Season 7 Episode 13: Reproductive Coercion: Breaking Down the Hidden Signs with LC De Shay

Reproductive coercion rarely announces itself with a dramatic confession. More often, it shows up as a pause in the exam room, a quiet "I don't really have a choice," or a new mom who seems exhausted beyond what postpartum should demand. 

Ruth and David sit down with LC De Shay (also known as the Digital Dominatrix), an international gender and migration psychosocial analyst, reproductive health specialist, and full spectrum doula, to name what so many families are living through and what too many systems still fail to catch. They dig into the behavioural landscape of coercive control around sex, contraception, pregnancy, and parenting, including why survivors may not recognise or disclose coercion without the right language and the right questions. 

LC shares how clinicians can miss obvious signals when screening becomes a checkbox and why open-ended, concrete prompts can surface what "Do you feel safe?" never will. Ruth, David, and LC also talk about the perinatal period and postpartum window as a time of elevated domestic violence risk and how partner behaviour can shape maternal health, breastfeeding, infant feeding, and child development while professionals keep placing responsibility on mothers alone. 

From migration-related vulnerability to workplace pressure, from school systems to child welfare responses, David, Ruth, and LC map the "whirlpool" of entrapment that keeps people stuck. They also confront how high-control religion, Quiverfull culture, and trad wife messaging can frame reproductive coercion as virtue, while "progressive" judgment can unintentionally shove survivors back into isolating communities. And they make space for a crucial nuance: Men's pain under patriarchy can be real, but it never justifies violence, and accountability means redirecting anger upstream rather than dumping it onto women and children. 

If you care about reproductive safety, health, autonomy, trauma-informed care, maternal health, and practical domestic violence prevention, this conversation gives you language you can use today. 

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Land Acknowledgement

David Mandel 1:07

And we're back.

R 1:08

Hello.

David Mandel 1:10

We're always laughing when we're sorry. People don't know we're like joking.

R 1:13

You're like, and we're back.

David Mandel 1:14

And we're back. We're very serious. Uh welcome back to Partner with a Survivor.

R 1:20

Yeah.

David Mandel 1:20

I am partnered with a Survivor. And and and I am David Mandel.

R 1:25

And I am Ruth Raimundo.

David Mandel 1:27

Yes. And where are we today?

R 1:29

So we are coming to you from Tunksis, Masako Land in the Farmington Valley. And we want to send our regards to the traditional custodians of the land, past, present, and emerging. And we are really grateful to have our next guest on with a really important topic because it kind of hits the heart of entrapment, of use of women, objectification of women, seeing children as things, and it's about reproductive coercion. So do you want to introduce our guests?

David Mandel 2:10

I do, but I want to say one thing, just to frame this for people, because this is uh it's such a huge topic in so many areas. And I remember talking to a friend of sociologist years ago about studying families and studying fathers, and and and and he said, Oh, I'm gonna start the the ethnographies with the birth of the child. And I said, Why the birth of the child? And and and we discussed, I said, well, this child's story, particularly if we're thinking about domestic abuse, but anything, the child's story starts way longer than the birth. It starts with, you know, the pregnancy, it starts with conception, you know, was was the child wanted, not wanted, how was it a wanted, you know, wanted pregnancy, was there sexual assault? Like, and so there's these sort of the ways these things are really, there's a lot of

Meet Elsie Digital Dom

David Mandel 2:58

things, I think when we get into this, baked into people's assumptions about sex, coer, you know, coer, you know, reproduction, families, what you know, relationship, yeah, relationship, entrapment, yeah, all these things. So anyway, do you want to get this in?

R 3:14

So Elsie, and this is this is Elsie, who also is known as Digital Dom, who also has an amazing podcast called The Thing Is, is here with us today. And I'm gonna let you introduce yourself because you do an amazing amount of things, just a huge range of things. So if you can kind of give people a snapshot of who you are, what your expertise is, and and what you do, please.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Sure. So my name's Elsie. I do my my digital, my virtual footprint is digital dom. And I am an international gender and migration psychosocial analyst, which is a mouthful, but it means that I do advocacy, journalism, research, and clinical care, tracing the impact of migration and gender on reproductive health outcomes. And of course, a great deal of this involves mitigating risk and risk prevention. So that is more or less my career focus.

R 4:21

And you're also a reproductive health specialist and a teacher. You inform people on reproductive health and you and are you also a doula, I believe. You've also been a doula.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

I am a doula. I'm a neonatal infant feeding specialist. I am just recertifying in my birth and postpartum, like international childbirth educator. I have that as well. I have maintained like counseling credentials and stuff in the past.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Depending on what I'm doing for work, I don't keep up. I've had like six credentials over my career, and I'm usually only maintaining three at a time because six is insane. But like I have done all sorts of things. It's a lot and it's too much. So I always maintain my clinical license in infant feeding, and I usually am maintaining one of my educator, you know, credentials and one of my counseling credentials. But I am a doula, I'm a full spectrum doula. And I've been a doula for 15 years now. I've been an infant feeding specialist for 12. I just everything I do revolves around those things.

R 5:25

I gotta say, from a practical standpoint, from like an intervention standpoint, how important that particular work is. Yes, it's so fundamentally important because it comes at a critical time, often a time when a woman is extremely vulnerable, has very little assistance. And if she's being abused, that's really critical time for her for the for the child. So I I'm just gonna give a shout out to all doulas, you know, any any person worked.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

I mean, statistically, it's the most dangerous time, you know, and I'm sure you know this. During pregnancy and postpartum is the time that women are the most at risk to be victims, fatal victims, especially of domestic violence. So whenever people ask me, why have I maintained this particular like clinical system? Because if I'm gonna save people's lives in multiple ways, in multiple, you know, from every aspect, it's gonna be at this time frame. There's no other time frame that's more critical than this one. So I will always, this will always be the core focus of my work.

David Mandel 6:35

So, you know, I I'm just in awe, really, to be honest, just of your skill set and your experience and so important. Can you fill in something for me and maybe our listeners, which is sort of the migration part of that before we start diving deep into reproductive coercion, some of the stuff, you know, of course your bio, can you, you know, seems very central, you know, the the part about migration and gender and chopper. Can you just kind of expand on what that means for you and how that shows up?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

I mean, twofold in terms of like my actual professional experience. I'm a California native, born and raised in Southern California, and obviously Los Angeles was one of the largest immigration hubs on the planet. When I started my work, I was working in downtown, and more two out of every three of our patients, because I was working in city clinics and free clinics and almost medicare and Medicaid exclusively paid outpatient clinics. So the vast majority of my patient population had a migration basis. By that I mean either they themselves had been raised in migrants or they were the children of migrants, right? And so, whichever way you want to look at them, the vast majority of them were, you know, English has a second language or third language or whatever the language is. There's so many, you know, only places like New York, you know

Migration Gender And Risk

SPEAKER_00 7:53

what I mean, and like Bangkok, when you're looking at all of these huge, huge cities around the world. Yeah, it's there's they're usually a hub for refugees. There, there's just a lot of transient movement happening. And risk-wise, that's always if you want to catch where the highest risks are going to be the most prominent, you should always look at what the largest migrant population is in any area, whether it's rural or highly urban, really doesn't matter. And which migrant population does matter, of course, for the demographic sake, but you were going to see so many patterns that overlap each other in every migrant population in any place on the planet because they tend to be the least protective, specifically women that are reproductive age. Yeah. So that is my reflection for that.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yeah.

