===trigger warning===
so i have been thinking a lot about why do almost all communities support the abuser/rapist rather than the survivor?
now, there are few assumptions in that question that i should probably unpack.
1. that almost all communities *do* support the abuser/rapist
–now i am speaking from personal experiences and from stories i have been told by other women.
and most of my experience has been in progressive, radical, anti authoritarian communities. which was part of my surprise. if there was anywhere any community that i thought would be supportive of the survivor. it would be in these visionary communities. but. no.
2. that supporting the abuser/rapist and supporting the survivor are at odds with one another
–i am thinking about progressive communities in which the abuser and survivor are active members and are invested in the work of the cmty. in other words in ‘normal’ world they would run into each other, work together, attend the same programs, committees, kickball games, whateva. and so in establishing safety for the survivor, often the abuser protests or simply refuses to follow the wishes of the survivor for her safety.
seven years ago i was living in a small southern town with my husband. the first one. the one who choked me when he got angry. drag me by ankles. and told me he was doing it for his own good. in between the attacks, he was sweet, humble, generous, funny, understanding. but always with the undercurrent of understanding that if i crossed the line, he would not be responsible for his actions. and that line kept moving. i had to watch carefully to make sure i knew where it was.
our community was artist.activist.dreamers. white het men and white queer women. anarchist. alternative. facial tattoos.
the thing is sometimes i crossed that line with my husband on purpose. i got tired of waiting. i would dare him to hit me. fuck it. the pressure was killing me.
when our community found out. most people treated it like an unsavory piece of gossip that they loved repeating. but denied knowing anything about when i would talk about it in public.
it was expected by the community that i would not interact with him or have him in my space. but they would entertain him in their space. which meant that either i wasnt invited. or i showed up and hung out and proved that he wasnt really abusive…since i didnt go screaming into the night the moment i saw him.
he yelled at me. when folks found out. that i had ruined his reputation. but it ruined mine. after a month or so. he was back in circulation. and i was that crazy black girl.
part of the response from the community was centered around a discourse. ‘if jay and mai’a were in a fight. id put my money on mai’a. so what. they were just fighting.’
mai’a (thats me) is a 5’2′ 120 lbs black women with short dredlocks who has a reputation for being a good artist who has a very offensive negative and arrogant personality
jay is a 5’11 170 lbs white man with long brown hair who has a reputation for being a good artist who has a very charming, humble, and affable personality
isnt it obvious who would win in a fight? isnt it obvious who would start a fight? isnt it obvious who was abusing who?
and i an go through multiple reasons why jay would be supported. like he was from that town. i had moved there to be with him.
and for a year i thought that my community, protecting my abuser was an anomaly among progressive communities. because of my special circumstances (racist ass town)
but then i was in another community. and it happened again. a man sexually harrasses/attacks a woman. and now we have team boy and team girl. but this time a black man attacks a white woman.
and this is when i began to notice a pattern. when rape/sexual abuse/dv is revealed to the community. the folks who were basically only friends with the survivor. will remain friends with the survivor. the folks who were basically only friends with the abuser. will do the same.
but the people who considered themselves to be friends with both of them will in the end support the abuser. even if they were first friends with the survivor and through the survivor became friends with the abuser. those friends will remain friends with the abuser…
somehow people who know both of the parties very well. time after time decides that the survivor has ‘gone too far’ ‘exxagerating’ ‘being vindictive’ ‘being a bitch’ ‘acting like a victim’ ‘wasnt *violently* raped’
has anyone noticed this pattern. cause once i noticed it. i started to see it everywhere. women are not more likely to support the survivor. other survivors are not necessarily supportive of the survivor.
my intuition tells me it is because it is easier to support the abuser.
but society tells us that being called a rapist or an abuser is like one of the worst things to be called. that it is a stigma that would haunt a man for the rest of his life. but for the most part. it doesnt. men shrug off that label, like a silk scarf slipping off the shoulders.
why would most people rather identify with the abuser rather than as a victim? and once again, i dont mean other people, i mean us. cause this is what happens in our lovely progressive, radical circles. over and over again.
the same folks who can give a 5 page lecture on the evils of porn. will still support the abuser, if they were friends with the survivor and abuser before hand…
and i have seen this happen in communities that had an informal method for dealing with the abuse and communiteis that established more formal methods of restorative justice. no matter what. it seems.
the only time i have ever seen the community actually support the survivor was when the abuser took full responsibility for his violence. and yeah. how often does that happen?
- Share
September 15th, 2009 at 7:56 pm #
Please note- I’m sure every word of the post is true. This comment is not meant to counter any statements made in the post.
