole interaction, right? The subtext is right. An interaction between the perpetrator and the victim. Right. Where the perpetrator has abused. Mm hmm. And then the perpetrator has slid back into the position of I want I want to be better. I want to be I want to be a good dad. I want to be a good partner. OK, so so maybe that's true. [00:27:30][37.0]
Speaker 2: [00:27:31] Right? [00:27:31][0.0]
Speaker 1: [00:27:31] That might actually be true, right? But maybe it's not. That's right. So really in and you know, that's the place we have to go to right there at those crossroads of finding out whether or not the perpetrator is actually capable right of being remediated and being afraid and being a parent and being a partner right and not. And in order to to figure that out, there has to be a lot of in-depth conversation, both about the victim state of being and about the perpetrators behaviors. That's a very complicated, complicated thing. [00:28:07][35.6]
Speaker 2: [00:28:07] Well, I think we're talking about multiple things here. At the same time, I think you're talking really strongly about the need to have kind of rigorous kind of look at whether the perpetrator is being manipulative, whether there's a real desire to change. And alongside of that, I'm talking about how we blame victims for wanting him to change. Having compassion for for for his background is his history, let's say. [00:28:31][23.6]
Speaker 1: [00:28:32] And I just totally dipped down into the failures of the system. That's right. That's right. Because because it does. [00:28:37][5.7]
Speaker 2: [00:28:38] Right. I think I think both things are true. And I think, you know, we're about to wrap up for this, this this podcast and then, you know, sort of come back around and I think it keeps meaning we're going to keep talking about, I think, one of the strands of of of victim blaming or so the reasons behind victim blaming is can be this sense that the men are violent and that's just the way they are, which is not something I agree with at all. Not something. But this idea that that and this is true sort of rape prevention, education, university and other places, which is women need to just develop strategies to avoid men's violence. And just because it's fixed, like the weather, like if you don't take, you know, take an umbrella out and you get wet, that's your fault that you didn't take the umbrella with you [00:29:28][50.0]
Speaker 1: [00:29:28] in the rain. How did you not get wet? Then you're a man, right? What's going on with you in [00:29:32][4.3]
Speaker 2: [00:29:33] terms [00:29:33][0.0]
Speaker 1: [00:29:33] of your biological man? It's all your testosterone and everything. [00:29:37][3.4]
Speaker 2: [00:29:38] Is the wedding that's better for us. The is the better for violence. [00:29:42][3.8]
Speaker 1: [00:29:42] I really, I really, I really want to be. I really like it's it is a ridiculous notion to me, right? Well, it's a ridiculous notion that also colludes with violence to allow it to continue because if we feel that somebody is incapable of behaving any other. Away, right, then basically, they're just fixed as stone and we have to walk around that way. And that's not real. [00:30:06][23.4]
Speaker 2: [00:30:06] And I think so one of the I think we've kind of circled back around to the main theme of this podcast around why is victim blaming so pervasive? And I think one of the reasons why is there's so much permission given around men's choices to be violent and to not see them as choices? Right. I think that invisibility is is a is a primary cause. Yeah, a victim blaming from a [00:30:33][27.2]
Speaker 1: [00:30:34] different society, treating men as if they're very large out of control. Two year old beings who have no ability to modulate their feelings or their reactions or their violence is probably one of the most damaging things that has happened, right? And in it it is. It is a very there's a very deep strain of, you know, the philosophies of gender that work their way into that. And it's super complex and it can be very, very controversial. But at the same time, I feel like if all of us landed in a position where we understood that, that allowing that notion to remain in play, that men are violent by nature of their biology is part of the patriarchy. It is saying men have no other choice but to behave this way, and therefore it is women's job to manage it, to modulate it, to walk around it, to work around it. And that is completely and totally unacceptable. [00:31:36][62.5]
Speaker 2: [00:31:37] And it's unfair to men, to women, to children, to anybody. And you know, as I'm listening to you, talk about it, it has. And I don't know all the history around this, but it feels like it's very Victorian in terms of the Western notions and notions of masculine and feminine, which is that that that women are supposed to be civilizing of men and that men are tired. [00:31:59][21.7]
Speaker 1: [00:32:00] I don't want a civilized man, [00:32:00][0.9]
Speaker 2: [00:32:01] you know, [00:32:01][0.2]
Speaker 1: [00:32:01] I want them to do it themselves. [00:32:02][0.7]
Speaker 2: [00:32:03] I think that's been part of the work. Yes, that I've been committed to in terms of really unpacking and packing this in, and [00:32:11][8.5]
Speaker 1: [00:32:12] I'm happy you came pretty civilized. [00:32:13][1.0]
Speaker 2: [00:32:15] I don't know how I feel about this conversation at this point. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I came pretty civilized that I back. That's right. But I would imagine myself pressed to get the piece of plastic, you know, in a package, I [00:32:32][17.1]