David Mandel 8:45

That that's great. That sort of brings so much into relief. And I think it sets up us really well to talk about reproductive coercion in general, because just for regular listeners of the show, you know, which is, you know, this idea that we're not just talking about domestic abuse, we're talking about things that are about entrapment, limiting somebody's rights, limiting their ability to function. So you know, health, maternal health, infant health, um, you know, is this is this very precious, special, important life setting up, life-changing time in people's, you know, their their lives. So can you just talk about just you know, just your first thoughts about when we say reproductive coercion, how it's shown up in your work, you know, what you've observed, you know, what worries you most wherever you want to start, Elsie.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Sure. I think what worries me most, I'm gonna start from the bottom up in terms of outcomes, is how little investment there is in enforcement. And you know, when we look at when we look at problem solving, whenever we're in like this prevention nexus from the leadership level, those of us who have the privilege and the burden of being involved in leadership leadership and are tasked with risk reduction, right, as part of prevention, especially on a systemic or a communal level, population-based level, whatever we're looking at, the lack of inf, even you have, even when you pass what appear to be extremely, you know, marginalized, focused, you know, intersectionality-specific laws. I'm saying this as a Californian because we have passed so many, right? And you look at a lot of these, when you look at the most progressive states or whatever, even some of the more progressive countries. I mean, Canada has some of the most, uh,

Enforcement Gaps And Why They Matter

SPEAKER_00 12:07

at least from a legal standpoint, what it appears to be, some of the most protective domestic violence laws on the planet. But the issue is if they're not being enforced in a way that the outcomes produce lowered risk for the people who are most targeted, then that is null and void. And it's so exhausting. And so this is this is the place that I'm really focusing on right now because you know, we have like this, we have this tree of prevention that we're looking at, and all of these branches, and they come from the root, and the root is reducing the actual, you know, outcome statistics that are abominable for mini ankle that we're looking at. And you get up and you start looking into like the methodologies, and one of the big things that everybody's always talking about is well, we need stricter laws, and we do, but those laws simply do not matter when the people who are tasked with enforcing them, when the people who were the gatekeepers for accountability are not utilizing them and applying them in a way that produces reduced risk, and it drives me insane, yeah. So that's that's definitely my primary concern at the moment.

R 13:19

Now, I would I would love for you just to give people an understanding of reproductive coercion because I'm sure that people hear that word and they think all sorts of things, but talk to us about the behavioral landscape. What forms does reproductive coercion often take and the constellation of ways it shows up in both intimate partnerships in places like human trafficking and in all of the different contexts we see?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Well, I mean, that's a big question because how it how it can translate in systemically like transactional issues like human trafficking, I think is extremely different than how it shows up in quote unquote like everyday nuclear family or whatever relationships. So I'll try to contrast them. I think what I hear the most in nuclear family relationships are things that will pass

What Reproductive Coercion Looks Like

SPEAKER_00 14:18

over the vast majority of professionals' heads, or they feel like they don't, they feel like it's not their job, they feel like it's not in their responsibility set or whatever. An example would be when people are being asked, just going through a regular sexual health screening, let's say. And anybody could be doing this, a nurse practitioner, you know what I mean, a midwife, an obiguine, sometimes just the medtech, depending on who's been doing the screenings in a clinic, whoever is asking these things. And they're talking to especially like a new mom, and they're asking her, How are you feeling? And they might ask her, like, well, how does it feel when you have do you have pain when you have sex? And she might get really quiet, which to me is a huge sign. Like if you're asking somebody about something that is not supposed to be painful and not supposed to be unpleasant, and you hit a sudden communication resistance, something is wrong, right? But so many people they don't know this. And so you first get the silence, and then if the person is perceptive, they might ask, is everything okay? You know what I mean? Are you okay talking about this? Do you want me to get a different person? Whatever they ask. And you, if they proceed in the conversation and the person continues to engage, you'll hear things like, Well, I don't really have a choice. Or it's not that it's painful or not, I'm just tired. You ask, What do you mean you're tired? And they she'll say, you know, he's not very nice to me when I don't do it. Right, right. All the vast the thing that's the most difficult is that in the screening process, we know this from the research, they will very rarely volunteer because oftentimes they themselves do not know. That's the most important thing. The vast majority of people who are at the highest risk for sexual violence and coercion of any sort in a relationship do not know what it is themselves. They do not recognize that they are going through it, and they have no idea how to describe it because they themselves don't have the definition. So when you combine that with a provider who is uncomfortable with fulfilling their responsibilities in the screening process, it's just a plain old disaster. You'll have bold face signs that this person is in their everyday life. You know, this things like something that I would hear all the time is well, he's he doesn't make me do it, but he's not nice when I don't. What do we think that means? Do you know what I mean? Like that is a perfect example of the most of the simplest types of reproductive coercion in terms of like on a daily basis when you're looking at the incidents themselves. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So I feel like when I when I'm I'm saying that too, because there are people who do not know that they are victims and survivors and have heard themselves say things like that to their friends or perhaps to their own providers. Reproductive coercion is not, I think people have this concept that it has to be kind of like the Saw movie, you know what I mean? Like it has to be this really elaborate, like graphic version of an interaction where the pressure is clear and intentional, and the most effective forms of reproductive coercion are never explicitly named. Right, right. Like pressure. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, the dynamic is not direct, right?

David Mandel 17:27

What I'm thinking about is just what a perfect storm. When I think about professionals training, and I'm thinking about medical professionals. I want to say this mental health professionals. That my experience is, and I'm I'm happy to be corrected, which is that we woefully under-train, under-prepare all sorts of medical and mental health people around two things sex and violence, sex and coercion.

R 17:57

Yes.

David Mandel 17:57

Even though they're two of the most high-risk and common things, including in my experience, was you could go through marriage back in the day, marriage and family therapy training, and not have a course, mental course on sex.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Right. Or on family violence. Right.

David Mandel 18:11

You know, and I mean psychiatry, medical. So what when you're saying, Elsie, this, I'm really thinking about both the you know, the the patient, the woman who's who may struggle for words or not understand what she's experienced, but that the professionals are so ill-prepared to listen or to respond. And I realize I've got a map in my head as you're talking, which is, oh, she's in pain when she's having sex. I wonder where he is in the picture, right? Is he caring? Is he judging? Is he pressuring? That doesn't mean he is any of those things. It just means I've got trained myself to have a map that's inclusive of his behavior.