I was once part of a community of midwestern radicals. It came out that a leading male member of the community had been physically abusive to a woman he was seeing. He was universally shunned, expelled from a couple of organizations he belonged to and cut off from all of his former social ties. He left town after a couple of months.
I can’t say that we were all that supportive of his victim, but at least he was not tolerated.
This was not a life style community. We were all radicals and most of us primarily identified ourselves as radicals. That might have made a difference.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:56 pm #
It’s happened to me too.
Some other members of the community may have been abused by (or harassed by, or just had a negative experience with) the abuser (or experiences that were like yours, but with someone else), and they feel like acknowledging your abuse means they have to think they were abused as well, which is difficult even if it’s true. They have to recontextualize what happened with them and that’s painful. Or some of those people may have been the abusers in a different relationship. In progressive or radical communities, where the self-image is based in part on being better than that, those issues are exacerbated.
Or, some members of the community may have noticed that something was wrong between you and your abuser. They may have consciously thought “that’s not OK” or they might remember something that is a sign of abuse in hindsight. They might blame themselves. Or they might feel like you are attacking them by attacking the abuser. Either way, they can’t condemn your abuser without condemning themselves as well. Sometimes, for some people, that is too hard to face.
In the case of radical or progressive communities–places populated, probably, with survivors of abuse who found strength and healing in that community–their image of the community as being a safe or abuse-free one is probably critically important to their understanding of their involvement in that community. “This couldn’t happen here” or “if this place isn’t safe, nowhere’s safe” could be major motivations for the desire for this problem to just go away. They might see accusations of abuse as attacks on the superiority of their community (especially because people in progressive/radical communities have so often escaped from abusive or traumatic situations in conservative/liberal society.)
I know that my writing in this comment is robotic and stilted, with too many big words and not enough simple ones. It’s a topic that’s close to my heart and I’m trying not to go into details of what happened to me, because those people are still online and may read this blog. I’m trying to be very careful with myself and others.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:48 am #
My take on it is that most people will do whatever is most effective at absolving themselves of any responsibility.
I don’t think they are supporting the abuser so much as withholding judgment, since it does not directly affect them. They think they can continue to be friends with both people.
As you say, if you do not run screaming from the room, then it must not have been too bad, and everybody makes mistakes and you can be so harsh sometimes and why can’t you put it behind you and lets all go on as we were before.
I see the myth validation in the corporate media all the time when they go round and interview all the friends and neighbors, that the perp did not rape or murder, to hear about how he was a nice quiet regular guy and who coulda knowed.
Everyone could have known had they been willing to pay attention.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:50 pm #
I would love to tell my community what a fellow community member did to me, to have their protection and support. But I already know from experience that they’ll say the same thing they did the last time, to the last girl he did it to – the same thing that even I told him, reassuringly – oh, it’s not your fault SHE didn’t communicate with you properly, WE know how committed you are to women’s rights, oh the fact you claim to be emotionally destroyed over it just shows what a GOOD GUY you are. Business as usual. He gets fawned over – oh, a male feminist? Who’s tall and relatively attractive? Who wears pink and talks about how “girly” he is, as if to emphasize his harmlessness and supposed rejection of masculinity? He’s the golden boy. And I get the reputation of crazy, insecure, and cold. I don’t need him to be publicly shamed and beheaded, I just need my community to love and respect me and have my back, and that wasn’t gonna happen. So I left them forever and now I have no community at all.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:06 am #
It’s always safer to align with the abuser than the victim. It’s survival instinct that has us make friends with bullies. And if we can write-off the victim, if we can somehow convince ourselves that it was her fault for being too whatever, then we’re safe. He won’t hurt us because we’re not going to do bad things or because we’re strong enough not to take that crap or a million other fabrications we use to feel like we live in a world that’s fair and just.
It takes some big balls to glare at or otherwise dis a man after you find out he’s been beating his wife. I swear to god I’m someone who will step up and affix my gaze at the asshole. But I really really hope I won’t be alone.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:56 am #
thebewilderness:
They may not think of that as supporting the abuser, but… it pretty much is.
chops:
Ma’ia:
I don’t know.
The first guy who raped me, the one I told people about, was a guy we barely knew. He lived in another town and we only saw him when we had regional competitions for a certain high school organization. And my teammates still supported and believed him. Even my best friend happily hung out with him and didn’t see the problem. The only support I actually got was from some random kids who found me hiding in a spare room at one of those meets.
Oh, and I guess one of my friends was supportive at first, but when I didn’t go out with him in gratitude, he dropped it.
So, me: many years of friendship and seeing each other on a daily basis. Him: guy from another town they’d seen only a couple of times. And he still got their support. WTF?