Speaker 1: [00:32:32] promise you that you were going to get a much more intimate look into these issues and you really [00:32:35][3.6]
Speaker 2: [00:32:36] are. [00:32:36][0.0]
Speaker 1: [00:32:36] Yes. So for me, because we are a couple minutes over 30, I wanted to go back to just how I view practical ways to deal with victim blaming. And that is as I look at victim blaming on a spectrum of, you know, is somebody's victim blaming because they're afraid and they want to coerce that person into safety. Mm hmm. OK, so there's there's that layer, and that's where a lot of professionals and they're afraid and they want to coerce somebody into safety and really, then they participate in the worst of an abusive and threatening behavior. And they're totally flabbergasted when the the victim and the survivor don't. They don't respond well to that. They respond with resistance. And then the mother is resistant, right? So it's it's this really predictable cycle for me, at least. And then on the other end of that, where people victim blame really as a tool of the continuation of collusion with violence, of keeping violence hidden, of keeping victims responsible and perpetrators invisible in their choices of violence. And I think there is a spectrum of victim blaming that that really wants to achieve different ends. One wants to achieve the end of safety at all costs. It doesn't matter what I do to you, your autonomy is now in question because obviously you're too stupid to take care of yourself. OK, right? And then on the other end of that, there is the victim blaming that's obviously this is your fault or you're not responding to the situation well or you chose something and now you're you're living with it. [00:34:14][97.5]
Speaker 2: [00:34:14] And what did you the most? What would you do to provoke? What did you do to provoke it and. Right? And I think, you know, when we when we talked to people about and I still remember and this was Susan Schecter, who she was a tremendous leader in the domestic violence movement the US, who has since passed. And I remember as a young man going to see her speak and her saying, one of the most basic things that really struck me is that, you know, to to say to somebody, and it's just as powerful today is as it was then is to tell somebody who's an abusive situation and say, you don't deserve to be treated this way. And it seems so simple, but it's it's it is just a basic. Statement of respect. Yeah, and a basic statement of of whatever story he's telling you, the culture is telling you that you're telling yourself to sort of say that the abuse is somehow deserved, that it and it's really about the abuse and about dignity. So you don't deserve to be treated this way. And and and then, you know, to to assume, I mean, this is what we teach all the time, assume that this person is actually actively been trying to manage your situation, make yourself safer, make our kids safer, make it better and to actually try to understand what those efforts have been. Because in that understanding, you're now you're you're assuming not that she's somehow a party and co-creating the abuse, or somehow she's a cause of abuse, but you're actually seeing her and talking to her as as as she is, which is a party who's trying to resist the abuse is trying to keep yourself safe in that social interaction and that way of being with her, that is that is that is empowering, that is validating, that is partnering. That is because you're actually assuming her strengths and you're assuming her personhood and you're swimming the way she is powerful, even in the context of a situation being abused. And you're not confusing even that with that, she's automatically safe. So, so there's just for me, that's when I think about this sort of how we shift away from the victim blaming this is what I think about. [00:36:37][143.5]
Speaker 1: [00:36:38] And I think through the lens of of what would I have liked people to say to me and and that would be, you know, just a very clear question. What do you feel that you need to create more safety? And that's a very simple and neutral question that allows for people to to lay out not only what is making them feel unsafe on one side, but what actions need to happen in order for them to feel that sense of safety. Right, right. And that's that's a really good question to ask victims and survivors and children, you know, when they're in this active stage of trying to write to heal and and find safety from from abuse. You know, and there's a lot in here that we could unpack. We're going to go [00:37:27][49.2]
Speaker 2: [00:37:27] going, but we're going to need to end at this point. Yes. So right to keep this podcast around 30 minutes so that you can listen to it in a reasonable amount of time. [00:37:36][8.3]
Speaker 1: [00:37:36] All right. Well, we didn't cover everything, but we did, but we cover a lot. We covered a lot, a lot. And so go out there and and partner with survivors and victims and and and learn, you know, how to speak to them as a partner rather than coercing them into safety. I'm going to start using that as a new term. [00:37:57][20.8]
Speaker 2: [00:37:58] Don't course. I mean, of [00:37:58][0.7]
Speaker 1: [00:37:59] course, people into safety. [00:37:59][0.9]
Speaker 2: [00:38:00] Yeah, yeah, I like it. So. [00:38:01][1.1]
Speaker 1: [00:38:02] All right. Bye bye. And enough. [00:38:02][0.0]
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