R 18:58

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yes. You know, as opposed to just assuming it's a medical problem with the woman's body, which is perfectly impossible. Like pain during sex is a sign that something is wrong. And the assumption that the something being wrong is systemic, like isolated within the woman's body and doesn't have anything to do with the person entering it is cockamimi.

David Mandel 19:18

Wow, that's a word from my childhood. That's it, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

That's great. Well, also, you know, the beginning of the words.

David Mandel 19:26

No, you're very because it it could it it doesn't mean it's coming from it, could be coming from the sex, it could be coming from a medical thing, but to assume it's a medical thing just in her body is the mistake.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Right, right.

R 19:41

Absolutely. Well, the medical field is woeful on on research into women's pain and reality and health anyway. So we're starting from a baseline of a lack of knowledge, a lack of interest, a lack of care, and a lack of information, and a lack of professionalism and making people comfortable with hard conversations. That's so real. You know, I just want to say, though, you know, we're looking at reproductive convert com reproductive coercion from the standpoint of of women and and and children, that men also can be reproductively coerced, that a lot of times that takes the form of social conditioning. They can't yeah, yeah. And I I know we I don't need to dive into that. I just want to make an acknowledgement of it before we before we go on. So you know, you've you've certainly you've talked about how reproductive coercion doesn't start or stop at the adult woman. Talk to us about how that extends into children and other contexts.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Well, I've seen cases where if the woman is not adhering or submitting to the man's demands, whatever they may be. And this can range from sexual favors to actual sexual acts. It can range from like cosplay of certain behaviors, like a certain type of submissive profile that he wants her to perform in front of his friends and family. Do you know what I mean? Like it runs the gamut and it's very, they're very rarely isolated one from each other. It's usually a continual interweaving, right? That creates a larger, very tangled circumstance. What I have seen very commonly is that the man will withhold money or finances, he will not fulfill his obligations to the children, and or will be abusive to the children.

R 21:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

As a punishment to her, and will tell the children in some way, shape, or form, like, well, if your mother would behave, you know, those sorts of things. And again, it's never direct. The dad is not gonna be like, your mom wouldn't me last night. So now I'm gonna, you know, I refuse to buy you food today. I'm not gonna buy your clothes. This is especially in times where they're separating or they're not together. I feel like post-separation abuse and this type of coercion really shows like in a tit for tat sort of manner, but it certainly can still exist sometimes in broad daylight without people noticing in nuclear family households, depending on how socially isolated the woman is, right? But those are the most common things that I see. And I'm mentioning these things because they're nobody's screening for these things, right? Right. I am intimately familiar with all of the screening processes as somebody who has to conduct them, but the most common signs and symptoms of reproductive coercion that I see are not present in any of the screening processes. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

David Mandel 22:43

So can Elsie, can you talk a little bit about? I'm thinking about a couple of cases I or families I'm aware of or know about. One is sort of where the child almost died from failure to thrive because the the mom's the stress from the from the dad's abuse stripped out all the nutrients out of her breast milk. That's one example.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

I have seen that. Absolutely.

David Mandel 23:04

And then the other one was, you know, the father's interference with her either causing the child to be developmentally delayed, so the gross motor skills were delayed. But this intersection of gender expectations in both these cases, in both cases, the mother was held accountable, right? So the, you know, sort of you're like, again, this isolated breastfeeding is a mechanical process. If if it's not environmental and it's it's if you're if this child's failing to thrive, it must be something wrong with the mother, either the way she's behaving, the way you know, or or or biologically. And then the other one is is was like, oh, you're like, you need to give this baby more tummy time. Well, he doesn't want the baby on the floor, he doesn't want the baby anywhere but in her arms.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Right.

David Mandel 23:50

Can you talk about two things? One is that those what you see with those kind of like impacts of of coercive controllers' behaviors on kids' development, but then how siloed gender-wise professionals are in terms of well, if anything's going wrong with the kids, it's the mother's responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

It's the mother's responsibility. Absolutely, I can.

David Mandel 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

I mean, this is directly in the realm of my clinical practice. So, and those two things can be related. So, I've seen multiple cases that look like this, and they were horrible. And it's caused me to get into terrible conflicts with some of my colleagues that I am notorious for. But it's because I'm relentless about trying to change that. And you can't make any even individual changes in cases for people who systemically refuse to like break out of their own views, right? Like around clinical and gender-laden responsibility. In terms of the breast milk one, one of the most common ways that I see is the dad really being abusive emotionally and verbally, usually about the mother's body. And what happens is that can result in the mom starting to be very food restrictive to herself. And so two things will happen. She'll breastfeed, because usually these dads are very controlling about a lot of things. They don't want to pay for formula, right? Or they've heard that the breastfeeding is going to make her skinny again, that she's going to snap bat, that it's better

Postpartum Control And Baby’s Health

SPEAKER_00 25:13

for the baby. He doesn't have to spend any time feeding the baby. Like there's a conglomeration of things that interact that can involve the dad pressuring the mom to breastfeed. This is not this, I'm this is my specialty. I have like so this is not me speaking against breastfeeding. I'm just talking about how anything can be weaponized, right? When we have all of these stereotypes involved. And so that storm of pressure will lead to a mother who's never sleeping and who is also not eating adequately. She's supposed to be taking in 800 additional calories a day, and she's actually cutting calories and taking this baby on a walk, and you know, like four times. She's only six weeks postpartum. It'll just be absolutely ridiculous. And the dads sometimes are absolutely nuts. Like I've seen dads, I had a couple dads. Oh my goodness. One of them worked for Tesla. I will not use any other like identifying factors. I walked into those visits, and the dads had charts for the mom and the baby, for the for the baby, when the baby was eating and how much, and how much the baby weighed, and when the mom was eating, and how much she weighed, like the things that I and he was proud of himself. Can you imagine what's going on in the house? Well, and and he and some there.

David Mandel 26:21

And some people, and I just not to interrupt you, but some people would see him as a deeply involved father. Oh, yeah. So it would be like giving him a yeah, super competent.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

He cares so much. Oh my god.

David Mandel 26:31

Deeply engaged and would totally miss the control and the and whatever else would be.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Absolutely. And so emotionally invested.