September 17th, 2009 at 6:00 am #
Damn. Yeah, I’ve seen this dynamic too.
Surely like the real way to support both parties is not to shun the abuser but to figure out how to make him (or her) STOP. (Well, the abused party should of course be given *extra* support – starting with being believed!!!) If he moves away, he’s just going to abuse someone else; how can the community feel good about that? And what about the abusers who remain, but haven’t been caught yet – is the shunning of another abuser going to be enough of a deterrent? I somehow doubt it.
Of course, what the details of “re-training” an abuser would look like, I’m not sure – does anyone know examples where this has been done successfully?
It’s a problem, too, that progressives & radicals are no less susceptible to charm & charisma than any other group, and I think a lot of abusers (if not all) must be charismatic. Ugh – ignoring and rejecting the abused person is just another form of gaslighting: “you brought it on, you’re the crazy [offensive/negative/arrogant] one, it wasn’t that bad…”
September 17th, 2009 at 10:41 am #
Nora:
I’ve heard of “perpetrator counseling.”
September 17th, 2009 at 2:34 pm #
Thanks, softestbullet. Thinking about it some more, it seems like: if the whole community doesn’t support the person who is suffering the abuse, and sides with the perpetrator, then the whole community is basically perpetrating abuse (not just perpetuating it). Shunning a (caught) perpetrator just seems like a way to deny that any of us could be/ARE in either role, at any time.
I guess this is super obvious, and kind of built in to society to various degrees. I just hadn’t figured it would be *common* among groups of folks who are trying to build a different kind of society. Sorry if I’m being obvious.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:51 am #
Mai’a, I’m so sorry this happened to you. Thank you for sharing your story. I’ve seen it happen, too — in a group dedicated to ending street harassment, no less — and I’m still very much grappling with the questions you posed.
I think that, for many folks, believing the abuser is easier because it requires less work than believing the survivor. Believing the abuser means not rethinking your every interaction with that person: what did you see or not see, were there indications, could you have helped? Believing the abuser means you don’t have to totally reevaluate that person, seeing them through the filter of the heinous deeds they’ve perpetrated. Believing the abuser means you don’t have to look back at the beers you’ve shared and the conversations you’ve had and wonder how you could have loved and respected someone capable of that kind of violence. And how/whether you can love them now.
Because one of the trickiest things about violence and abuse is that sometimes love doesn’t stop even when you know about what that person has done, particularly if that person is a member of the family or an intimate part of a community. And the paradox of that is I think what ultimately does a lot of people in. They just can’t understand how they still like the person who did those things. It’s a weird little logic game. “I don’t like people who do x, so if I still like that person, they must not have done x.”
Meanwhile, the pain caused to the survivor is immense.
September 24th, 2009 at 4:06 am #
It’s a good point. I’m still maintaining a friendship with someone who’s had nothing but a great impact on my life, but who confessed once that she’s pressured someone into sex with her. And that she’s also been pressured by someone else into sex, and still walks around in the world with fear of being coerced into sex…
…and because she did it to someone else and isn’t even willing to come all the way to terms with it and call it rape, there’s a part of me that’s like, “Holy shit, how can I still love her so much and be such friends with her when she can do such a bad thing and remain only half-repentant for it and just move on and consider herself a good person?” And I have some answers…like that Sage at Persephone’s Box is in her 30′s, whereas my friend is in her 20′s, so that one “T-shirt” post I read of hers came from a point later in life, and maybe my friend will get to such a point herself on her own…or with me in her life…or something.
And then there’s a guy who I wasn’t friends w/ in the first place. So with him being 100% unrepentant over having raped my friend and having barely backed off from having raped my other friend and also moving on and considering himself a good person…I do treat him differently in my heart and actions.
And I guess that’s…what it is, love going on when it goes on despite knowing about people’s sins. It’s probably happening…right?…when it plays out differently between someone I already loved and someone I didn’t already love, but the sin makes me queasy when I think about it in both of them?
I don’t know.
Shit, it IS hard. I have NO idea WHAT I’d do if I were knowingly friends w/ the guy my friend pressured into sex, too. No idea.
September 24th, 2009 at 4:08 am #
correction–that post should end, “with the guy my friend raped, too. No idea.” I should start by at least speaking the words that describe what I believe her description of the act is, even if she won’t, when I’m processing it on my own, away from her.
September 27th, 2009 at 7:39 am #
I thought you might enjoy this, mai’a:
From the SAFER blog: G20RP Sexual Consent Guidelines
Maybe if people contacted them, they’d let other organizations / events use parts (large or small) their language or something.