David Mandel 26:40

And look at look at look at this. I mean, we've seen right, you've seen this. So keep going. I just need to say that because it's it's got other no, you're right. You know.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

So that's one example. The most common example I see with the breastfeeding mother who is ha who the baby is failure to thrive, and like the baby's drinking, but you know, it's like a diet breast milk, and the mom's falling apart and pale, and you know what I mean, like just iron, completely iron deficient, and all sorts of other things, is because she feels under pressure to resume a bodily image that her husband is not just expecting but demanding for the gratification of whatever sexual ideology he has in his head about her. Huge thing that happens in breastfeeding, right? So that is one way, a very common way that manifests, and it's almost never caught. Number one, a lot of the providers are also on some of this snapback bullshit, like, excuse my French, but they can reinforce it because they're also doing weights when they don't need to be doing that to the mom, right? And they're on the first visit, they're like, How healthy are you eating? You mean like how about you ask, is she eating? Because some of these women, the way that their hormones are swinging and how exhausted they are, or if they're at risk for postpartum depression, are not eating at all, right? Like, can we ask more important questions? She's not gonna die from type 2 diabetes in the first six months postpartum while she is breastfeeding. That's simply not gonna happen. Can we just make sure that we're encouraging her to eat? Can we talk about her eating habits? What is she able to eat? Is she still nauseous, right? Like these are the more appropriate questions in terms of health reduction that will lead to both that will lead to healthy feeding patterns for the mom and the baby. But a lot of these providers are they're reinforcing the behavior of the father, whether they realize it or not. And so they're certainly not going to be competent in screening. The second one, when you're talking about the developmental aspect and how it's blamed on the mother, what I see frequently with this, again, and it looks like a dad who cares so much, they'll latch on to like all of these crunchy websites and oh my God, the baby has to sleep with you and the baby has to be held by you 24-7. But when it comes down to it, it's a man who's completely intolerant of the discomfort that comes from a child's demands, i.e., every time the baby cries, he will wake up that mom, take her out of a shower, put the baby in her lap while she's on the toilet. I mean, I'm talking just absurdities. Like he will not take responsibility for comforting the baby, for changing the baby, for feeding the baby. And it's twofold. This is coming from his own gender executions that he has done what he needed to do by, like, you know, contributing his sperm deposit. That's all he needs to do, right? But that's sort of a really spew, unfortunately. And that any discomfort or upset that the baby is suffering is 100% the responsibility of the mother to her deficit. Like, that's irregardless. Like this concept of like femininity must involve sacrifice in order to fulfill the needs of the child and the gratification of the partner.

R 29:39

Yeah, you know, like bananas. I totally like to bring a couple of different options for medical practitioners in there about ways that they can talk to people about their environment and if they're feeling supported. You know, we ask those qualifying questions in medical settings, do you feel safe? Which is a really broad question, and it's not actually adequate for sussing out whether somebody's living in violence or coercive control. And I'm just gonna encourage people to start asking, particularly in the context of parenting with new parents, if the the the mom feels supported, if the mom is is giv is has adequate assistance from her co-parent, if the co-parent is an active participant in the care of the child, if they if they both collaborate together to care for the child in ways that work for both of them, that sustain their health and their well-being, their sleep, their nurturance, because this is a collaborative freaking effort when you're a parent. It's not a single effort.

David Mandel 30:57

And what and and asking those behavioral questions and those satisfacts, like satisfaction when I'm listening to you say this, because part of what I'm hearing is like, well, what does that look like? He's supportive. What does that look like? Because people may be measuring support by, well, my dad was drinking the whole time and was really violent and was never around and cheated on my mother while you know she was pregnant and had a baby. My husband's not doing those things, right? But he's not doing anything else, or he's being abusive another way. Like to get to the definition, well, what does support mean to you?

R 31:32

What does it look like?

David Mandel 31:34

And how does that feel to you? Do you feel like you're being listened to, heard, understood? Collaborative, yeah, as a parent. Like it's it's sort of, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

So I found that there are two questions that I learned to ask that really suss that out better than anything, and also helped me know if I needed to do a BMADS evaluation like immediately. And those questions were these two things. Do you have enough help? Who do you talk to when you're frustrated? You ask any mom those questions, and I don't care what the everything comes out. There's something about not do you have help? Because if you just ask, do you have help? they're gonna feel obligated, especially by the people who tell them they're helping them, like to show some sense of gratitude to reduce you know, expression of resentment. But when you ask, do you have enough help? It cuts right through that dissonance, and something in their brain just snaps, they're like, No, you know, and you will see, even if it's just like a moment, a momentary like glitch in the matrix on their face, and like not even trying to be funny, but it's so important because if you're trying to be perceptive, if you're anybody who has the power to help within the system as a provider, as an advocate, as a social worker, whoever you are, you have to ask, do you have enough help? Because asking, you're also not learning anything by asking, do you have help? Is it because if it's not enough, then who cares? You have to keep that word in there to learn what her own evaluation is. And the second one is who do you talk to when you're frustrated? So many of them are gonna say nobody and they're gonna start crying and they're gonna tell you, like, I'm not allowed to be frustrated. You know what I mean? Everybody keeps telling me to be grateful so much of the time. Or you'll find out that they do have support because I guarantee you, whoever is actually part of their personal support system that is keeping them buoyant in any way, shape, or form, they'll be able to answer that question and they'll be able to answer it in detail. I wish that, like, and I will continue to do work because I really think the screening systems need to be different, but I know I have learned to change my own triage questions. I always include those two questions every single time, every visit for the first six months.

R 33:44

That's great. I love that concrete advice for practitioners.

David Mandel 33:48

Yeah, I do too. And and just for you know, just to underscore for professionals listening, you know, open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Correct.

David Mandel 33:57

You know, are always, and again, that goes back with your point, which is do you feel safe at home? That's a binary question. That's sort of and depends on people's definition of safety, and a lot of people, yes, you know, and their frame reference. And I think Dr. Eloise Cepeda, who we we've had on the show, talked about her work in restorative justice and and working with I think with mostly with with black and Latino populations, and and she said, and for her in domestic abuse, it's not what will make you safer, it's what will make this better. And I love that. I love that because it's in the vein, I think, Elsie, what you're talking about, which is sort of like we're talking about your life, we're letting you define better, we're letting you define what's enough in your examples. And it's it's it's really respecting the

Screening Questions That Change Everything

David Mandel 34:47

person and really kind of putting the onus on the professional to listen, yes, not and not do a tick box. And again, that's sort of like I think systems push people to be like, well, that's for did we screen for? Did you screen for? That's the question you get asked in a professional setting. Did you screen for her? Not I because I go through this a lot.

R 35:09

That's a complaint.

David Mandel 35:09

I asked, we asked to save it together. How did you how did you screen?

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah, who was in the room?

David Mandel 35:16

Was her was his mother there during the visit? Well, if if you asked her about domestic violence while his mother was cooking in the kitchen, you didn't screen domestic violence, even if you asked the question on the box.

R 35:29

Absolutely, yeah. Screening, screening is so important, and the the system's self-prioritization of its own, you know, processes and liabilities. And that question, did you screen for is really just a system stuff? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

That's a that's a risk assessment issue for like ocean stuff. It doesn't actually have to do with and it doesn't reflect prevention, as you're mentioning. I want to put this out here so I don't forget, because one of my lawyer and one of my closest colleagues would tell me, like, this is part, I actually have created a completely I created my own separate triage questions. So if someone wants to use my questions, because I just mentioned two of them, please contact me. If I see you out here at a conference and I see you with my questions, you don't say anything, you're gonna have a very fun QA.

David Mandel 36:21

Not for you.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

That's great. That's great. Just put it out there. That's good for you.

David Mandel 36:26

We're we're you know, good lawyer, good lawyering.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Happy to collaborate, but do not steal my intellectual property. There you go.

David Mandel 36:32

We're a fan of it. We're a fan of this. We're a fan of this, you know.

R 36:36

Yes. So I'm gonna talk about the pressures on people who are experiencing reproductive coercion because there's a there's really multiple pathways to entrapment. And and and you you work a lot with, you know, you're a sociologist, so you you you know those multiple factors, you understand how they play into entrapment and they play into the cycle of reproductive coercion that just continues to repeat. Can you talk to people about those factors, those entrapping factors, please? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

I mean, are we looking from like you know, the one that everybody thinks about first is always socioeconomic, right? And what was the name? You had someone on your podcast do some awful with names. I think her first name was Heather, and she was specifically talking about like systemic impact, and there was a mention or an implication, also talking about how the whole entire like the ecosystem of coercion. And I love that. That was not those were not her words, those are my words, but she she brought it back up, and I want to talk about the ecosystem of social coercion because it's when when you know that your employer is not going to be supportive, when all they care about is their own bottom line. Do you know what I mean? And there's no like human factor or investment, that's an enormous pressure. That's a socioeconomic pressure, that's a career stability pressure, that's an isolating pressure because it's not as simple as the job itself and losing that particular form of or stream of income. It also means that you, that person might take your career. You know, depending on what type of career you have, for those of us who, and this is a lot of careers, but I'm clinical, I'm advocacy, I'm journalism, all of which are all referral-based. Like you simply will not get a job unless the people that you worked with are willing to vouch for you. So I feel like the pressures we look at them and we're like, oh, it's awful, this person might lose their job. And some people might be like, oh, well, they can just get an unemployment, perhaps, but they also might be blackballed out of their career for the next two to three years. And so we're looking at ongoing poverty and they may know that, right? And I say this because if they need time off to go take care of things, i.e., they are they were forced into a pregnancy they don't want to be in, they want an abortion, an abortion is available to them, but they're gonna need a week off because who's gonna work while they're having an abort? Do you know what I mean? Like the outcome of that physically, you are not functional while you are trying to recover from an abortion. You might need at least three days. And if you have an employer that is not only unwilling to do that, but also seems threatening to really cause damage to your future employment opportunities, that we are now in a nexus of socioeconomic coercion. Do you know what I mean? We have to look at what was it? Somebody, I was I was talking to someone and they were talking about like the hierarchy of coercion. And I told them that you need to look at this as a whirlpool of coercion because that's what's actually happening. The person is in the middle and they're being sucked down into the depths of highest risk outcomes possible. And everything that's on the perimeter of their life, if the whirlpool doesn't get stopped, starts to barrel in down on top of them faster and faster, with the least amount of help that they like, the less help they get is the faster the whirlpool starts turning and everything in it starts circling the grain and they're at the bottom where everything's falling on top of them. Yeah, it's very rare that any of these things are isolated. You know, it's it's that it's the teachers for your children at school, if you already have other teachers, because if they decide to interpret things that your children are saying, because children can say all kinds of things, and it can be well-meaning. But if the person and the adult who hears them has a certain perception of you, right, because of who you are, because of their own unspoken or uninvestigated prejudices, right? So many things can be involved, then they can interpret this in a way that they get CPS involved. And that might be the last thing you need. Right. Even though the teacher might have been taught that this is going to be the most helpful, it could be the absolute least helpful intervention at that moment. If, like if a child is coming to school and they're saying that they're hungry because the dad is refusing to buy groceries because, you know, whatever the mom is not, she hasn't given him a blowjob in two months, whatever's going on. If the teacher interprets that as this is child endangerment, and the person who is responsible is the mother, as opposed to stopping the parent at school and being like, hey, would it help if I gave you connections to a food bank? Completely different outcomes for that mother, right? And so for me, this is where when we're looking at the pressures, I really I I implore people, and it might be difficult. Like you said, I'm coming from a psychosocial background. So I'm always looking at the connections. And those are two things, two examples I think that are way more common than people realize.

R 41:39

Yeah, I want to add a layer on top of that, that ecosystem of entrapment, because you know, just using an example, going through, you know, a very common example, and that is that a woman is raised in what I call a high control religion, right? Where reproductive coercion is part of the a belief system that she has to have as many children as her body sustains. She has to have sex with her partner whenever they demand it. And she's also often being coercively controlled and abused. In that in those, in those high control religions and in those highly entrapping environments, reproductive coercion is is is seen as a value, as an adherence. It's a it's a virtue. It's a virtue. Unfortunately. And if you don't have eight children in those

The Whirlpool Of Entrapment

R 42:38

environments, you are targeted and abused because you are not living the virtue. So there's that conditioning. And then that person goes perhaps to a midwife or to a OBGYN when they're pregnant. And then depending on that person's adherence to that particular ideology, they either support that ideology and extend it. Or what happens on the other end is they start being abused by the system who's saying, Why are you having so many children? Why don't you take birth control? What's wrong with you? So now they're stuck in this conflict cycle, sandwiched between two very patriarchal ways and woman uninformed ways of doing things, where they're being pressured, coerced, threatened. And even to the point where that isolation extends, becomes more isolated, and deepens in that high control religion setting because of the pressures from the outside, where they're like, we're gonna report you to CPS, we're gonna take your children. And so now this divide begins where that person who is being highly coerced and abused becomes even more isolated. They have to step closer in to their community, which is coercing and abusing them, in order to feel safe often from people who are judging them, threatening them, telling them they're the problem. Right. You know, I've actually lived in this environment. Yes, I've stepped out with the women who had 10 children. I've watched liberal women, usually white women, say to those women, What is wrong with you? Yep. And that is absolutely entrapping. That extends entrapment because then that say there's no safety. There's no safety there at all. The woman really has to retreat back into her community and be accepting of this reality that she is just trapped. So I don't know if you've if you've seen that back and forth between those two polar ends of ideological belief, of which I believe are both patriarchy, both manifestations are patriarchy. I don't know if you want to comment on that, Elsie.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Absolutely, and you and I have you know talked about this off recording. I mean, I know this is like there's so much controversy around using this, but we don't have a better replacement. So since in pop culture, people understand what this is, to me, this is a stereotype threat where you're stuck between a type of manifestation of Stockholm syndrome and profound systemic stigmatization. And it is, it is, it is absolutely a recipe for disaster. I mean, everything you said, I agree with. I come from, unfortunately, an extremely conservative, extremely suppressive, profoundly sexist religious background myself. I did not grow up in a quiverful environment. I think that is the difference. However, there wasn't that much of a difference in the sense of like not having children, an unwillingness, a delay, having only a few children, showing any sort of distaste towards or hesitancy towards children was certainly seen as like devilry. Right. Right. Do you know what I mean? So it's there's a difference, it's a it's in a different place in the spectrum because it wasn't quite to the Place where, like, well, with every child, you get closer to God, which is kind of like the quiverful mindset, you know what I mean? But it was certainly like, what do you mean you won't have children for your husband? Then why did you get married? And why are you at church? And you aren't even a believer, and you know, so there's still it's somewhere along the spectrum of that. In those situations, my greatest concern is how white feminism, because white feminism is white supremacy's bastardization of what should be intersectional, you know, matriarchal community care. And it turns it takes the the concepts of womanism and family vulnerability-centered communal care and leadership and turns them into an alt-gender like girl boss capitalistic ideology, which is just profoundly twisted. And so in these scenarios, you know, this is where we get the the singer idea of like, well, you can have kids if you want, but it would be better if you like put all your energy into a career. Yeah, sure, I guess if you want to. But what would actually be best is if we didn't make women choose having to do one or the other, and we created a communal system where they're supported in doing both, and neither was stigmatized for choosing one or the other or doing all three. That would actually be the best system. And the catch in these scenarios is as you've mentioned, it's two different parts of patriarchy. It's either you can be completely, totally biologically, physically, emotionally, and socially submissive, or you can be completely and totally independent, which also means that instead of serving a man or a system that upholds and a system that upholds and idolizes men, literally like actual men in your community that you can see, touch, and feel, you transition to you must be servile to a system that upholds capitalism, war mongering, you know what I mean, like ableism, a lack of any benefits, because its idols are its idols are wealth-based and resource hoarding.

R 48:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

We don't like to talk about that. This is the paradigm that women are being sucked between, but that's what it is. And as you mentioned, it's a horseshoe. Both are different sides of the same concept. Yeah. And both of them suck. And don't help anybody, both need to be thrown away.

R 48:39

I'm gonna really challenge any practitioner out there who has judgment of women who have many children, many more than they would feel comfortable with, to really set their judgment aside of that woman and to explore with them around whether they're having those children because that's really truly what they want, or because they're being coerced and abused, and to center support, support, true and real tangible support in order to help that woman and those children be safe, well, self-determined. So please, people, you know, you gotta do better.

David Mandel 49:25

You you've taught me so much, Ruth. You've taught me so much, you know, about the granular nature of this issue, you know. So this sort of and we're seeing, unfortunately, a rise of this in the United States, so a more open kind of talk about this with the trad wife stuff or the quiverful. And I know what quiverful is. I don't know if our audience does, but so that ideology about you know, kind of moving forward Christianity and you know, by having more kids and and as many kids as possible.

R 49:53

But this idea that's the dominance, it's about the uh it's like we're gonna dominate the earth, right? So we're gonna make our women have as many babies as possible, we're gonna indoctrinate them in our faiths, and then we're gonna make them militant. That's right.

David Mandel 50:05

And that's how we're gonna women uh women's value is only through that, bro. Things and and therefore you've shared stories about women who are told medically you might die if you have another child.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

And and the expectation that's a sacrifice to them now, and they're taught that they should sacrifice themselves in order to complete the mission that's been put forth upon them. Like that's the only purpose of their identity, unfortunately, for them.

R 50:30

I'm gonna I'm gonna say it in some really specific terms. And so quiver for for our listeners who don't know, quiver quiverful is often an evangelical practice. Catholics have their own version of it, they don't call it that, yeah, but it's the same thing in in function. But but you know, what really happens is is that women are seen as reproductive things, they're there to contain men's violence and sexual violence, so all that sexual violence then gets out on the woman in the marriage, and this is supposed to be holy, and her becoming pregnant as often as possible is a sacrifice for God. And when you say it, the more children you have, the closer you get to God, that is actually real in the sense of death because when you have eight, ten, twelve, fifteen children, more morbidity increases, and also in those environments, the number one cause of death during pregnancy is a partner. So so we they actually literally mean you're closer to God, you're gonna die sooner, sister. And so look at your sacrifice, you sacrificed for God, like we sacrifice in the military and go to war, but you did it for God. That's really actually the environment that those women are living in.

David Mandel 52:05

So so can I kind of go to the edge of this conversation a little bit on one of what I think about is which is sort of we're talking about the institutional forces. I think this is so important. We're talking about you're talking about capitalism, you're talking about white feminism, you're talking about we're talking about religion, and we're talking about its impact on on women and and children. I'm curious with both of your experiences, you know, that men's experience uh in this environment, I'm talking about the religious ones particularly, must run a spectrum from active abuse to call the same ideology and and being ambivalent about it or kind of feel victimized by it too. Yeah, can we talk about that briefly? Because I think it's useful for people to really because because I don't want to let individual men off the hook for sexual assault, domestic violence, any of those things at all. And as I'm listening, I'm thinking if I'm a if I'm a dude in this environment, right? You get married at 17, I was braced in it when I was handed the same way it was handed to her, right? Even though there's lots of privileges that come to me and expectations, you know, that do I really want to have 10 kids? Do I really want to support them financially? Do I want, you know, is that the life I want? I mean, I and I I'm really curious what both of your experiences have been around that.

R 53:31

Yeah. You know, definitely my experience is that men who are raised in that environment feel like victims. They feel burdened by their expectations, they feel like they're sacrificing themselves. And often that comes out as abuse towards children and towards women because they are living in an ideology that they can't escape, they can't leave, they can't get a divorce, they they can't stop having children. And unless they're at the highest levels of the economic tier, they're struggling greatly to take care of those children. So, you know, and then often too, if those people are living in environments where there's a lot of poverty, and also if they're marginalized, then that's when the system comes in and starts to take those children or starts to, you know, be like you're living in poverty-related neglect, you know,

Men In Patriarchy No Free Pass

R 54:30

you can't be a good parent. That's my experience of those environments. Elsie, what do you see?

SPEAKER_00 54:37

I mean, I think what I see that's the greatest concern is the dissonance and the resentment that it creates, the contempt that comes from it. And I am saying that because I think across the socioeconomic spectrum, in my in my patient care, I certainly dealt with seeing this manifest in like squalor. Absolutely. But I have my own feelings, and I know you are not in any way, shape, or form endorsing this. I want to be very specific for our audience. Like, this is not an endorsement that CPS should come take those children from those families, right? There's so many that is that is an additional brick in the house of hell, right? That gets built around these circumstances, unfortunately, because a lot of the times those children are just getting redistributed to other extremely abusive, neglectful foster parents. You know what I mean? We have so many statistics, they're absolutely horrifying. These people are money hungry, they have nearly no interest in these children. And if you're gonna give someone, if the problem in the household is money, why are you giving a stranger money to take care of the child? It's just absurd. Nothing about the responses and circumstances make sense from the standpoint of the children. With that said, the men in this scenario, even when you remove socioeconomic threat, even in situations where I don't want to name because I don't want anybody to get their panties all in a twist. But where I came from, I'm thinking about three very specific, very, very strident denominations, one of which is mine, two of which I certainly have friends from and grew up near their towns that tend to be extremely insular and also very well off financially. So even in situations where you don't have poverty, sometimes the violence is worse because rather than concentrating on constant material suffering, these men have time to let their contempt foment. And I have seen worse interpersonal violence in the situations where there is money and comfort that these are manifesting than I have in the situations where there's poverty, because most of the violence in the impoverished situations is coming from and associated with lack of resources, right? Which obviously is something that's tied to the outcomes of the decisions that are being made under the religious pressure. But if you remove the poverty, you do not remove, I'm saying this because I want to speak to David's point, that doesn't resolve the men's feelings. Their contempt and their resentment is so sadistic, mostly from my standpoint, because they are projecting the profound grief and anger and isolation and depression they feel within themselves onto the people that they believe are tied to the suffering that they can't get away from unless they abandon their patriarchally tied identities. They feel like the only way for them to exist in the world is to uphold what patriarchy is demanding of them. I think I just penned an essay recently called The Only Way to Be a Man is for the system. And I highly encourage anybody to go listen to this because it talks about the ideological entrapment of manhood and masculinity as a concept. That men are allowed to be men only when they do it for the sake of upholding capitalism and patriarchal violence, and that men themselves also, to an extent, have to be disposable to the system in order to benefit from its outcomes. It creates a very strange twist, and I think that dissonance manifests in the psychological dissonance and violence that we see is so common across the board. I don't know if it makes sense what I'm saying.

R 58:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

But that's what I see as a general factor here.

R 58:21

Yeah. If you can't escape the expectation that you have to be in control of everything, that you have to be uh, you know, the manager of everything, and then it's all your responsibility to hold it all together, and then you've got like eight chaotic kids and you've got a depressed wife that you didn't ask for, right? It's a bad situation.

David Mandel 58:44

And the the research seems to support this, which is greater rates of violence and greater rates of mental health and suicidality, particularly for those men you know associated with that. And so it's it's you know, I I approach these conversations with a with deep sensitivity, you know, because for me, you know, I don't want the conversation about men's experience of this because of intersectionalities, right? You know, in that same environment, women are gonna be one down than the men, you know, right? You know, or you know, but that you're like all these outcomes on women, and there's other and there's other experiences men are having that are suffering of a different kind that we we can't delink them, but we can also like equate them. I don't know like I really keep trying to kind of language this because there's some people out there, you know, who are talking. I go back to Matt Brown. I go like Matt. Matt's my guy. And if you don't, you know, if people aren't listening, they've heard me talk about him, but she is not your rehab. And he's uh he's in New Zealand, he's a Polynesian man. Polynesian of Samoan descent. And he does such a beautiful job speaking to men's trauma, and with no with no apology for like, dude, like there's no excuse for you to be violent to women and kids. Yeah, yeah. Like it's sort of like he's got such a wonderful like voice around this from his personal experience, which is he speaks to men as people, he speaks of them having an inner world, he speaks to them as having pain and suffering, yes, but there is he gives no ground. Like, I have to like, and everybody I listen to talks about main men suffering and pain, and that's what I guess I kind of feel like you know, is sort of we I backed into this thing that we said we weren't gonna talk about, you know, it's only fine, but I do think it's like I think we've got we've got to struggle with it because it's it's the flip side of if a woman's in pain during sex or gynecologically, we want to be asked the question where's your partner? If you're with a man, a male partner, is he supportive? Is he understanding or is he blame? Like we have to have this language, even if we're woman-centered in safety and well-being, we have to have that wider vision. I mean, I'm I'm willing to be challenging quests on this, but so it's really an ongoing kind of struggle.

R 1:01:10

This is not an isolated experience, yeah. You don't just become, you know, pregnant. Uh it's a it's a collaborative effort here, guys. You know, so we have to talk about men and how they fit into that whole dynamic. So absolutely, you know, I'm I'm really I just want to say for people because I know people hear things that aren't being said, and that is is that that essentially what what we're saying is support for choice and and and support. So if you want to have eight children and that's what your choice, and you want to support those children of those children, you should feel supported in doing that. If you don't want that, you should feel supported and loved in doing that. And that's at the bottom of consent and choice, you know, that people have the autonomy and decision making over their reproductive health and their reproduction. So just to put a pin in that, because I think it's very important to land in acknowledge that bottom line.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

So Dave, I want to respond to what you were saying, where this falls in the conversation. And I think how we couch this is very important. I, you know, I say to men, and my my work with men is starting to gain ground a great deal. So we'll see where it goes. But I just encourage men, your feelings and your anger are valid, but your targets are not. Like, if you do not want to be a perpetrator of violence against your family, you need to be a protester of the system that is causing pain for you all. You must redirect all of that anger to taking down the system that is the cause of your oppression and the motivation for you to pass that oppression on to others. And I think when you were talking about acknowledging men's feelings, yes, we should. No, they're never justified to be what is it, the downs, the downstream effect. One of my colleagues talks about this, right? The downstream effect. And I think combining that for men, it is it is a downstream effect, whereas for women, it is a whirlpool effect in these scenarios when we're talking, and this is not, we haven't gotten into like queer dynamics. I think that deserves its own podcast because it really and I'm happy to do that later. I think we we've got to do it for one on that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:33

Right now, we're just talking about heteronormative dynamics. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

So within the heteronormative dynamic, which is where fatal outcomes are the most common, right? That's what we're talking about right now. I wanted to say, and I constantly say, and I deeply encourage, I know you all have read my work, but if whoever's listening to this, please read my work, because I know I can come across as so staunch online, like so profoundly against violence, but I am against violence because I think everyone should be free, and that includes men. There is no way that we've gotten to this point in the world with these dynamics and these statistics, with men feeling free. This level of violence directed at the people who you should have the most love and vulnerability and support with in a circular manner, and the results are fatal and horrific, cannot come from men as a collective feeling liberated within a patriarchal system that is destroying the family and the planet. That is just not what is happening. So I definitely want to echo what you're saying in the sense of your feelings are valid, but they are being misdirected. And the system has been the very system that is causing your depression and your suicidality and the void that you feel inside of you, the degree to which you feel like you were expendable, because to the system, you are. Like you're nothing more than a pawn, really, within the system that we're in. You're everything you're feeling is correct and it is valid, but you have been told and taught to push all of the violence that you are bearing on top of you downstream to the people who have even less power than you, and you must turn around and swim upstream, period. Like if I just I'm such a deep, like this is we have to, we have to, we have to make upstream efforts. I love it. We have to. And you know, that's its own podcast, but that's how I feel. I think about the salmon, you know what it like we could have a whole, we could have a whole conversation about this. Yeah, that would be my response to that.

David Mandel 1:05:31

Yeah, no, I I, you know, just to wrap us up, you know, at this point, you know, it to support what you're saying. When I ran groups for men who were had been arrested mostly for using violence, we would check in each week and not ask them, had you been angry. That wasn't the issue, right? The anger is not the issue. We say where there's a time where you felt helpless or afraid and you handled it without violence or controlling someone else. To my mind, that is the that is like one of the questions to support men. Well, you will you join them in their human experience? It's okay to be afraid, it's normal a human to be afraid of losing a relationship or being cheated on, or your kids getting hooked on drugs, or losing your job, or you know, we could go on losing a parent, or we go on and on.

R 1:06:14

These are these are struggling with being a parent.

David Mandel 1:06:17

Or struggling with being a parent, or where are you gonna lose your connection with God if you don't have more kids? Like, that's like like I'm happy, I'll be there right there for you as a man, woman, anybody, non-binary person, you know, like bird, you know, anything. Like, I'll be there for you in that struggle. And I'll be listening for and look for are you taking out your suffering on somebody else? Or do you feel entitled to change somebody to make yourself feel better or more in control? And I think that's really what we're talking about here. So, so yes, queer dynamics. We've got to come back to talk more about this. So much talk about the perinatal period. Yeah, yes. I'm sitting here thinking about black maternal health outcomes and you know, and disparities there and DEI. I'm gonna say DEI because you know, because but like all these things are in my mind that we didn't get a chance to talk to. So, this is another this is a second amazing conversation. I feel so lucky with our podcast.

R 1:07:25

We've had amazing conversations, one of the blessings of doing this, and you know, I we always wrap up with the same questions. There's so much more that we could have covered, and we had like seven more questions that we never got to, but that's okay. We got to you're just gonna have to come, you're just gonna have to come back on and talk talk more. Gladly. But you know, uh what I would say is like as takeaways, what would you want to say to professionals working with women? What what is like the key piece of advice that you that you think you want to leave them with?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:02

As someone who is both a survivor of domestic violence more times than I have to describe, that can also be a different podcast, and a provider, I would say people need to get up in the morning and be very intentional about their goals. You have to. Be you have to have a very conscious awareness of what you believe your job is in the landscape of your capacity to help families. And then within that, what role do you personally play in risk reduction? And what is a way that you can attempt to manifest that in every single encounter you have with a client or a patient? These three. And I'm saying, you know, I was an assistant instructor at UCSD for almost six years in their global variable health program. So I'm I'm not saying this hypothetically. This is also how I taught, you know, when I pre-sumpted, all of that. It was those three things. And it's very important for people to formulate these ideas themselves. Use the method of mantra. I mean, at least three times, I should do it every day, but at least three times a week. Be I try to take my time to meditate before, and usually I'm doing it because you're supposed to. Everybody doesn't, and everybody doesn't always have time. But when you have the time, you're supposed to review your patient's files before you see them. And this is the time that I take to ask myself those three questions, right? And the landscape of risk reduction, what is my job as a provider? How can I manifest that personally? What can I do in every single encounter that I think will yield something preventative?

R 1:09:45

That's great. That's great. Now, I know that there's a lot of survivors that listen to this podcast as well. So, what would you want to say to survivors, Elsie?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:00

You made it. I mean, but it's important. Like you made it to this point. I'm saying this because I say that to myself. Yeah. It's so easy to get caught up trying to get emotional. Yeah. It's so easy to get discouraged. And to think that nothing you've done to survive or to take care of your children or to try try to make sure that you made it one additional day is worthwhile. But the fact that you were feeling even turmoil is proof of your resistance. And even in your greatest pain, you may not understand this, but you can be such a source of

Advice For Providers And Survivors

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

change just by existing. I need people to have people in their lives to know that your existence is enough. You know, one of these things that I say, Ruth, I think you commented on this post that I say some days I exist purely out of spite, and that's enough.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:03

I feel that. Because some days that is the case. I mean, a lot of days I have better reasons, but some days it's purely to be like, fuck you. You don't win. You don't win. You did not win. I'm still here, you know. I'm just like completely out of rebellion. And I want the survivors to know that their existence, you are a rebel with the cause, and your existence and your persistence is the cause. That is enough. Every single person has a whole world and a future inside of them. And those of us who were working to reduce and you know change the world so that so so many fewer people and hopefully no people have these experiences. It's every single person that is existing right now is the reason why we're doing that. And you need to know that that worthiness is is complete in you.

David Mandel 1:11:58

Okay. Sorry, I know I'm also talking to myself. Oh no, so beautiful. And it's, you know, it's it's the words are so beautiful. And I I got to officiate at a wedding of some friends the other day, and this is making me think about that statement. It uh it's an old Jewish saying, which is the world was created for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

Yes, you know that's what I was referring to. You know I'm Jewish, also this week, yeah.

David Mandel 1:12:27

The world, the world was, but I think it's you know, it's it's it still strikes me. So I think we not, you know, just to live in that sort of the world under so I think it's the capitalism, it's the world, it's the pressure, it's everything else, just to sort of live it. But the world was created for me. It's it's without it being egotistical and really feeling the love in that is such an important thing. I just hear you, LC, and I I see both of you, and I see all the survivors out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:57

And I'm trying not to like I'm sorry, Ruth.

R 1:13:02

Oh, it was beautiful, it was beautiful.

David Mandel 1:13:04

You know, you know, I see now I'm gonna cry too, and I see it. It's gonna be a cry, but everybody's crying.

R 1:13:11

No, you know, you know, I I really I really feel those words because I know that there are so many survivors who just feel like they're a problem that you know that that the trauma and the injuries and the and the struggle that they carry around, the fact that they see the world and other people are disassociated from the reality. And especially if you're a survivor who lives in advocacy spaces where you name these and you have to poke through people's resistance and and and you know, really crafted, and I can't find the word because my brain is fritzing out, just not being able to see reality. I'm not experiencing it, therefore it doesn't exist, you know, right. And poking through that is often a really conflictual process where people don't want to hear it, they don't want to, they don't want to know about it, they don't want to know about their friend who's raping their wife, they don't want to know about their pastor who's molesting children, they don't want to know about their brother, you know. So we're often seen as problems. And then if you have physical injuries or you're carrying around the burden of taking care of children who you now have to support through their own trauma because they've experienced this violence and you know, the dysfunction of that world, it's a huge burden, and and the pressures become very great in that instance for survivors to feel like they need to retract or leave this world. And so the way I'm gonna say it is, you know, I'm really grateful that you're here and that you're you're still here, and that you are alive, and that you are resistant, and that you see, and that you're empathetic, and that you're loving, and that you're living your life to the best of your ability because it is your life to live, and it is absolutely beautiful. So I just thank you, Elsie. Those words were really powerful. Thank you very much.

David Mandel 1:15:25

Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for being on the show. Yeah, and we're definitely gonna have you back to talk about all the things we couldn't but didn't have time. There's a lot of them so you've been listening to another episode of Partner with a survivor. I'm still David Mandel. I'm still Ruth Ramundo, and I'm very happy you are and check us out at SafetyTeather Institute.com or Academy.savether institute dot com.

R 1:15:51

And please like, follow, share all the things, write reviews and go follow LC on LinkedIn please and and on Substack. And on Substack, absolutely. Yes.